Green trees in the foreground with blue mountains in the background

New York

Forest Action Plan

Meeting the Challenges Facing New York’s Forests

The value of forests encompasses all the irreplaceable life-giving and life-enhancing benefits they provide. The recommendations in New York’s State Forest Action Plan outline the actions to be taken to ensure our forests are prepared for the challenges and opportunities of the next 10 years. The Plan provides an important framework for the ongoing efforts of the New York State Climate Action Council to identify strategies, policies, and regulations to reach the State’s climate goals through forest protection and management. This Plan’s strategies also aim to stimulate public policy that safeguards the irreplaceable value of forests as climate change mitigators by preventing loss of forests to development or infrastructure.

Managing our forests for the long-term will ensure that all citizens of our state, and the entire global community, continue to experience the vital benefits of forests, including the protection of our water and air, the conservation of wildlife habitat, the ability to combat climate change through carbon sequestration and carbon storage, and the employment of thousands of people in the forest products, outdoor recreation, and tourism industries.

The Plan identifies four primary goals for New York’s forests and proposes strategies for addressing each of these goals:

  • Keep New York’s forests as forests
  • Keep New York’s forests healthy
  • Increase forest benefits for humans and all living creatures
  • Appreciate, support, and protect New York’s Forests


Best Management Practices

New York’s best management practices (BMPs) program is regulated at the local level, but not the state-level. The agency responsible for BMPs policy development is the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Division of Lands and Forests.

Click here to view the most recent BMPs recommendations on the state forestry agency website.

Click the following links to view available BMP monitoring data and implementation rates from NASF’s 2015 BMP survey and NASF’s 2019 BMP survey.

New York Forestry Publications

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