Resource Management

Forest Health Protection is a unit of the Department of Agriculture U.S. Forest Service that employs pest management specialists, forest entimologists, and plant pathologists to provide technical assistance in the prevention, detection, evaluation, and suppression of forest insect and disease pest problems. Forest Health Protection in the Southern Region serves Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Lousiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Federally-managed lands in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The Forest Service is committed to collaborating with partners to enhance bat conservation. Bats can travel hundreds of miles; the conservation of bats, therefore, requires us to share stewardship of the lands on which they depend.

The Southern Research Station is part of the Nation's largest forestry research organization—USDA Forest Service Research and Development—the leading organization for research on natural resource management and sustainability in the United States. Headquartered in Asheville, North Carolina, the Southern Research Station serves 13 southern states and beyond. Its staff of 130 scientists is organized into Research Work Units, with science technicians and other support personnel who work at various locations throughout the region: federal laboratories, universities, and experimental forests.

Learn more about conservation planning in the Southern Region, including native plant restoration, rare plants and wildflowers, invasive plants, and pollinators!

Soil is the core of National Forest Land Management Systems.Our goal is to insure that we maintain clean water, air and productive soils to assure a healthy forest.

Watersheds include the streams, lakes and shallow aquifers that store and convey the water as well as the land surfaces from which water drains and the aquatic ecosystems that they support.

The wildlife that call the Southern Region home are just as diverse as our landscapes!

The goal of the USDA Forest Service Southern Region is to reduce, minimize, or eliminate the potential for the introduction, establishment, spread, and impact of non-native invasive species across all landscapes and ownerships. To achieve this goal the region has developed the Southern Region Framework for Non-Native Invasive Species.