Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

This Arbor Day, Remember Forests Were First Protected For Water

​A person planting a tree.

A person planting a tree.

Getty Images, pipat wongsawang

This Arbor Day, as drought and wildfire fears spread from Southern California to South Carolina, the tree you plant carries hidden importance. While many Americans view trees as sources of shade, beauty, or a habitat for birds, they're actually essential to something even more precious: our drinking water. With experts warning of "aridification" across the West, water fights across the South, and just 2.5% of Earth's water being freshwater, the link between forests and water security has never been more vital.

This link between forests and water wasn't always overlooked. In fact, it was the primary reason the U.S. Forest Service was established. Gifford Pinchot, who was the first leader of the agency in 1905, recognized the foundational legislation, explicitly citing "securing favorable conditions of water flows" as its central purpose. Though now remembered largely as a champion of sustainable forestry, Pinchot's greater vision recognized that America's expanding nation required healthy forests to safeguard its water supplies for growing communities and agriculture.


This water-focused mission wasn't accidental. It reflected an understanding that healthy forests serve as nature's most efficient water infrastructure—capturing snowmelt and rainfall, filtering contaminants, regulating seasonal flows, and delivering clean water downstream to communities, farms, and industries. And there had been vivid proof that early forest management in the Northeast had devastated the water supplies for many towns and communities across the region. The U.S. Forest Service was founded to both protect watersheds and ensure they were not indiscriminately clear-cut.

This vital connection between forests and water security is something most Americans overlook. Few consider that about half of our drinking water originates in forests that filter, regulate, and store the water we depend on every day. Even more concerning, over 60% of our nation's forests are on private lands, with nearly a third of these watersheds facing high risks from development, unsustainable management, or climate impacts.

Today, this forest-water connection faces unprecedented threats. Climate change is altering precipitation patterns and increasing drought severity nationwide. Forest fragmentation from development cuts natural water systems into disconnected pieces. Catastrophic wildfires, often in watersheds that haven't been properly managed, damage water quality for decades afterward.

The stakes couldn't be higher. For example, recent research shows climate change could shrink California's water supply by up to 23% in just two decades—a warning that resonates across the country as water security becomes an increasingly urgent priority.

Fortunately, proven solutions exist and they're finding support across the political spectrum.

Look no further than last week's bipartisan legislation, introduced by Democrat John Garamendi and Republican Ken Calvert from California, that would help permanently conserve privately owned working forestlands. This cross-party effort would give states the flexibility to partner with nonprofit land trusts on forest conservation easements, extending limited conservation dollars further while respecting private ownership.

Conservation easements on private forests have emerged as powerful tools for watershed protection that transcend partisan divides. These permanent legal agreements respect property rights while achieving conservation goals—a balance that appeals to landowners and environmentalists alike. By maintaining forests' water-filtering capabilities while allowing sustainable management and economic returns, they keep forests in private hands and on local tax rolls while securing their public benefits forever.

We're seeing these solutions work in both red and blue states. Arkansas has implemented forest conservation programs protecting the headwaters flowing into the Mississippi Delta. Utah pioneered public-private partnerships for financing forest restoration in watersheds critical to Salt Lake City's water supply. New York's protection program for the Catskills demonstrates how investing in forest watersheds can save billions in built infrastructure costs.

The recent protection of California's Trinity River Headwaters offers another inspiring model. This innovative project safeguards 11,000 acres of critical watershed—an area one-third the size of San Francisco—that supplies water to millions of acres of farmland and cities as far south as San Diego. Beyond securing water supplies, the project delivers multiple benefits: climate resilience, carbon storage, wildfire risk reduction, habitat for over 230 species, and economic opportunities for rural communities.

The wildfire connection is particularly urgent. Unsustainable forest management has left many watersheds vulnerable to catastrophic fires, which subsequently lead to flash flooding and mudslides during heavy rainfall events. When forests burn severely, their soil can become water-repellent, unable to absorb the precipitation that once filtered through them. Working forest conservation easements demonstrate how watershed conservation can simultaneously reduce wildfire risk and enhance water retention—one of the least expensive climate adaptation strategies, compared to engineering solutions like dams and underground storage systems.

What makes these approaches particularly valuable is their cost-effectiveness. Dollar for dollar, protecting and restoring forest watersheds delivers more water security benefits than many engineered alternatives. Yet, our policies and funding systems still overwhelmingly favor gray infrastructure over these natural solutions.

It's time for policies that recognize forests' true value to our water security. Federal agencies should align management investments to benefit water, climate, wildlife, and sustaining rural economies simultaneously. States should finance natural water infrastructure by using the same tools—bonds, revolving funds, and public-private partnerships—employed for built systems. California, facing both wildfires and flooding, has a particular opportunity to lead by investing in watershed restoration that regulates water flow.

Most importantly, we must reimagine infrastructure. Forests securing our water supplies aren't merely amenities—they're essential systems deserving equal investment priority as dams, treatment plants, and pipelines.

As we face another summer of water restrictions, intensifying aridification, and fires, this season calls us to look beyond symbolic tree planting and toward protecting existing forests. While planting matters, restoring watersheds that provide water security to millions matters more.

This Arbor Day, let's reconnect with Pinchot's century-old wisdom: in a world where only 2.5% of water is freshwater and increasingly precious, protecting and restoring forest watersheds is our most crucial investment that communities will depend on for generations.


Laurie Wayburn is the co-founder and president of Pacific Forest Trust.

Read More

Rock Stars of American Science May Soon Take Their Expertise Abroad. That Should Alarm All Americans.
person in blue shirt writing on white paper
Photo by UX Indonesia on Unsplash

Rock Stars of American Science May Soon Take Their Expertise Abroad. That Should Alarm All Americans.

Recently, I attended a West Coast conference on the latest research findings in cosmology and found myself sitting in a faculty dining hall with colleagues from around the country. If it had taken place a few months earlier, our conversation would have been filled with debates on the morning’s presentations, but now everything had changed. Against the backdrop of the Trump administration’s attacks on universities and research funding, the question we struggled with was: “When is it time to leave the U.S. and establish our research programs elsewhere?”

One colleague planned to enroll their children in an international school to learn French in case the family had to leave the country in the next few years. Another, whose home institution has been under particularly fierce attacks by the government, said they would stay and fight to support their students, but only so long as their family remained safe. At the same meeting, I heard from a Canadian researcher whose institution was compiling a list of American scientists now considered vulnerable.

Keep ReadingShow less
As Puerto Rico’s Power Grid Crumbles, Rural Medical Patients Are Turning to Rooftop Solar

Plaza de la Independencia Energetica, operated by Casa Pueblo in Adjuntas, Puerto Rico. The plaza’s solar panels provide power and shelter for Adjuntas residents to use during natural disasters.


Photo Provided

As Puerto Rico’s Power Grid Crumbles, Rural Medical Patients Are Turning to Rooftop Solar

In this two-part series, Lily Carey reports on energy instability in rural Puerto Rico and its impact on residents with chronic medical conditions. Faced with limited government support, community members have begun building their own power structures from the ground up, ranging from solar microgrids to community health clinics.

In the second and final part of the series, Carey reports on how local activists are providing for sick and elderly residents in Puerto Rico’s Cordillera Central.

Keep ReadingShow less
Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill: Hidden Cuts, Legislative Tricks, and Who Really Pays the Price

President Donald Trump, joined by Republican lawmakers, signs the One, Big Beautiful Bill Act into law during an Independence Day military family picnic on the South Lawn of the White House on July 04, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

(Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill: Hidden Cuts, Legislative Tricks, and Who Really Pays the Price

President Donald Trump received a great Fourth of July present -- he signed his administration’s signature piece of federal legislation, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which is a sweeping tax cut and spending package. The law makes Trump’s massive 2017 tax cuts permanent and boosts defense and border patrol funding. It attempts to offset some of these costs by making deep cuts to spending on Medicaid, food assistance programs, student loans, and clean energy programs. Depending on whose hype you listen to, the Trump tax and spend deal is either the greatest in history or it will cause the fall of Western civilization.

For the average person, it's quite challenging to understand how this law will impact their own individual situation. This was a complex piece of legislation with numerous moving parts, and the White House designers employed several legislative tactics and strategies to obscure the impact on those who would be helped or hurt. Both the Republican and Democratic sides have their own “experts” who, of course, do not agree, but even within Republican and conservative circles, there has been much disagreement over likely impacts.

Keep ReadingShow less
As Puerto Rico’s Power Grid Crumbles, Rural Medical Patients Are Turning to Rooftop Solar

Serafin Sierra Torres with his rooftop solar panels. After losing power for nine months during Hurricane Maria, Serafin and his wife, Iris, had solar panels installed with the help of Casa Pueblo.


Photo provided

As Puerto Rico’s Power Grid Crumbles, Rural Medical Patients Are Turning to Rooftop Solar

In this two-part series, Lily Carey reports on energy instability in rural Puerto Rico and its impact on residents with chronic medical conditions. Faced with limited government support, community members have begun building their own power structures from the ground up, ranging from solar microgrids to community health clinics.

In Part One, Carey reports on the lasting impacts of Hurricane Maria and how mismanagement of Puerto Rico’s electric grid in the years since has led to ongoing instability.

Keep ReadingShow less