People are always posting about deforestation. Do you realize that there are now much more than the 217 million that were planted back in the 30's. A one hundred mile wide strip of the USA was planted from North Dakota to Texas. My family owns land in this strip. Over Thanksgiving, I was looking at old ariel photos that were taken back in 1950 and comparing to the present. These forests have doubled in size since then. New trees have sprouted all around the old ones. You can see it in the photos.

http://a-c-s.confex.com/crops/2007am/techprogram/P33604.HTM

Here are some pictures that I took this month while hunting.
Most of these trees were not there prior to 1930.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/21086690@N05/

I thought the US was one giant strip mall...

Seriously, great point.

Hey man thanks for the info! This will concern some people that SOME people care about recycling. if you dont recycle and blah blah blah you will destroy these forests again! so do it! recycle.

no way!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow! An 80 year old monocultural forest replacing old growth arborial forest that had much higher biodiversity, I wanna piece of that, NOT!

Yes. The US is actually an environmental leader in many ways, because we're rich. There are many more trees in the US now than there were in 1900, although some forest ecologies (there's more to it than just trees) have been damaged.

The problem is that, worldwide, there is a trend toward deforestation (even counting the US positives in), particularly in the vital rain forests.

Actually, the US, Europe, China and India are all increasing their forest surface.

The problem is with Brazil, Congo, Indonesia, Malaysia, etc.

Sounds like someone who knows his Canadian Lumbering History since that is all you see on the Eastern Seaboard as you travel from Maine to PEI and back. Monocultural tree farms are not real forests!