Approximately 58 percent of the nation's forestland is owned by individuals - some 16 million of them (Egan and Jones 1998). There has long been a question of timber availability on private forest lands, and a host of studies have addressed this issue. Generally such studies have found that timber production is not a top priority of landowners, but have also indicated that over a long period of time, some 50 to 70 percent of non-industrially owned forest lands are likely to make lands available for harvest (Hodge and Southard 1992, Birch and Stelter 1993, Bliss 1993, Bliss et al. 1993, Bliss et al. 1994, Bliss et al. 1997, Doolittle 1993, Jones et al. 1995). Birch (1993) notes that the number reporting that they never intend to sell timber control only 12 percent of the forestland. Still, few of these landowners have forest management plans or have sought professional forestry advice. Argow (1996) reported that only 20 percent of private landowners take advantage of the services of a professional forester. He cited another researcher, T.W. Birch, who indicated that only 5 percent have a written management plan, and that this group is made up almost entirely of those owning large land areas.

As shown in the state summaries, presented in a later section of this report, hardwood growing stock and sawtimber volumes have increased steadily in recent decades both nationwide and regionally, and in almost every state. Despite a recent study that suggests that as much as one-third of the current inventory may not be economically available (Cubbage and Abt 2001), annual harvests of growing stock have increased in step with increases in standing timber volume, in many cases to two or three times the levels of thirty years earlier. While none of these trends directly indicate increased wood availability, they do suggest that the availability of hardwoods is steadily increasing as consumption rises.

In several of the most recent forest inventory reports of the eastern states of the U.S., increasing parcelization of privately owned forestland is identified as an issue that will make forest management increasingly challenging in the future. This is an issue that could have major implications for future wood availability unless creatively addressed.

 

In a recent study, Mehmood and Zhang (2001) found that causes of forest parcelization and fragmentation include death and related intergenerational transfers and/or tax-related sales; urbanization and the desire by many to live within wooded areas; rising incomes that make potential income from timber harvest less necessary; and regulatory uncertainty. They also found that the availability of financial assistance for landowners can help to slow or avert parcelization.

The impact of forest parcelization and fragmentation over the next 30 to 50 years is expected to be greater in the South than in the North, due to more rapidly increasing populations in the southern states. In that region, urbanization and associated deforestation, coupled with steady increases in the number of forest owners and associated reduction in panel size, are likely to result in increasing unavailability of harvestable land.

Components of the Southern Hardwood Inventory
Projection for Private Timberlands

Source: Haynes 2003

As noted earlier, reductions in net annual growth are expected to lead to a significant loss of hardwood forest cover and hardwood inventory. Taken together, increasing unavailability of southern forest lands and declining hardwood inventory could reduce southern hardwood inventories to less than 50 percent of current levels within 50 years (Figure 69).

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