Forest Management
Fish, Wildlife & Plants
Our Nation’s forests and grasslands provide some of the most important habitats for wildlife and fish. They provide countless benefits—ecological, recreational, economic, and cultural—to both nature and society. Existing and emerging threats, such as habitat loss and invasive species, affect the ability of our Nation's forests and grasslands to support healthy wildlife and fish populations for future generations.
Plants are also crucial to the maintenance of healthy ecosystems. Native plants provide natural beauty and help fend off invasive plants. Native plants also support wildlife, often serving as a source of food and shelter. Invasive plant species have the potential to permanently change a native plant community by taking over and outcompeting native plants.
From improving air quality to enhancing streams and uplands for drinking water and wildlife, our programs cover a wide variety of topics and span the forest landscape. Working with partners across the State, we provide technical expertise, support, and coordination in the stewardship of water, fish, wildlife, air, and rare plants within the watersheds of the national forest. Learn more below about work on the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forests , or visit the nationwide website for Watershed, Fish, Wildlife, Air, and Rare Plants.
Wildlife Management Program
Our work includes restoring aquatic organism passage, stream habitat, and floodplains; enhancing lake productivity; restoring habitat for a vast array of wildlife species from red-cockaded woodpeckers to bobcats and frogs to black bears and connecting people to the outdoors. Our goal is to enhance, restore, manage and create habitats as required for wildlife and plant communities, including disturbance-dependent forest types.
Plants & Botanical Resources
Native plants are valued for their economic, ecological, genetic, and aesthetic benefits. Using native plant material in vegetation projects maintains and restores native plant gene pools, communities, and ecosystems, and can help reverse the trend of species loss in North America. One of our goals is to contribute to the conservation and recovery of federally-listed threatened and endangered species through habitat maintenance and/or enhancement and, where possible, for their reintroduction into suitable habitats, and contribute to avoiding the necessity for federal listing of other species under the Endangered Species Act. There are several Threatened, Endangered, and Candidate Plants on the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forests, including the Smooth coneflower, Georgia aster, Swamp pink and the White fringeless orchid.
Wildflower Viewing Areas for Georgia
Anna Ruby Falls Trail
Lake Russell
Sosebee Cove
Watch Georgia Outdoors To Save a Plant - Season 2023 Episode 2 | 26m 52s |
Fish & Aquatic Resources
Our work includes restoring aquatic organism passage, stream habitat, and floodplains; enhancing lake productivity; and projects designed to protect, sustain, and improve the water, aquatic habitat and watershed resources for fish and other aquatic species. Learn more about why the Conasauga River is a special place for aquatic diversity.
Recreation, Heritage, and Wilderness
Providing the greatest diversity of outdoor recreation opportunities in the world means working to balance the desires of recreationists with ensuring future generations have the same access. From the rolling hills of the Piedmont to the mountains of the southern Appalachian mountains, there are hundreds of outdoor activities enjoyed by more than 3 million visitors to the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forests each year. Managing the trails, roads, camping, and other developed recreation sites is a challenge and large responsibility.
Recreation Management
Recreation is the single greatest use of National Forest System lands and is the Forest Service's greatest single contributor to rural prosperity. Recreational activities support jobs in rural communities and contribute to the national economy. These economic impacts are driven by visitors to the national forest. The benefits to rural communities from visitors to NFS lands continue long after visitors leave the forest. Read about efforts working with partners and users to maintain trails on the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forests.
Heritage & Tribal Program
The purpose of the Heritage and Tribal Program is to protect significant heritage resources, to share their values with the American people, and to contribute relevant information and perspectives to natural resource management. In so doing we will:
- Ensure that future generations will have an opportunity to discover the human story etched on the landscapes of our national forests and grasslands;
- Make the past come alive as a vibrant part of our recreational experiences and community life; and
- Connect people to the land in a way that will help us better understand and manage forest ecosystems.
Wilderness and Wild & Scenic Rivers
Congress has designated several areas unique for their special characteristics and the opportunities they offer. Designation as a wild and scenic river is our nation’s strongest form of protection for free-flowing rivers and streams. They have remarkable scenic, recreational, geologic, fish and wildlife, historic or other similar values that led Congress to add these waterways to the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System. In addition to congressionally designated Wilderness, they include these National Historic Landmarks (NHL), National Volcanic Monuments (NVM), National Historic Scenic Areas (NHS), National Recreation Areas (NRA), Scenic Recreation Areas (SRA), National Scenic Areas (NSA), National Preserves (NP), and National Monuments (NM).
Georgia’s vast wilderness, which includes 14 Wilderness Areas covering more than 486,000 acres. In 1974, Congress designated the Chattooga River a wild and scenic river because of its outstanding scenery, recreation, wildlife, geologic, and cultural values. While not the same as wilderness, wild and scenic rivers are carefully managed to protect them. Managing the Wilderness to protect the resource and the visitors who enjoy them can be a challenge, from human impacts to wildlife conflicts.
Engineering
Sustainable roads, trails and facilities are essential for the management, protection, public use and enjoyment of 193 million acres of National Forest System (NFS) lands, as well for meeting the Forest Service’s goal of managing the healthy forests and watersheds. This infrastructure is maintained by engineers to provide public access to national forests, as well as agency access for natural resources and fire management. Challenges includes accessibility and sustainability of this infrastructure. A 2016 Travel Analysis Report analyzes the existing National Forest road system and identifies opportunities to achieve a more ecologically and economically sustainable road system on the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest.
Managing a national forest like the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest requires the efforts of not only dedicated employees, but many partners and volunteers who contribute to the successful management of forest resources as well as providing services to forest visitors like you.
Lands
Protection of the public’s interests in National Forest System lands is essential to the land stewardship and public trust responsibilities of the Forest Service. Loss of open space and forests is an increasing challenge. The Land and water Conservation Fund provides money to federal, state and local governments to purchase land, water and wetlands. The Forest Service Land Acquisition program activities include land exchanges, purchasing lands, accepting land donations, and selling land in limited situations. These activities are all characterized as land adjustments. Overall, the Forest Service strives to achieve a footprint where the agency can effectively maintain and improve land management, public and emergency access, environmental conservation, and the sustainability of the national forests and grasslands. Special Uses provides services supporting our national policy and federal land laws by authorizing uses on National Forest System (NFS) land.
The Federal government originally acquired the lands within the boundaries of the Chattahoochee National Forest under the authority of the 1911 Weeks Act. The Weeks Act authorized the Secretary of Agriculture to purchase lands within the watersheds of navigable streams to restore the watersheds and their normal stream flows, and to provide a supply of timber. These purchases began on the Forest in the 1920s. The lands of the Oconee National Forest were purchased to restore abandoned, eroding agriculture lands to a protected watershed condition. Conservation measures were installed to stop the loss of valuable topsoil, and stabilize sediment choked stream channels.
Reviews FAQs below for more information about the Land Adjustment Act.
Fire Management
Fire Management involves both fire suppression and proactively using fire to achieve set goals. Fire effectively and efficiently reduces the level of hazardous fuels thus reducing risks and costs.
After many years of fire exclusion, an ecosystem that needs periodic fire becomes unhealthy. Trees are stressed by overcrowding; fire-dependent species disappear; and flammable fuels build up and become hazardous. However, the right fire at the right place at the right time helps maintain healthy forests, communities and watersheds.
Prescribed Fire
Fire has been an essential natural process in Southern Appalachian oak and pine forests for thousands of years, and its absence over the past century has transformed our forests. When conditions are just right, fire managers begin the prescribed fire treatments essential to improving wildlife habitat and maintaining a healthy forest. Every year, fire managers successfully treat around 35,000 acres on the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forests through prescribed fire.
Wildfire
Humans cause nearly nine out of ten wildfires. When you visit the forest, fire prevention is YOUR responsibility. Forest visitors are also reminded to ensure that all fires are extinguished and cold to the touch before leaving them. Learn more about campfire safety from Smokey Bear.
Vegetation & Forest Management
The overriding objective of the Forest Service's forest management program is to ensure that the National Forests are managed in an ecologically sustainable manner. Forest management objectives include ecological restoration and protection, research and product development, fire hazard reduction, and the maintenance of healthy forests.
Thinning, through commercial and non-commercial timber sales, can help to maintain healthy forests and watersheds in an ecologically sustainable manner.
Guided by law, regulation, and agency policy, forest managers use timber sales, as well as other vegetation management techniques such as prescibed fire, to achieve objectives such as ecological restoration and research.
Feature Stories
- Responding to Ips Bark Beetles
- Wildlife Habitat Improvement Project Yields Tangible Results
- Keener Bog: One of Georgia's Rarest Natural Communities
- Hemlocks in Peril
- The Oconee Forest Health & Wildlife Habitat Improvement Project
- Restoring the American Chestnut
Timber Sales
The National Forests were originally envisioned as working forests with multiple objectives: to improve and protect the forest, to secure favorable watershed conditions, and to furnish a continuous supply of timber for the use of citizens of the United States. Forest management objectives have evolved and are broadly captured in the USDA Forest Service Strategic Plan FY 2015-2020 goals to sustain our Nation’s Forests and Grasslands and deliver benefits to the public. More specifically, timber sales and other removals of forest products support agency strategic objectives to foster resilient, adaptive ecosystems to mitigate wildfire risk and strengthen communities.
Forest products include materials derived from a forest for commercial and personal use such as lumber, paper, and firewood as well as “special forest products” such as medicinal herbs, fungi, edible fruits and nuts, and other natural products.
The U.S. Forest Service Timber Sale Preparation Process (The Gate System) A Short Overview is a short narrated video presentation that introduces employees and partners to the Timber Sale gate process as outlined in Forest Service manual 2430 and Forest Service handbook 2409.18.
Timber Sale, Stewardship, and Forest Products Contracts and Permits
The Forest Service sells timber and special forest products on a variety of contract and permit forms based on the complexity and/or value of the sale. Guidance for the use of these forms can be found in Forest Service Handbook (FSH) 2409.18, Chapter 50, Sections 53 and 54.
Shared Stewardship
The USDA Forest Service and the State of Georgia have agreed to work together in shared stewardship of the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forests. Learn more about this agreement:
11/23/19 – Georgia News Release: USDA and Georgia sign Shared Stewardship Agreement highlighting cooperative approach to land management
Staff for the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forests, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and the Georgia Forestry Commission met on the Oconee Ranger District to review and discuss shared stewardship of national forest system lands as part of a Good Neighbor Agreement between the agencies.
FAQs - Land Adjustment Act
What is the name of the new law and how do I learn more about it?
On December 20, 2018, the Farm Bill was enacted into law. Officially entitled Public Law 115-334, the legislation incorporated the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest Land Adjustment Act as Section 8625. This provision is based on two bills introduced in the 115th Congress, S.571 by Senator David Perdue and H.R.1434 by Representative Doug Collins. In accordance with Section 8625(b)(2)(B) of P.L.115-334, the U.S. Forest Service created maps entitled “Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forests Land Adjustment Act” dated February 7, 2019. Please visit the public website (www.fs.usda.gov/goto/Lands) to read the new law or view the respective legislative maps (pdf):
What does the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest Land Adjustment Act authorize the U.S. Forest Service to do?
The new law authorizes the sale or exchange of 30 select tracts totaling approximately 3,841 acres, identified as disconnected, isolated tracts or which have restricted public access, resulting in diminished value for national forest purposes. The new law allows the Forest Service to retain the sale proceeds to acquire higher-value conservation, timber, and recreational lands in Georgia.
The Conservation Fund, The Nature Conservancy, Trout Unlimited, The Trust for Public Land, and the Georgia Wildlife Federation support the new law, as do the Georgia counties where these tracts are located. The new law streamlines federal land management, better protects natural resources, and enhances the recreational value of the National Forests in Georgia. This legislation is similar to prior successful land adjustment authorities enacted for national forest system lands in Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, Texas, and Virginia.
How do I locate the tracts identified by the legislation?
The new law directs the Forest Service to maintain legislative maps available for the public to view. These maps are available on the public website (www.fs.usda.gov/goto/Lands) or by visiting any local office. Two maps depict portions of the Chattahoochee National Forest and the Oconee National Forest. Additional reference maps unrelated to the new law are available on the agency website under Maps & Publications, including National Forest System Land Ownership (does not highlight the 30 tracts). If the Forest Service decides to sell or exchange any of these tracts, detailed maps will be made available to the public at that time
How will the potential sale proceeds by used by the Forest Service?
The new law directs the Forest Service to retain sale proceeds to acquire higher-value conservation lands in Georgia, which will increase hunting and fishing access, lower management costs, and reduce development threats to the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forests. The lands to be acquired will be inholdings, edge-holdings, and connections within the existing proclamation boundary of the Forest. Future acquisition of new lands to be added to the national forest system will only come from willing sellers.
What is the process for selling the tracts identified by the new law?
The Forest Service will follow all requirements of this new law, the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest Land Adjustment Act, as well as applicable regulations, rules and policies. We have not determined whether to take any action at this time on any specific tract. When that determination is made all required environmental due diligence and appraisals will be completed. In considering whether to convey the land, the Forest Service must complete land surveys, biological assessments, cultural and historic resource surveys, and soil and water studies. If the agency determines that a tract may be conveyed from federal ownership, an appraisal will assess the fair market value. Once all environmental due diligence and appraisals are complete, the agency will decide the most appropriate tool to convey the land. This may occur by public auction to the highest bidder, through an agent to advertise on the open market, or by exchange with another landowner or government entity. If surveys and assessments lead us to determine that a tract should remain national forest system land, it will not be offered for conveyance.
How does the new law differ from current Forest Service authority?
The new law is a limited authority (only the 30 tracts identified) to consider conveying lands through a sale procedure. It is uncommon to sell federal lands. Other more common land conveyance processes are very lengthy and costly to all parties involved, such as existing land exchange authority. This will save considerable time and expense, providing a greater conservation benefit and value to the public by conserving the highest-value forestlands. The Forest Service will follow all requirements of this new law, the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest Land Adjustment Act, as well as applicable regulations, rules and policies that prescribe environmental due diligence and appraisal standards.
How do I find out more about the tracts for sale?
If the agency decides to convey any of the 30 tracts authorized by the new law, detailed maps depicting the location and a legal description will be made publicly available for potential buyers, including publication of advertisements in local newspapers and the agency website.
Why would the Forest Service consider conveying these tracts?
Many of these isolated tracts of land are surrounded by private land, so the public is not able to access the areas for recreation. The Forest Service intends to acquire higher-value conservation lands in Georgia, which will increase hunting and fishing and other recreational access, lower management costs, and reduce development threats to the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forests.
What lands will the Forest Service purchase?
Future acquisition of new lands to be added to the national forest system will only come from willing sellers. No decisions have been made about potential land acquisition to add to the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forests. The Forest Service intends to acquire higher-value conservation lands in Georgia, which will increase hunting and fishing access, lower management costs, and reduce development threats to the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forests.
Recreation access and value is an important factor, considering Georgia ranks 5th nationally in consumer spending on outdoor recreation. The Outdoor Industry Alliance reports $23.3 billion was spent for outdoor recreation in Georgia, generating more than $1 billion in state and local tax revenue. The Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest factors significantly into Georgia’s outdoor recreation industry and this new law will enhance that benefit.
Does this law affect State lands or parks?
State-owned lands are not included in the new law.
Will conveyance of these tracts from federal ownership increase county property tax revenues?
National Forest System (NFS) lands are owned by the federal government of the United States, and are not subject to State or local/county property taxation. If any of these tracts are conveyed from federal ownership, such as to a private citizen or entity, the land may be subject to State or local/county property tax, depending on the laws of local jurisdiction.
Where can I learn more about the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest Land Adjustment Act?
More news about the new law is available from the Congressional sponsors and conservation supporters:
December 14, 2018 - U.S. Congress Passes Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest Land Adjustment Bill
https://www.conservationfund.org/news/press-releases/1970-u-s-congress-passes-chattahoochee-oconee-national-forest-bill
December 13, 2018 - Collins, Perdue Work To Improve Recreation In Northeast Georgia
https://dougcollins.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/collins-perdue-work-improve-recreation-northeast-georgia
November 9, 2017 - Senator David Perdue Applauds Action To Improve Georgia National Forest
https://www.perdue.senate.gov/news/press-releases/senator-david-perdue-applauds-action-to-improve-georgia-national-forest
March 15, 2017 - Congressional bills would improve effort to preserve North Georgia forests
https://www.gainesvilletimes.com/opinion/all-viewpoint-stories/guest-column-congressional-bills-would-improve-effort-to-preserve-north-georgia-forests/
March 8, 2017 - Senator Perdue & Congressman Collins Take Action To Improve Georgia National Forest
https://www.perdue.senate.gov/news/press-releases/senator-perdue-and-congressman-collins-take-action-to-improve-georgia-national-forest-