Do forests cover nearly 90% of Maine land?

Forest covers about 89% of Maine’s land area, comprising an estimated 17.5 million acres. Maine boasts the highest percentage of forest coverage of any U.S. state.

Nearly 92% of Maine forest is privately owned. State and local governments own just under 7%, and the remaining 1.4% is federally owned.

Despite a slight decline in the number of trees since 2016, the overall volume of live trees in Maine has grown, reaching 27.7 billion cubic feet in 2021, according to a survey by the U.S. Forest Service.

According to the Forest Service, annual harvests have decreased and tree mortality has risen, but more than a billion cubic feet of live tree volume is added to Maine’s forests annually. Each year, about 9,500 non-forest acres in Maine revert to forest, while 20,000 acres of forest are lost — an annual net loss of 10,500 acres.