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United States in Brief
Total Area: 9,158,950
km²;
7,935,157
km² (lower 48 states)
Neighboring countries:
Canada, Mexico
Capital city: Washington, D.C.
Other urban centers: 48 cities with a
population above 1 million
Total population (2000): 281,421,906
Average annual population growth (2000): 1.2%
GNP per capita (2000): $34,260
Forest cover (2000): 2,259,930 km²
Percentage of land area forested: 24.7%
Number of protected areas (IUCN I-V categories):
3,063
Number of national parks: 205
Percentage of national parks as a total of
land area: 2.7%
Biodiversity¹
Mammals: 432 species
Number of endemic species: 105
Est. number of species/10,000 km²: 45
Birds: 650 species
Number of endemic species: 67
Est. number of species/10,000 km²: 68
Reptiles: 287 species
Number of endemic species: 79
Est. number of species/10,000 km²: 30
Amphibians: 263 species
Number of endemic species: 152
Est. number of species/10,000 km²: 28
Plants: 19,473 species
Number of endemic species: 4,036
Est. number of species/10,000 km²: 2,036
¹ Includes 50 states and Washington, D.C.
Sources
Forest
Resources Assessment 2000. UN FAO.
Environmental
Systems Research Institute
U.S.
Census Bureau
World Development Indicators Database
World
Conservation Monitoring Center as cited in Earth
Trends
World Resources Institute, World
Resources 2000-2001: People
and Ecosystems
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United States: Overview
The United States of America
is the world's third-largest country in size. The mainland territory
borders the North Atlantic Ocean
and the Pacific Ocean
and extends from below the Tropic of Cancer to above the Arctic Circle.
This vast land is a land of contrasts that houses a wide array
of ecological conditions, ranging from striving forests in the
Appalachians, prairies of the Midwest, the desert of Death Valley,
temperate rainforests along the interior of the West Coast, Alaska’s
tundra, to the subtropical rainforests of Hawaii. Such variety
results in an extraordinary richness of plants, animals and ecosystems.
This richness, faces real and urgent threats. The forests of the United States
have undergone throughout extensive conversion to agriculture lands and urban developments. Although forest cover is stable now, the
remaining forests are still undergoing significant human
disturbance. They are being degraded and fragmented, and they no
longer possess the same ecological integrity that the original forests
contained.
While this happens, there is growing debate concerning the management of
these remaining forests. Some argue that what remains should be
closed off to preserve their biological diversity, recreational and
wilderness values, while others advocate for the development and use of
the natural resources these forests contain. Thus, information on
where the remaining forests in the United States are, and what
their condition is, is key to implementing appropriate
management measures.
Global
Forest
Watch has partnered with the Conservation Biology Institute to gather,
distribute information and maps about the forests in the United States.
In April 2002, Global Forest Watch published its first US report: Low-Access
Forests and Their Level of Protection in North America
which looks at the remaining large tracts of relatively
undisturbed forests and their level of protection at a continental
scale.
Work
is underway building on this first coarse scale assessment. Global
Forest
Watch is
“zooming in” to look at forests in New
England
and Alaska at a more detailed scale.
Global
Forest
Watch is also sponsoring work by the Conservation
Biology Institute to assess forest fragmentation at the national
level.
Our products, and especially this website, aim at increasing the
transparency of information available on forests. Using our Data Warehouse you can
download and
manipulate for your own analyses the geographical data (GIS layers) we
possess. You can also send us your comments.
Sources
Dirk Bryant, Daniel Nielsen and Laura Tangley, The
Last Frontier Forests: Ecosystems and Economies on the
Edge (World Resources Institute, Washington DC, 1997).
Stein, B.A. “A Fragile Cornucopia. Assessing the Status of US
Biodiversity.” Environment
43 no. 7. 12-22. 2001.
Stein, B.A., L.S. Kutner, and J.S. Adams (Eds.) Precious
Heritage: The Status of Biodiversity in the United States (Oxford University Press, 2001).
World Resources Institute, World Resources 200-2001: People and Ecosystems: The Fraying Web of Life
(World Resources Institute, Washington DC, 2000).
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