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What better way to celebrate Earth Day than to learn about our forests and the air, water and wildlife resources they support! Learn more about the impact of working forests on your life below and share what you learn using the hashtag #GAFORESTSWORK

Earth Day Education and Outdoor Activities

Learn about Georgia’s forests and benefits they provide in this week’s at-home education resources. We’ve compiled fun and interactive education resources for all ages. Get outside and enjoy nature and our working forests!

Learn more →

Working Forests Clean Our Air

  • Trees absorb CO2 from the atmosphere while they grow and convert it to oxygen. The absorbed CO2 is stored in the wood fiber and remains in the wood products after the tree is harvested.
  • Forests sequester 22% of Georgia’s carbon emissions from fossil fuel use.
  • In addition, forests remove 1.3 million tons of chemical air pollution, enough gaseous pollution to fill more than 150,000 Goodyear blimps.

Working Forests Provide Clean Drinking Water

  • 65% of watersheds in Georgia flow through working forests.
  • 20,000 gallons of water can be absorbed by a healthy working forest during a heavy rain.
  • Forests prevent an estimated 17 billion cubic meters of water runoff, the equivalent of filling the water bottle of every person on Earth every day for 11 years.

Working Forests Provide Sustainable, Renewable Products

  • Georgia’s working forests provide more than 5,000 products that are essential for our survival, comfort and progress.
  • Products that come from forests offer sustainable, renewable and recyclable alternatives to products plastics, steel/concrete and other resource heavy materials.
  • The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the amount of carbon stored annually in forest products in the U.S. is equivalent to removing more than 70 million tons of CO2 from the atmosphere every year.

Georgia’s Working Forests are Sustainable

  • Georgia has 22 million acres of working forests, covering nearly two-thirds of the state.
  • The state’s forest landowners plant more than +200 million trees annually. That’s the equivalent of 20 trees per Georgia citizen per year!
  • Georgia forests grow 46% more wood by volume than is harvested each year.