Forests are our friends. They provide clean air and water, homes for thousands of different species of animals, and materials for us to build our own homes. Some of us find spiritual solitude among them, while others look to them for recreation and a way to deal with mental health.
And they are great at keeping us cool and climate change under control.
But increasingly, forests are under threat. Over the last decade, the United States has lost 2 million hectares of natural forest. That’s about 3.7 million football fields worth. Deforestation, illegal logging, wildfires and climate change are some of the biggest issues facing our precious forests, and the situation is not improving.
Reckon spoke with Brian Kittler, the vice president of forest restoration at American Forests, a 150-year-old Chicago-based non-profit dedicated to protecting and restoring healthy forest ecosystems.
Reckon: Brian, your title speaks for itself, but can you tell us a little about what your organization does?
Kittler: We tend to focus on forest ecosystems that are important for wildlife habitat, how they provide water to human communities, carbon storage, and for biodiversity values. Much of what we do is focused on recovering and helping forests that have experienced severe impacts from wildfires and other disturbances.
As well as forests throughout the country, we also work in places like Mauna Kea in Hawaii and down along the U.S.-Mexico border in the Rio Grande Valley, where there’s been historical deforestation, forests converted into agriculture, or into developed landscapes. My program is focused on forming partnerships with landowners and public land management agencies and bringing private and public resources together to do climate-adapted reforestation.
R: Forests have faced many challenges in the last few decades and I’m sure those challenges are becoming more and more extreme. Has that been the case and what challenges have you faced in recent years?
K: It’s been far more…
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