Why Care?

Forests are vital to watershed health and wildlife needs. More than 90 percent of the nation’s threatened and endangered species have some or part of their habitat on non-federal forests. Two-thirds of the country’s freshwater supply originates in forests. Protecting the water running through this land and the wildlife living on it is critical to meeting the nation’s conservation goals. The potential of private forestlands to contribute to the maintenance of biodiversity is great, given their extent, variety, potential management flexibility, and that they are the primary forest category subject to conversion to development. The most recent data show that more than one million acres of private forest is being lost every year. Between 1992 and 1997, seven million acres of private forest was lost to development (Best, C. 2002 America’s private forests: Challenges for conservation. Journal of Forestry 100(3):14-17).

Importantly, private citizens own almost 60% of the forestland in the U.S., yet less than five percent have management plans. Showing these family forest owners how to sustain their forests while improving habitat for threatened and endangered species is the heart of the American Forest Foundation's Center for Conservation Solutions (CCS).

CCS generates and coordinates wildlife and watershed conservation efforts on family forestlands and leverages the impact of work with individuals through demonstration field days and other outreach methods. At field days, landowners learn how the project landowner works with partners from conservation groups and public agencies to improve wildlife habitat and watershed health. The project landowner serves as a peer-to-peer mentor, encouraging other landowners to replicate the model stewardship efforts and become involved in conservation initiatives.

A major strength of CCS is the ability to link to the American Tree Farm System, a program of AFF's Center for Family Forests (CFF), with partners from the public and private conservation community. ATFS is the largest and oldest family forest owner group in the U.S. with 87,000 members. Family forest owners are certified without charge by ATFS volunteer foresters, for their commitment to wood, water, wildlife, and recreation stewardship objectives. Access to these thought-leaders of the family forest owner community is invaluable when developing and promoting conservation initiatives.

There is significant overall potential to promote conservation practices on family forestlands in the US. The greatest challenge often lies in making landowners aware of opportunities to contribute to conservation efforts through management.

The CCS conservation approach is pro-active, adaptable, and cost-effective. By giving landowners a full set of options for land management and a peer role model, AFF's Center for Conservation Solutions leverages the conservation impact of habitat conservation efforts to improve wildlife habitat and watershed health on a landscape level.

By integrating conservation priorities and economic realities, CCS encourages longterm conservation of wildlife habitat. This provides a model for working conservation lands that can counter the growing problem of urban sprawl.