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The SERTS model seems to assume that all owners are equally likely to harvest their timber or plant pine given certain economic conditions. TMBR-1 section 3 states that an "underlying assumption in SERTS for this Assessment is that timber supply and demand and land use supply and demand relationships remain stable. In that sense, the projections do not account for changes in the share of "available" or harvestable timber out of all timberlands owned by various owner categories." Yet, land ownership in the south is changing. These changes in ownership must be considered in order to accurately determine the projected timber available for harvest and the acreage available for conversion to pine. Assuming that ownership and owner intentions are static variables is unrealistic. -- Draft Report
We have no way of projecting ownership changes, and no reliable research has been able to quantify the effects of changing ownership sizes, much less project them into the future. We leave it up to the reader to decide whether our assumptions are realistic. Also, we stated in the conclusions section that projections get less and less reliable as time into the future is projected: "We caution, therefore, that because these relationships, consumer preferences, technologies, and other factors will change in the future, the reliability of such a projection becomes progressively lower as the time projected into the future increases." -- Final Report
Section 5.1.3 states that the current distribution of these remote or "stand-alone" chip mills is shown in Figure 10. The map gives a false impression of the magnitude of the wood chipping industry by only identifying the locations of satellite chip mills. For example, there are at least four chip mills in Tennessee that are omitted from Figure 10. (see comment letter for locations) This map should include all chip mills, regardless of whether they are "stand alone" facilities or attached to a processing facility. -- Draft Report
As you stated, these are associated with a processing facility. You can obtain locations of the other chippers by looking at the map of pulpmills. In the revised manuscript, I indicated this fact in the text in discussing the chip mill map. -- Final Report
The final report needs to address the following issues: (1) Today there are hundreds of concentration yards serving satellite chip mills and expanding their sourcing areas which further "encourages harvesting in areas not previously subject to harvesting and encouraging clearcutting"; (2)Chip mills process about 27% of the pulpwood in the south in 1999 - where does the other 73% of the pulpwood go? The distinction between satellite chip mills and chip mills attached to processing facilities is irrelevant here because pulpwood is wood that is used for the production of pulp and chipping is a primary step in that process. It therefore seems, by definition, that 100% of pulpwwod is processed by chip mills. -- Draft Report
I inserted a clarifying statement in the report about the origin of the rest of the furnish for these plants."Note that the remainder of the material used by pulpmills is processed as chips onsite at pulpmills and panel mills, arriving there as roundwood." -- Final Report
Roundwood harvests for pulpwood comprises 71% of the wood received at pulpmills and it is an error to say that "By 1998, residues accounted for over half of the volume of both softwood and hardwood fiber received at the gates of pulpmills and composite panel mills." -- Draft Report
You are correct. I have made the correction in the revised manuscript, citing Johnson and Steppleton (2000, p. 9). -- Final Report
The figure that only 3% of the wood produced in the south is used for fuelwood (biomass) needs to be explained. Biomass energy has already been estimated to be consuming more of the forests annually than the pulp and paper or building products industries. The pulp and paper industry produces 70% of the nation's current bioenergy from forest based fuels. The southern US is responsible for 50% of the nation's forest based bioenergy. -- Draft Report
You are confused. Biomass energy produced by the pulp and paper industry and the building industries is made by burning the residue of the pulp and sawmilling--mostly, sawdust, bark, and other unusable materials. This is part of the volume "lost" by manufacturing and is not "firewood" as classified by FIA. I make no change to the manuscript. -- Final Report
According to the most recent data from the USDA "Assessment of Timber Product Output and Use" for all southern states except Texas, pulpwood accounts for 47% of output, sawlogs for 42%, veneer 8%, composite panels 2%, and other industrial uses 2%. This data makes it very misleading to say that "..the importance of sawmills, especially those manaufacturing hardwood lumber and veneer, has risen or been maintained." -- Draft Report
I have reworded that sentence to read: "Hence, in contrast to the trend toward more wood products derived from pulpwood, which doubled in importance between 1954 and 1996, the importance of sawmills, especially those manufacturing hardwood lumber and veneer, has remained constant." This addresses your comment. -- Final Report
A pine plantation is defined as a forest type; thus these pine plantations are forest types that have even less stocking than other forests. There is no requirement for diversity and no requirement for understory. By the SFRA definition even large residential yards with 5 trees could be considered forestland. SFRA needs to make a clear statement about what constitutes a forest and why a pine plantation is considered a forest instead of a crop, and make a clear statement about the biological diversity of pine plantations. -- Draft Report
This is beyond the purview of my chapter. -- Final Report
All sections need to clearly define what is meant by forest, forestland, and timberland. At times these terms are used almost interchangeably. Throughout the SFRA, there is confusing language that blurs the line between forests and pine plantations. In many cases this blurring causes the reader to consider pine plantations to be a substitute for native forests. It is almost as if this definition was constructed to allow small and large pine plantations to be included in the definition for forests when in fact they should be included as agriculture. Most people define a forest as a complex assemblage of tree species and understory. Understory is not even included in the SFRA definition. -- Draft Report
Done. A reference to Hlth-1 was inserted that provides the definition of each. Also, the timberland term was inserted throughout, since SRTS projects private timberland only. Many people do consider pine plantations to be substitutes for natural forests. Pine plantations are pulled out and highlighted exhaustively throughout the chapter. I leave it up to the reader to decide whether they are perfect substitutes. By summing them together and calling their total "timberland," however, I am "guilty" of this assumed substitutability. However, I merely am following the standards of inventory classifications. I have no comment on the large tree, small tree, and understory issue. That is not the purview of my chapter. -- Final Report
Should note that commercial timber harvesting is oftentimes the most cost-effective means to achieve non-commodity values. -- Draft Report
Not addressed. This is beyond the scope of this chapter. -- Final Report
In Figure 37, the year 2040 is missing on the x-axis label. -- Draft Report
Done -- Final Report
In Figure 12, the map of sawmill locations is incomplete for Oklahoma. We certainly have more than the seven mills shown. If there are mills in the Texas Panhandle that merit being mapped, then you should also show mills throughout the rest of Oklahoma. What do you need from us to make the map more complete? -- Draft Report
Actually, there are seven triangles marking existing mills in Oklahoma in the map. The data were obtained from the Southern Research Station's FIA program. FIA obtained these from the state government of Oklahoma and were based on a 1996 census of sawmills. There were ten mills at that time, four of which had addresses listed as Wright City. A town is marked on the map if it contains at least one mill (this is true for other maps, too), and there were seven towns that contained mills. The state of Oklahoma may have had a size or production threshold that a mill had to meet in order to be listed in the data that they provided to FIA. Hence, any omitted mills in 1996 might have been smaller than that size/production threshold. In the revised maps, we have inserted a note in this Figure (12) and Figure 11 that describes this caveat. -- Final Report
In Figure 7, the source reference is incomplete. -- Draft Report
Done -- Final Report
In Literature Cited, US Dept of Commerce: include "Department" in the parentheses. -- Draft Report
Done -- Final Report
In 5.1.3, Southern Supply and Demand History and Status, 9th paragraph: In the 3rd or 4th sentence, use "encourages" instead of "encouraging". -- Draft Report
Done -- Final Report
In part 3, Methods, second paragraph, "Figure 1" should be in parentheses. -- Draft Report
Done -- Final Report
In part 2, Introduction, 4th sentence: "harvests" should be singular. -- Draft Report
Done -- Final Report
I find it hard to believe that it will be year 2040 before the softwood growth in Louisiana reaches the level of softwood harvest developed by the FIA for the years 1984-1991. I would recommend that this chapter be re-done beginning with some projections that more closely resemble the best estimate of the growth and removals situation, by state, for year 1995. -- Draft Report
Redoing the projections would not be feasible at this time. -- Final Report
In Louisiana and Mississippi the 1995 softwood growth shown in the draft assessment report is quite close to the growth shown in the preceding FIA survey period. This could be a minor modeling problem but I would think that the 1995 softwood growth should exceed, not be lower than the average shown for the preceding survey period. I think some discussion is warranted for each state addressing how the softwood growth and removals relates to the latest FIA statement of softwood growth and removals. -- Draft Report
We have inserted a statement about the oldness of FIA data throughout and have referred to Hlth-1, section 3.3, where these survey dates are listed. -- Final Report
In Mississippi, the major problem seems to be large understatement of the 1995 softwood harvest in relation to what the FIA measured the average 1986-1993 harvest to be. I did not find anything in TIMBR-1 which documented how the latest FIA harvest level was adjusted to the year 1995. I think this needs to be done. -- Draft Report
A statement was inserted into the results section (beginning) describing how inaccuracies can develop. We are doing nothing substantive about this. These projections are being constantly updated by Professor Abt. -- Final Report
In Alabama, the softwood harvest shown in your report lines up with my estimation. However, estimating the cubic content of the reported severance in market terms is at best a rough estimation. My estimation of the 1992 cubic content of the reported pine severance is 20% higher than the 1982-1991 average. It would seem that your process has substantially under-estimated the 1995 softwood removals in Alabama. -- Draft Report
See previous comments. -- Final Report
In Louisiana, the Quarterly Report of Forest Products shows that the 1995 softwood sawtimber harvest was 6.6% higher than the 1991 harvest and the 1995 pine pulpwood harvest was 11.4% higher than the 1991 harvest. It is also likely that the 1991 harvest level was higher than the 1984-1991 average although I did not check on this. It appears that your process understates considerably the 1995 softwood harvest in Louisiana. -- Draft Report
See my previous response. -- Final Report
There are reports from across the state (KY) that the diameter of hardwood sawlogs continues to dwindle. Why is there no mention in this large report of the volume of marketable hardwood sawlogs in relation to harvest rate? Will there be a sustainable flow of hardwood sawlogs for the next twenty years, the next 100 years? To omit this kind of data from this study on sustainability is inexcusable, and your conclusion that hardwood growth will exceed harvest for 25 years, even if it is not overestimated, serves only to confuse the issue of sustainability. -- Draft Report
These kinds of details for one particular state are beyond the scope of this report. The FIA data used in projecting Kentucky's harvests of hardwood only examined total volumes, not volumes by sawtimber and pulpwood. However, our figures showing that growth is exceeding removals by large amounts in 1988 seems to support our argument that there is more growing than is being harvested. We are limited by the recency of FIA data. We do not address the issue of sustainability here, except to show that harvests appear to be far below removals for Kentucky. I make no changes to the text in response to this comment. -- Final Report
We are concerned with the quality of the growth data that was used for Kentucky. The growth for the 1987 inventory relies on information gathered in the 1970's. Thus, important data are over 20 years old and dates from a time when maximum growth was occurring as a result of the filling in after the overcutting that devastated Kentucky forests in the 20th century. By using old data from a time of maximum hardwood forest health and growth, and not accounting for increased cull factor and mortality, you are overestimating the growth rate of Kentucky hardwood forests. -- Draft Report
We agree that the oldness of data is an important and critical issue--not only for Kentucky, but for several other states. This fact is beyond our control. We mention this in several places in the revised text. -- Final Report
Somewhat the same picture emerges in regard to softwood growth in that the 1995 softwood growth differs, in some cases quite considerably, from the reported FIA growth in the preceding growth period.With an increase in pine plantations, the softwood growth would show an increase over the average annual growth from the preceding FIA survey period. (see comment letter for data provided by the commenter) -- Draft Report
See my previous response. -- Final Report
I was struck by the disparity between the latest FIA reported softwood harvest levels and those shown on your graphs. I examined the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama most closely since I had done projection work using FIA data for these states. In all these states, the 1995 softwood removal level is well below the average annual softwood removal level reported by the FIA for the preceding survey period. (See comment letter for specific data the commenter supplies) -- Draft Report
Some of this difference is because we projected only private harvests from forests classed as timberland, while FIA measures harvest from all lands, including public and noncommercial forest. Further, the oldness of the MS, AL, and LA surveys, as mentioned in the text, may lead to projection inaccuracies. We have mentioned the problems of old surveys several times in the revised text. Finally, the difference also arises due to the extraordinarily high economic growth. The recession of 2001-2002 would be expected to compensate somewhat for those extraordinary trends. Projections are not meant to exactly match observed (remember, we projected the 1995-2001 period) but to graph out overall trends. -- Final Report
The data on Figure 46 in timbr-1 indicates the 1995-2000 Softwood removals in Mississippi were approximately 640 millionn cubic feet per year. According to the USFS Research Bulletin SO-190 on Table 23 it shows the average annual softwood removal during the period 1987-1993 was 715 million cubic feet of growing stock and Table 49 indicates a removal of 719 million cf of live tree volume. State severance data since 1995 suggests that the harvest level has remained near this level. How was the harvest level of approximately 640 million cubic feet used in the projection developed? -- Draft Report
See my response to the comment in line 24. -- Final Report
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