Invasive Forest Plants

Preventing or reducing undesirable impacts of non-native invasive plants is a difficult challenge facing all land managers. Non-native invasive plants impact landscapes across the U.S. through changes in the structure, composition, and successional pathways of native plant communities.

Forest Health Protection provides funding, technical assistance, and technology development to support invasive plant species programs on non-Federal lands and, in tropical forests, on Federal lands, excluding National Forest System lands. Forest Health Protection specialists work closely with weed management cooperators, States, Tribes, U.S. Territories, and Freely Associated States to manage invasive plant program activities. Technical assistance includes providing entomology and pathology expertise in the implementation of biological control program efforts.

Forest Health Protection also provides assistance in pesticide use, including herbicide risk assessments, which are requirements for the environmental analysis of NFS invasive plant control programs. Visit Pesticide Management & Coordination for more information.

Invasive Forest Plant Range Maps

The invasive plant distribution maps were derived from data collected through an integration of various sources (e.g., EDDMapS, the USDA Forest Service, and State-collected data) and were reviewed by regional authorities. They are intended to display the range over which these invasive plants have been detected or established.

Spotlights