July 13th - 19th, 2020
It’s National Forests Week! Join us in celebrating the importance of our forests and wooded areas.
National Forests are a classification of protected and managed federal lands in the United States. National Forests are largely forest and woodland areas owned collectively by the American people and managed by the United States Forest Service, a division of the United States Department of Agriculture.
One hundred forty five National Forests comprise 193 million acres of public land. These lands comprise 8.5 percent of the total land area of the United States, an area about the size of Texas. These special places exist in 43 states across the country. Almost 60 forests are located near large urban areas that have populations of at least one million people. Our National Forests host 170 million visits every year. Recreational visitor spending alone pumps $13.5 billion into our economy annually, sustaining nearly 223,000 jobs in gateway communities. These lands are the foundation of America’s outdoor recreation heritage and sustain our way of life. They provide: water to millions Americans in thousands of communities; clean our air; store carbon; incredible wildlife habitat; hunting and fishing access; timber, minerals, oil and gas; and so much more for our communities and the nation.
There has never been more at stake for the National Forests and public lands than there is today. Across the country, wildfires, declining ecosystem health, and dwindling budgets threaten our National Forests.