About.com "Virgin Islands National Park is the third-smallest in the U.S. national parks system, but don't let that fact fool you: it still encompasses 63 percent of the island of St. John. The lush forest seems ancient and eternal, but in fact all of the trees on the island were cut for timber by the 19th century, so this is technically a recovering forest, albeit about 200 years old. Officially protected in 1956, the forest will take another 100 years to fully return to its original natural state."
