Since European settlement (approximately 500 years ago), 39% of North America's original forest cover has been converted to other land uses and, of the
61% that remains, only 5% is currently protected in wilderness areas, national and provincial parks and monuments.
North America contains some of the most diverse and endangered forests on earth. One third of 52 forest regions have been classified by WWF scientists as
globally outstanding but, due to threats from intensive logging, mining and other land developments, three quarters are considered to be endangered.
Many North American forest regions have been converted into plantations, causing a significant loss of biodiversity and unsustainable logging is a constant
threat to original old-growth forests in North America. Estimates suggest that between 95% and 97% of
old-growth forests in the continental United States have been logged since the arrival
of the first Europeans and comparable losses have occurred in the old-growth red and white pine forests of Southern Ontario. The coastal temperate rainforests of
Canada and the US are also under threat from unsustainable logging which is fragmenting some of
the largest remaining blocks of temperate rainforests in the world.
To counter some of the threats facing North America's forests, WWF is campaigning for
a doubling of forest protected areas by the year 2000 and a tripling of independently certified forest sites in the United States and Canada.
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