Longleaf pine growth on the rise in Georgia and the Southeast, study finds

Caption

A longleaf pine forest on private land in Middle Georgia.

Credit: U.S. Forest Service

A new study has found that longleaf pine growth is increasing in the Southeast, with some of the biggest gains in Georgia, marking good news after years of work by conservationists to protect one of the state's most iconic trees.

Between 2010 and 2020, Georgia added nearly 50 million new longleaf pines and just over 20 million new seedlings, according to ecologists at the U.S. Forest Service.

Publishing in the scientific journal Forests, lead researcher Kevin Potter and his team found that this bounceback was part of a larger trend across a nine-state region, which altogether added about 225 million longleaf pines over that time period, bringing the total estimated number of trees to just over 1 billion.

"That the increase was as large as it was over as short a time frame as we've seen suggests to me that there is a real concerted effort by a lot of people to make sure that this species is back on the landscape," Potter said.

Caption

The longleaf pine range examined in the study is shown in beige.

Credit: U.S. Forest Service

Although not federally recognized as an endangered species, longleaf pines were considered in the early 2000s to be among the most threatened ecosystems in North America, the researchers wrote.

Despite improvements in reforestation initiatives since the turn of the century, the study found that longleaf pines are growing in increasingly isolated fragments of forestland in the Southeast, indicating a decline in natural regrowth of the conifer.

Georgia, however, bucked that trend: The state recorded a slight gain of roughly 40 square miles of forests containing longleaf pine, which is regarded as a biodiversity hotspot providing refuge for endangered species including the gopher tortoise and red-cockaded woodpecker.

"Get out there and walk around in these places — they're really inspiring, majestic forests," Potter said. "Folks are working hard in Georgia to bring longleaf pine back."