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The United States Forest Service (“Service”) issued an April 2023 report titled:

Mature and Old-Growth Forests: Definition, Identification, and Initial Inventory on Lands Managed by the Forest Service/Bureau of Land Management (“Report”)

The Report contains:

• Initial estimates of old-growth and mature forests across all Service and Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”) lands
• The first national inventory of old-growth and mature forests focused specifically on Service and BLM lands
• A demonstration that both old-growth and mature forests are generally widely distributed geographically across land use allocations

The Report was prepared in fulfillment of the Biden Administration Executive Order 1407, Section 2(b). This Executive Order is titled:

Strengthening the Nation’s Forest, Communities, and Local Economies

The Executive Order is stated to have required the inventory of mature and old-growth forests along with setting reforestation targets on federally managed lands. It also required that reforestation opportunities be analyzed on state, Tribal, and private lands.

The Report estimates an initial inventory of more than 32 million acres of old-growth and around 80 million acres of mature forests across 200 types of forests. Old-growth forests are stated to represent 18 percent and mature forests an additional 45 percent of all forested land managed by the Service and BLM.

The national-scale inventory is stated to have been conducted by applying the old-growth and mature working definitions to Forest Inventory and Analysis field plot data.

Key subheadings in the Report include:

• Narrative Frameworks and Working Definitions
• Old-growth and Mature Forest Initial Inventory Estimates
• Background
  • Old-Growth and Mature Forest Definition Chronology
  • Old-Growth and Mature Forests Executive Actions and Legislation
  • Tribal, Stakeholder, and Public Perspective Considerations
• Definition Development
  • Old-Growth Forest Definition Development
  • Mature Forest Definition Development
• FIGSS Method for Mature Forest Definitions
  • Estimation
• Discussion
  • Context and Relation to Other Estimates
  • Appropriate of Data
  • Assumptions and Limitations
  • Stages of Stand Development
  • Limitations for Old-Growth and Mature Inventory
• Refinements and Opportunities for Future Research
• Next Steps

The Appendices include specific discussions of all 10 United States regions.

A copy of the Report can be downloaded here.