Search this site:

5.1 Ownership

The 13 Southern States contain an estimated 215,000,000 acres of forest land. About 201,000,000 acres are classified as "timberland," (Chapter HLTH-1). In 1999, an estimated 179 million acres of the South's timberland (89 percent) were in private ownership (Chapter HLTH-1). Birch (1996) found southern private timberlands to be in 4.9 million tracts owned or controlled by private individuals and legal entities, including corporations, clubs, trusts, partnerships, American Indian tribes, and Native American corporations. Over three-quarters of all private owners owned only one tract. Over two-thirds of these tracts were located less than 1 mile from owners' residences.

In 1999, about 21 percent (37 million acres) of the South's private timberlands were owned by forest industries (Chapter HLTH-1). In 1994, forest industries represented a little less than 1 percent of all private ownership units (Birch 1996). Although forest industry timberland acreage slowly increased from 1953 until 1989, it declined by about 1 million acres (3 percent) between 1989 and 1999 (Chapter HLTH-1).

In 1994, an estimated 4.7 million individual owners held the largest share of private southern timberland. Individual owners compose the core of a group commonly referred to as "nonindustrial private forest" (NIPF) owners (Moulton and Birch 1995). Almost 95 percent of all private timberland owners in the South are in this group (Birch 1996). In 1999, they controlled 63 percent of the total private timberland acreage (Chapter HLTH-1).

Since African-Americans comprise the largest group of minority rural landowners in the South, they are probably also the largest group of minority NIPF owners. No statistics are available, however, regarding overall minority ownership characteristics (Shelhas 2000). Gan and others (1999) have reported data about a limited number of minority NIPF owners in two southeastern Alabama counties. Selected owner information from this study is included in various sections of this Chapter.

In 1994, nonindustrial corporations, partnerships, clubs, associations and other entities held nearly 5 percent of the 4.9 million private timberland tracts in the South (Birch 1996). Acreage in nonindustrial corporate ownerships increased by about 25 percent from 1982 to 1999. By 1999, corporate owners accounted for 11 percent of private timberland acreage (Chapter HLTH-1). Nonindustrial corporate owners include various timber and investment management organizations (TIMO's), such as banks, insurance companies, agribusiness, and investment and development firms (Chapter HLTH-1). In 1999, TIMO's held about 4 million acres of timberland throughout the South (Chapter TIMBR-2).

Information about timberland ownership by ecological province is presented in Chapter HLTH-1. As illustrated in Figure 35 and Table 32 of that Chapter, private timberland is represented in all 11 provinces. Public, private corporate, and private forest industry ownerships are concentrated in the Outer Coast Mixed and Southeast Mixed Provinces (Chapter HLTH-1).

Nearly 2 million new, predominately NIPF owners acquired their land sometime between 1980 and 1994. Of these new owners, over one-fifth acquired land between 1990 and 1994 alone (Birch 1996). Many undoubtedly inherited land. Amacher and others (1998), for example, found that almost one-quarter of Virginia's NIPF owners had obtained their land through inheritance. Jacobson (1998) reported the same situation for three-tenths of Florida NIPF owners.

The acreage and number of all private timberland tracts in the South increased at a moderate rate between 1978 and 1994, while average tract size decreased. During that period, all private timberland ownerships increased by nearly a third, or 1.1 million units. Acreage held in tracts of less than 10 acres increased by 51 percent. Other acreage changes included: 10-99 acre tracts (+25 percent); 100-499 acre tracts (-15 percent); 500 to 999 acre tracts (-9 percent); 1000+ acre tracts (+9 percent) (Moulton and Birch 1995). As reported in Chapter HLTH-1, the acreage of NIPF timberland alone increased by 4 percent between 1989 and Forest industry acreage declined by 3 percent during the same period. For a comprehensive review of changes and trends in forest land and timber land over the past 50 years, see Chapter HLTH-1.

By 1994, about two-thirds of all private timberland tracts were smaller than 10 acres. Together, however, these small tracts accounted for only 4 percent of the South's total private timberland acreage. The majority of all timberland (70 percent) was held in tracts of at least 100 acres, by less than 6 percent of all owners. Tracts over 500 acres alone represented nearly half the total private timberland acreage (Birch 1996).