Southern Forests for the Future works to raise awareness about the status and importance of the United States. The organization used GAP data to analyze Southern Forests and portray information about them in an online interactive map.
Researchers reported that the southern United States currently contains approximately 39.5 million acres of protected areas—many of them forested—distributed throughout the region. The majority of protected areas in the South are federally owned, while the rest are owned by state and local governments, nongovernmental organizations, or private citizens. The federal government owns approximately 29.8 million acres, including 12.9 million acres in national forests, 5.4 million acres in national parks, and 3.8 million acres in wildlife refuges. The 13 southern states combined own approximately 3.6 million acres of state forests and 1.7 million acres of state parks. Approximately 12.8 percent of southern forests are currently located within these protected areas with 1.1 percent under status 1 protection, 3.8 percent under status 2, and 7.9 percent under status 3.
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