Fourteen Southern forest ecosystem categories are especially at risk, including longleaf pine-wiregrass, old growth and bottomland hardwoods. Urban sprawl and conversion of diverse forest ecosystems to monoculture pine plantations are two of the biggest loss factors.

The Southern Forest Resource Assessment gives us this recent data:

There are 215 million acres of forest in 13 Southern states.
An area equivalent to all the public forests in North Carolina, 31 million acres, will be lost to sprawl in the next 40 years.
Within 20-25 years we will no longer be able to sustain the growth of hardwood forests.
Nine percent of our region's land is under public ownership, as opposed to 57.3% in the Pacific Northwest.
Ninety percent of our forests are privately held, and 60% of those owners plan to log within the next 10 years.

Logging is sometimes the only way landowners can pay their property taxes. Logging will increase in the South by 50% in the next few decades. Twelve percent of private owners say they will never harvest. There are 36-plus species of songbirds in decline due to loss and fragmentation of forests. Encouragingly, wildlife viewing has increased 63% in a five-year period.

When you hear that America has more trees these days, you
should ask what kind of trees in what kind of ecosystems?

Discovered in a survey by ForestWatch, a group which operates under the aegis of The Wilderness Society in Georgia, were 71 virgin forest sites in the Chattahoochee National Forest totaling 5,000 acres, including buffers. The Forest Service had not yet surveyed these areas, although they were so obligated under regional guidelines. Under the present administration, failure to carry through on regulations and guidelines seems to be one of the prime tools for lack of environmental enforcement.

New regulations have weakened the roadless rule, opened 400,000 acres to off-road vehicles, limited or blocked public input, put logging over management of wildlife and watersheds, and ignored scientific studies.

To find out more about how you can be involved in this and other Atlanta Audubon conservation programs, contact our Conservation Director, Kelly Hopkins.

Atlanta Audubon Society works with The Wilderness Society and Georgia ForestWatch to try to improve habitat for birds and other wildlife. Get more information at www.wilderness.org or www.gafw.org.