Besides their natural beauty and ecological diversity, forests are essential to keeping the climate stable; absorbing carbon dioxide and producing oxygen, regulating the nation's water supply, and housing more than half of all species found on land. In 2020, US forests offset 14% of carbon dioxide emissions and 11% of greenhouse gases according to the Department of Agriculture (USDA).
The US is home to 8% of the world’s forestland. While global forestland decreased over the last three decades, US forestland steadily increased.
Data on forests in what is now the US goes back all the way to 1630, more than a hundred years before the nation’s founding. For many years, US forest acreage decreased primarily due to deforestation. But due to an increase in protected forestland, the last 30 years reversed that trend.
