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The upshot: we need to protect remaining primary forests, which cover only 6.7% of the landscape, from development. These forests contain northeast Ohio's natural heritage. And we can work on restoring biodiversity to post-ag forests, the majority of our current forests.

From 1938 to 1979, new lawns and development were largely built on agricultural fields, with only 10% of new lawns and development destroying forests. From 1979 to 2021, 23% of new development and 44% of new lawns destroyed forests.

Young forests were more likely to be developed than mature forests, which were relatively stable. Good news! However, this is changing...

Steeper slopes and lower elevations were more likely to remain and become forests, and oak forests were three times more likely to be kept than beech forests. That means current forests are a highly biased sample of presettlement forests, making remaining beech forests precious.

Most forest patches are <45 acres, and 75% of points in forest fall within 50 yards of an edge. This means fragmentation is likely having a big effect on the diversity, composition, and function of our forests.

2/3 of current forests are growing on former farmland, most established <85 years ago. These tend to be impoverished in biodiversity and altered in composition, but they represent a huge opportunity for recovery and restoration.

1/3 of current forests are primary, meaning they were never cleared for agriculture. These forests harbor the most biodiversity and are most similar to presettlement composition. This is a very high percentage compared to other places!

Over the past 220 years, Cuyahoga County experienced massive forest loss, from 98.7% to 12% of the landscape, and modest recovery, to 21%. Clearing for agriculture caused most deforestation in the 1800s, but development became the main agent of forest loss from the 1900s to now.