America's Private Forests: Status and Stewardship - Review

American Forests, Spring, 2002 by Carl Reidel

by Constance Best and Laurie Wayburn.

$27.50. Island Press/The Pacific Forest Trust, 2001.

Authored by cofounders and leaders of the Pacific Forest Trust, a nonprofit organization "dedicated to the preservation of private productive forestlands," this book provides a concise, systematic inventory of private forests in the United States, an action plan to "accelerate the conservation of private forests," and a practical "toolbox" to get the job done.

Part One addresses the question of who owns these private forests (and why), the forests' composition and productivity, and the threats to long-term conservation, with the loss of forests to fragmentation, degradation, and conversion to other uses cited as the most serious. In the foreword, former Yale Forestry Dean John Gordon agrees, stating that the book's "crowning glory is that the authors clearly see that maintaining forests as forests is the first conservation task. ... with respect to private and all other forests."

Part Two, "The Conservation Toolbox and How to Use It," describes public policy programs, research, education and technical assistance, and market-based tools that can be employed to achieve the Action Plan set forth in the final chapter, an integrated set of strategic action proposals.

Like other books dealing with the problems and potentials of private forestlands, America's Private Forests suffers from the inherent dilemma of dealing with a vast and diverse landscape with enormously complex natural, economic, and social dimensions. Nevertheless, this is a welcome, fresh look at a vital national conservation issue.