AS AMERICAN FORESTS approaches our 150th year as an organization, we are celebrating all that we have accomplished in the past, with an eye toward the urgency and importance of continuing our work for the next 150 years and beyond.

When American Forests was founded in 1875, our forests and our country were at a historic inflection point. The country was recovering from the strain of the Civil War, and our forests were in trouble — overused to build a growing nation and beset by challenges such as erosion and wildfire. Over the next 30 years, this scrappy young organization built the foundation for the American forest conservation movement, culminating in the Second American Forest Congress in 1905, which catalyzed the establishment of the U.S. Forest Service and our National Forest System.

American Forests has been meeting the moment ever since to help our nation fully benefit from the nature-based solutions and transcendent experiences that trees and forests can provide.

We rose to the challenge of restoring our forests after World War II, when they were depleted from the war effort but in demand to build housing for returning servicemembers. We led the charge to modernize how we manage our public lands and pioneered using early computer technologies to show how important urban forests are for our cities. Today, we are focusing and empowering the forest movement to meet the growing climate change crisis.

While the challenges and opportunities have shifted over time, our role has not. American Forests has a unique, catalytic role as a service leader — guiding the entire forest movement then, now and in the future.

We define the most urgent drivers for action and build inclusive partnerships so everyone can help deliver forest solutions, from governments to Girl Scouts.

We use data to prioritize where forest solutions are most needed and quantify what we can accomplish.

We use science-based forestry innovation to make sure our actions unlock the full forest solutions that trees can provide, whether capturing carbon dioxide or naturally cooling our homes.

We lead by example, working across whole cities and natural landscapes to use best-in-class forestry approaches in the hard work of planting, caring for and protecting our trees and forests.

We use our voice with policymakers and the private sector to secure transformational public policies and financial investment so we can deliver forest solutions at a meaningful scale.

When I started as president and chief executive officer of American Forests, we deepened and formalized this unique service leadership role as American Forests’ Impact Model. The Impact Model now provides a blueprint to guide us and our partners in building movements to advance new and innovative solutions for forest conservation and restoration.

Over the past seven years, we have shown how this approach can deliver forest solutions with unprecedented impact. American Forests is widely credited with building a Tree Equity movement that is now delivering tree-based natural cooling and clean air in American cities with a speed and scale that matches the climate threats these cities face. This U.S. movement is now spreading around the world.

We have also reversed a growing reforestation crisis on our national forests, providing permanent public funding and public-private partnerships to close a nearly 4-million-acre backlog of burned and degraded forests using climate-resilient reforestation techniques our organization helped to create.

We have launched a massive push with the National Park Service and others to save America’s most threatened tree, the whitebark pine, across the public lands of the American West.

We have secured more than $14 billion in federal funding to advance forest-climate solutions, including permanent forest conservation, wildfire resilience treatments and climate-smart forestry practices. We have helped the 26 state governments of the U.S. Climate Alliance to develop comprehensive strategies and policy approaches to advance forest-climate solutions. And we have turned this massive solutions investment into career opportunities and exploration for those who need them, such as formerly incarcerated persons and Tribal youth.

As we look to the next 150 years, we are lifted by the knowledge that we have affirmed a clear role for our organization in meeting such historic challenges and demonstrated our ability to deliver transformational change.

Thank you for helping us hit this historic milestone with so much momentum. As we complete our next five-year strategic plan over the course of this year, we cannot wait to share how we will launch forest solutions even higher in the years ahead.

For more news and updates from Jad, follow him on X @JadDaley.