About Us



Mission

The Maryland Forest Service restores, manages, and protects Maryland’s trees, forests, and forested ecosystems to sustain our natural resources and connect people to the land.

History

The Maryland Forest Service has been serving the public and managing the natural resources of Maryland since 1906. The Service was formed after a plot of land known today as Garrett State Forest in Garrett County was given to the State by John and Robert Garrett. Since then, public landholdings increased and for many years the combined Forest and Park Service was the caretaker of the state parks and forests and assisted many private landowners with managing their forests throughout the State. For more information, visit our Forest Service History​ and Centennial Notes (1906-2006)​ webpages.​​​



The Maryland Forest Action Plan was produced as part of the national strategy to “redesign” how federal and state cooperative assistance programs address America’s forest lands. Conceived in 2007, this approach within the USDA Forest Service State and Private Forestry (S&PF) improves the ability to identify the greatest threats to forest sustainability, target program delivery and accomplish meaningful on-the-ground changes in high priority areas. The 2008, 2014, and 2018 Farm Bills required states to develop the plans, pushing strategic action in spending public resources.

The Farm Bill identified three national priorities from the Redesign Process and amended Cooperative Forestry Assistance Act:

  1. Conserve and manage working forest landscapes for multiple values and uses
  2. Protect forests from threats
  3. Enhance public benefits from trees and forests

The 2020-2030 Maryland Forest Action Plan is made up of two parts:

  1. an assessment of forest conditions in the state
  2. a strategy that identifies major goals and actions to reach them.

For more information about the 2020-2030 Forest Action Plan and to access PDFs of its two parts, visit our webpage here.


Forests represent one of Maryland’s most important natural resources, critical to its economy, sustainability, health and identity. Forest conservation and tree planting are central strategies to achieve the goals laid out in the 2014 Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement (CBWA) and are reinforced in many parts of the Maryland legal code. To monitor forest and tree canopy cover status and progress toward its commitments, the Maryland General Assembly enacted legislation (House Bill 991) in 2021 requiring a Technical Study of Changes in Maryland’s Forest Cover and Tree Canopy.

This study, with results presented here, improves Maryland’s statewide inventory of forest and tree canopy cover, assesses near and longterm change and assesses the effectiveness of forest and tree programs operating in the state. Notably, this study makes use of a newly released, innovative, very high-resolution (1-m) land use and land cover dataset for the Chesapeake Bay Watershed used for the first time to monitor individual trees within and outside forests across Maryland. This is complemented by moderate-resolution satellite imagery, ground observations and other research to generate insights on the status of tree canopy cover in the state. Service Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program and the Chesapeake Bay Program Office (CBPO).

When tree canopy outside forests is included, the state’s total tree canopy covers an estimated 3.095 million acres (CBPO). Percent forest cover estimates range from 39-42% of the state’s total land area, depending on the dataset and approach used (FIA, CBPO). Findings from three independent data sources (FIA, CBPO, and the National Land Cover Dataset or NLCD) agree on similar trends in Maryland’s forests. Forest area has shown a slightly decreasing trend over 5- and 20-year intervals but with a trend toward stabilization in the past 10 years (-0.14% annually from 2013-2018; -0.23% annually from 1999-2019). The decrease in forest cover has been offset somewhat by an increase in tree canopy outside forests, resulting in a more modest decrease in the total tree canopy (-0.077% annually) (Table ES-1) (Task 1).

Despite the slightly decreasing, yet now stabilizing, trend, the state’s tree canopy has been remarkably stable given considerable increases in human population over the same period (880,738 people or nearly 17% growth from 2000-2020). Maryland’s forests cover 2.448 to 2.566 million acres of the state’s land area, according to the USDA Forest Table ES-1. Forest and tree canopy extent estimates from key data sources. This represents an opportunity for the state to achieve a net gain of forests and tree canopy in the near future, given continued investment in forest conservation measures and tree planting.

For more information, and to view the ArcGIS StoryMap, please visit the Chesapeake Conservancy’s webpage here.


These Annual Reports highlight the accomplishments of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources Forest Service staff during the reporting year.



Under Construction


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Additional Resources

Directory of Maryland Forest Service Offices​