The State of America's Forests
Forests sustain life. They shelter and feed millions of species, cleanse the air we breathe, provide drinking water, and connect us to our spiritual roots. They create jobs and give us necessities such as timber and recreation. They can sink carbon for millennia.
But our forests face new and compounding stressors: unpredictable weather patterns, intense and prolonged wildfire seasons, infestations of harmful species, fragmentation, and conversion. Therefore, modern land managers increasingly work to conserve forest health, integrity, and resiliency. And Forest Service scientists work alongside these managers to report outcomes of their actions.
The Forest Sustainability Assessment and Reporting program provides information and analyses pertinent to the sustainability of forest ecosystems and associated socioeconomic systems pertinent to the state of America’s forests.
National Report on Sustainable Forests
The hallmark of the Forest Sustainability Assessment and Reporting program is the decadal publication of the National Report on Sustainable Forests. Rather than rely on one definition of forest sustainability—nearly impossible for a Nation so diverse in forest type and ownership—it assesses the ecological, economic, and social conditions and trends reflecting how our society defines forest sustainability. The report is produced in response to the United States’ commitment to measure, monitor, and report on forest sustainability at national and subnational levels. This report provides fundamental information for determining the status of the forests of the United States.
National Reports on Sustainable Forests have drawn from data sources like Forest Inventory and Analysis surveys, the National Land Cover Database, and the U.S. Census. An internationally agreed-upon set of forest sustainability metrics, known as the Montréal Process Criteria and Indicators, make sense of these data. They indicate where sustainability efforts show promise, where areas of concern exist, and how conditions are changing.
The Forest Service has published four National Reports on Sustainable Forests:
- 2020 National Report on Sustainable Forests
- 2010 National Report on Sustainable Forests
- 2003 National Report on Sustainable Forests
- 1997 National Report on Sustainable Forests
Montréal Process Criteria and Indicators
In the years between decadal National Report on Sustainable Forests publications, the Forest Service leads periodic assessments of the Nation’s forests. These assessments utilize the Montréal Process Criteria and Indicators framework, which comprises seven criteria and 54 indicators that address the essential components of sustainable forest management related to ecological, economic, and social dimensions. Collectively, the Indicator Reports for each of the 54 indicators cover a comprehensive range of forest-related information and provide a framework for describing the value and condition of forests. These internationally agreed-upon criteria and indicators were developed collaboratively with eleven other Montréal Process member countries as a shared response to the pressing need for sustainable forest management. The 12 countries that use the Montréal Process ultimately report the sustainability and the state of over 80 percent of the world’s temperate and boreal forests—nearly half of the world’s total forests. The Indicator Reports are synthesized in the decadal National Report on Sustainable Forests. As such, the Indicator Reports constitute a major portion of the Forest Sustainability Assessment and Reporting Program and are an important contribution to the assessment of forest sustainability and the state of the forests in the United States.
Access the Indicator Reports: