U. S. Forest Service managed Lands: The Facts

1. Teddy Roosevelt set the National Forest System up over 100 years ago. The Organic Act of 1897 authorized the President to designate and reserve public lands "to improve and protect the forest within the boundaries, or for the purpose of securing favorable conditions of water flows, and to furnish a continuous supply of timber for the use and necessities of citizens of the United States." By 1906 roughly 160 million acres of land had been set aside.
2. In 1935 the Forestry consisted of about 4,000 people. It now employs over 33,000. These people manage 191 forests.
3. The area under the management of the U.S. Forest Service - 191 million acres - is the size of reunited Germany, Italy and Greece combined, in which live some 165 million people.
4. Of the 192 million acres of national forests and grasslands, about 140 million acres is forest land.
5. The U.S. Forest Service is an agency of the Department of Agriculture.
6. National forests differ from national parks, which fall under the National Park Service. Parks were set up to preserve natural features and areas of historical interest or beauty, such as the Blue Ridge Parkway. Parks do not allow hunting not commercial timber harvesting.
7. Based on current forest plans and due to current set-asides, only about 35 million acres in the National Forest System are theoretically available for commercial timber purposes - some 25% of its forest land.
8. The annual timber growth in the entire U.S. now exceeds its harvest by 37%. The annual growth has exceeded the annual harvest every year since 1952. In the National Forests the current growth rate is over twice what the harvest levels are.
9. The number of wooded acres in the U.S. has grown by over 20% in the past 20 years.
10. In 1990, over 400 trees were planted for every man, woman and child in America.