Extent and Location of Old-Growth

Current Condition of Eastern Forests

Old-growth forests, by any definition, are rare throughout the eastern United States (Davis 1993). Forested landscapes have been modified dramatically since European settlement by logging, agriculture, urbanization, BROKEN-LINK BROKEN-LINK chestnut blight, charcoal production, and 20th-century fire suppression (Tyrell and others 1998, Martin 1992).  At present, few primary forest stands 200, 300, or 400+ years old exist; these stands are mostly located in inaccessible, rugged areas or on infertile, xeric, or saturated sites. Using a less strict definition of old-growth, most stands have been selectively logged, or are second-growth stands reaching old age (Tyrrell 1996).

Areas of Known Old Growth in the Southern Appalachians

Although the southern Appalachians contain one of the largest concentrations of old-growth forests east of the Mississippi River (Davis 1993), these forests are restricted mostly to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and a few wilderness areas. In an assessment of the extent and location of old growth in the eastern United States, Davis (1996) found that known old-growth forest totals 482,000 acres in the Southeast, only 0.5 percent of the forest land in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.  In her assessment, she limits old-growth to blocks of 1,000 or more acres, or to patches of old-growth that total 1,000 acres within a forested matrix. She defines old-growth in the broad sense of primary or original, but includes some sites that have had light logging or grazing in the past.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP), which straddles the border between North Carolina and Tennessee, is the largest reserve of old-growth in the southern Appalachians.  Of the parks 175,000 acres, an estimated one third is old-growth, distributed among the following forest types: cove hardwoods (38.7 percent); northern hardwoods (15.3 percent); mixed mesic hardwoods (13.3 percent); and other types ranked at below 10 percent each.  Virginias George Washington National Forest has approximately 42,000 acres of primary forest, containing mostly dry-mesic oak, and xeric pine and pine-oak. The extent of old growth in western North Carolinas Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests is still undetermined, but identified sites total at least 18,000 acres.  Old-growth in these forests are found in the Linville Gorge Wilderness Area, Big Ivy, and Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest.  Joyce-Kilmer Memorial forest contains a cove-hemlock forest with trees believed to be close to 500 years old.  Although most of Tennessees known old-growth is in GSMNP, patches of old-growth are located in the Cherokee National Forest (>2,000 acres).  The only known old-growth in Kentucky is contained in the Blanton Forest (2,350 acres).  On the border of South Carolina and Georgia, the Ellicott Rock Wilderness area in the Sumter National Forest contains 1,000 acres of old-growth that is more than 90 percent upland oak.  Georgias Chattahoochee National Forest contains roughly 5,000 old-growth acres, found mostly in the Cohutta Ranger District (upland oak and pine) and the Chattooga watershed (oak) (Davis 1996).

Davis (1996) warns that her figures include primary forest in these figures that would not satisfy the definitions of old growth followed by most researchers.  She also warns that her figures are more a reflection of what we know, not what actually exists.  Note also that the acreages she included not all under protection.