About the Forest Restoration Alliance
Since first being reported in the east in 1951 near Richmond, VA, a small insect called the hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA) has spread across the eastern United States. Though immobile as adults, their young hitch quick rides on wind, birds and other animals to infest new trees. HWA have killed 80-90 percent of eastern and Carolina hemlocks in some areas . Reaching sometimes more than 100 feet high and living for hundreds of years, hemlocks are keystone species in eastern forests. Removing them affects everything from soil pH to songbirds to animals swimming in forest streams.
In addition to hemlocks, another adelgid species, the balsam woolly adelgid (BWA) tucked its deadly mouthparts into Fraser firs across the eastern United States. BWA has since infested every fir stand in the southern Appalachian Mountains, killing approximately 90 percent of mature Fraser firs, North America’s most popular Christmas tree.
In 2007, a group of researchers across universities, the National Arboretum, and the USDA Forest Service, led by NC State University’s Fred Hain (https://cals.ncsu.edu/entomology-and-plant-pathology/people/fhain/ ), convened to look for solutions to our continent’s drastically declining eastern and Carolina hemlock populations. They formed the Alliance for Saving Threatened Forests (now known as the Forest Restoration Alliance) and work to share information and restore hemlocks and other native adelgid-affected trees in the eastern United States.
Today, modeled after the successful The American Chestnut Foundation’s (https://www.acf.org) program, our selective breeding facility in western North Carolina works to breed and establish a future of tolerant or resistant trees in North American Forests. The alliance also works with TreeSnap (https://treesnap.org/), a citizen science project where anyone can upload information about affected and potentially resistant trees, helping researchers to locate desirable individuals and stands for inclusion in their respective programs. They also work with tissue culture labs to clonally propagate stock of potentially adelgid-resistant trees to include in screening tests.
At the FRA, researchers and government organizations can band together to make a difference in North America’s forests. Together, and only together, can we restore our forests so future generations can stand in the shadows of these giants. Please visit us online at http://threatenedforests.com to learn more about us and our research into these forest health issues, or to download our newsletter or scroll through available resources.
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