 United
States Department of Agriculture -
Forest Service |
 Southern Research Station200 W.T. Weaver Boulevard Asheville, NC 28804 |
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Forest Service Conducts Second Ever Forest Inventory Inventory Begins July 20, 2009
Asheville,NC --
Starting in late July, the USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station (SRS) initiates a second inventory of the forests of U.S. Virgin Islands. The survey begins on the island of St. John and continues an effort to measure and monitor the public and private forest lands of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Tom Brandeis, forest researcher with the SRS Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program, will lead an expert team of biological scientists conducting the work.
“Information from the inventory will be useful for assessing the sustainability of ecosystem management practices, evaluating wildlife habitat, and supporting forest planning and decision-making,” said Brandeis. “This second inventory is important because the remeasurements provide estimates of forest change, such as tree growth and carbon sequestration.”
The U.S. Virgin Islands’ inventory is expected to take five months, followed by remeasurements every five years to track changes in forest cover, land use patterns, biological diversity, and hurricane damage and recovery. It is part of a 75-year federal effort to collect, analyze and report information on the status and trends of America’s forests: how much forest exists, where it exists, who owns it, and how it is changing. The FIA program also documents how well the trees and other forest vegetation are growing and how much has died or been removed in recent years.
The first inventory of the U.S. Virgin Islands forestland occurred in 2004.The resulting report drew on inventory data and additional sources of information to find that forest covered 61 percent the U.S. Virgin Islands’ total land area and that forest cover had decreased 7 percent from 1994 to 2004, a loss of 4,129 acres of forest. Only 3.8 percent of live trees had some type of damage or disease, and there were only a few indications of stressed trees or widespread pest and disease problems. The first inventory also highlighted the relative youth of the U.S. Virgin Islands’ forests, pointing out that 80% of forestland consisted of small trees and saplings.
“Our goal is to help residents, legislators and agencies understand the uniqueness of island ecosystems and the significant ecological changes that they have been experiencing recently,” said Brandeis. “Reports on forest condition can help direct future actions by bringing together information on the current situation and recent trends and point out what the future will be like if the trends are allowed to continue unchanged. With better information, resource managers can take steps to reinforce desirable trends and mitigate undesirable trends.”
After the second forest survey is completed, SRS will issue a report with an analysis of the information. SRS will make the report available online through its publication page, http://www.srs.fs.usda.gov/pubs/, and through the SRS FIA website, http://srsfia2.fs.fed.us/.
The first forest inventory report for the U.S. Virgin Islands is available for download from http://www.srs.fs.usda.gov/pubs/rb/rb_srs122.pdf or in hardcopy by contacting the SRS.
For more information, contact Tom Brandeis at 865-862-2030 or by e-mail at: tjbrandeis@fs.fed.us.
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