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Conditions of Southern Forests

The strong regional identity of the South belies its broad ecological and cultural diversity. Its landscape is a patchwork of land uses and forest conditions. Social and ecological systems do not develop in isolation, and the use of land and ecosystems has had a longstanding influence on economic systems as well as on other aspects of life and livelihood in the South. The region’s diversity and complexity of landscape, economics, and culture also preclude general statements and prescriptions regarding southern forests.

The South has been a heavily worked landscape. Its forests are, almost without exception, the result of multiple disturbances and land use changes. Nearly every forested acre in the South has been harvested at least once in the last two centuries. Prior to European settlement, Native Americans modified the composition and structure of forests with fire and crop cultivation. Following European settlement, three historical epochs in land use and resource extraction both shaped the region’s landscape and influenced its cultural history. They provide lessons regarding exploitation, management, and renewal.

Agricultural exploitation on a landscape scale began in the 17^th century and reached its zenith in the late 19^th century as a vast cotton industry stretched from the Atlantic to Texas. Other crops supplanted cotton as the boll weevil ran its course, and all have had influences on the land. A second epoch involving widespread timber exploitation in the first part of the 20th century had its roots in the disposal of a large public domain in the years immediately after the Civil War. The timber industry migrated to the South after timber stocks were depleted in the Lake States. Some 20 years of extensive logging heavily depleted southern timber stocks. By the beginning of the Great Depression, much of the region was forest-resource poor and its soil greatly degraded. Wholesale land abandonment followed and set the stage for the third epoch, a 40-year period of regrowth of southern forests.

Current conditions and opportunities reflect this history of use. For example, much of the natural pine area originated from the seeding of abandoned agricultural fields. Settlement and agricultural development permanently displaced various wildlife species and led to extinctions. Current sediment loads in many streams are largely the result of agricultural activities and logging in the 19th century. These sediment loads continue to influence aquatic ecosystems.

The South is now a heavily forested region. Forests cover more than 60 percent of most States (fig. 3). Agriculture dominates on the upper Atlantic Coastal Plain, the Mississippi Alluvial Valley, the Interior Plateau, and the Ridge and Valley regions of Tennessee and Virginia. Elsewhere, forests cover an even greater share of the landscape.

The broad ranges of ecological conditions that comprise the region demonstrate that its forests are diverse (fig. 4). Their productivity and sensitivity to change vary greatly, reflecting continued reshaping in response to several modern forces of change.

Figure 4—Ecological sections of the South.

In the sections that follow, we examine how several forces of change have shaped and may continue to shape the forests of the South. Forces of change include social, biological, and physical forces. We then examine the history, status, and possible future of southern forests in four different dimensions: social and economic systems, forest area and conditions, terrestrial ecosystems, and aquatic ecosystems. We conclude by examining the broad implications of these findings and list major knowledge gaps and scientific uncertainties.

In all sections, the Technical Report is the source of all of our findings. Accordingly, individual sections that follow refer to the specific chapters in the Technical Report from which the findings are drawn, as shown in table 1. For example, chapter 6 is the first chapter in the Social and Economic Systems section, which addresses the question: “How have land uses changed in the South, and how might changes in the future affect the area of forests?” Each section is keyed to the chapters that are primary sources of findings. The individual chapters provide indepth analysis of the issues and extensive citations to primary references on each topic and should be reviewed for more detailed information. [Where relevant, links to figures in this report will launch a new window containing the figure from the originating chapter in the Technical Report. --editor]