Despite the dramatic environmental shifts of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Pennsylvania today retains much of its precolonial environment. Thanks to the work of environmentalists such as Joseph Trimble Rothrock, who advocated for forest preservation and created conservation agencies such as the Pennsylvania Forestry Association and the Association of Forest Landowners, more than 60 percent of Pennsylvania is currently covered by forest land.
There are thirteen different tracts of virgin forest still extant in Pennsylvania, such as the Alan Seeger Natural Area in Huntingdon County and Cook Forest State Park in Clarion, Forest, and Jefferson Counties. These places still offer the chance to experience Pennsylvania as it may have been before European settlement.
