The Old Growth Forest Protection Campaign
SAFC's Old Growth Forest Protection Campaign is identifying significant tracts of ancient forests in the Southern Appalachians. Old growth forests are the preferred, and sometimes only, habitat for a growing list of threatened species and plants and provide a baseline for research and important links to the past to assist with the restoration of our remaining forest land.
Because of extensive logging at the beginning of the 20th century and a lack of awareness of remaining stands, old growth forests are considered rare in the Southern Appalachians . Our fieldwork in the region proves and is raising awareness that significant old growth still exists. Through this project -- which has built upon the work of southern old growth pioneer Rob Messick -- SAFC and our partners (WNCA, Georgia Forest Watch, The Wilderness Society, among others) have identified over 116,000 acres of old-growth in the Southern Appalachians. This campaign aims to protect one of our most significant legacies from the past. Old growth areas constitute the centerpiece of SAFC's Conservation Vision for the region because they serve as refuges for species and ecological processes -- they are the "ecological seeds" bearing the potential to generate landscape scale recovery and protection.
The US Forest Service has identified old growth as an important resource that should be conserved and the public agrees. However, National Forests in our region have had very few old growth inventories, and the Forest Service lacks the resources to conduct field inventories and compile information. SAFC's Old Growth Forest Protection Campaign is identifying and cataloging old growth stands in our region's National Forests in order to provide vital information and aid protection efforts and restoration strategies on a regional scale.
The goal of SAFC's Old Growth Forest Protection Campaign is the protection of all remaining old growth in Southern Appalachian National Forests. The Old Growth Forest Protection Campaign will identify and verify the existence of old growth in the Southern Appalachians and publicize the findings to build support for protection among conservation partners, the scientific community, policy-makers, the media, and the public.
This project will add to existing data on rare communities, critical watersheds, and the conservation potential of unroaded areas; provide a more complete picture of the region's most unimpacted forests; and aid in the protection of ancient forests.
SAFC's Old Growth Protection Campaign experienced significant achievements and momentum over the past two years, and our Coalition is optimistic that lasting protections can be achieved through this campaign and the public enthusiastically agrees.