Woodland programs in the United States: Forest Stewardship and Forest Legacy
What the US Forest Service says its private land programs are, and what its pages say about the Forest Stewardship Program and the Forest Legacy Program: who each is for, what it pays for or protects, and how far each has reached.
Checked against the sources at the bottom of this page on October 9, 2026. Rules, fees and pay change: the source has the last word.
This page covers the United States. The programs for woodland owners in the United Kingdom, with felling licences and grants, are on the felling licences and woodland grants page, and city tree planting money is on the tree grants page. Everything below is what three Forest Service web pages say. They give no application steps, payment rates or deadlines, so none are reported here.
The private land index
The Forest Service private land page describes who holds US forest. A graphic on it gives family forests 37 percent, corporate owners 22 percent, the federal government 29 percent, states 7 percent and local governments 2 percent. It says there are an estimated 10.9 million family forest and woodland ownerships. In its text the same page says more than half the forest land is owned and managed by some 10.6 million private owners, and that private forest supplies nearly 30 percent of drinking water and over 90 percent of domestically produced forest products. It also gives 2.4 million jobs, mostly in rural communities. The owner counts differ between the graphic and the text, and the Forest Stewardship page gives a third figure of 11 million, and the pages do not say why the counts differ.
The page lists the Cooperative Forestry programs it runs for private landowners. They are Community Forest and Open Space Conservation, Forest Health Protection, Forest Legacy, Forest Stewardship, Forest Landowner Support, Landscape Scale Restoration, the National Agroforestry Center, Urban and Community Forestry, and Wood Innovations. The threats it names are wildland fire, invasive species, pests and disease, and the permanent loss of working forest to other uses.
Forest Stewardship
The Forest Stewardship page describes the program as assistance to owners of forest land where good stewardship, including agroforestry practices, will sustain several forest resources. The private land page describes it as technical assistance to encourage long term management. The page names three focus areas: helping owners actively manage their land and related resources, keeping land productive and healthy for present and future owners, and raising the economic benefit of land, with timber harvesting as its example, while conserving the natural environment.
It also says the program supports rural jobs by sustaining local markets for forest products and by raising demand for qualified private forestry consultants and state field foresters. It says more than 25 million acres are managed under Forest Stewardship Plans. For contacts, it points to a Forest Stewardship Program Manager and to each state's coordinator.
Forest Legacy
The Forest Legacy page calls the program a conservation program the Forest Service runs with state agencies to encourage protection of privately owned forest land through conservation easements or land purchases. It lists the public benefits it aims to keep: hunting, fishing and camping, clean drinking water, wildlife habitat, and timber, fuel wood and other forest products. The private land page says the program permanently conserves significant forests threatened by conversion.
The page says the program began in 1990, has conserved over 3 million acres and has reached 53 states and territories. It carries an interactive map of projects and a list of funded projects for 2026 and earlier years, and sends readers to a Forest Legacy Program Manager or their state coordinator.
The two side by side
| Point | Forest Stewardship | Forest Legacy |
|---|---|---|
| What it gives | Technical assistance for long term management | Conservation easements or land purchases |
| Who runs it | Forest Service, with state coordinators | Forest Service with state agencies |
| Scale on the page | More than 25 million acres under plans | Over 3 million acres conserved, 53 states and territories |
| Where to look | Program managers and state coordinators | Funded projects list and interactive map |