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Social Institutions

Primary Question (chapter 8): How do current policies, regulations, and laws affect forest resources and their management?

Related Question (chapter 22): What are the implementation rates and effectiveness of BMPs in the South?

Various social institutions organize people’s use of land and resources and therefore affect the structure of forests. Laws and regulations define objectives and prescribe administrative procedures for management of public land. Laws passed by various jurisdictions also influence management of private forest land. Public programs administered through resource management agencies can influence the management and structure of the region’s forests.

We evaluated the influences of various social institutions on forest uses and forestry decisions in the South. We analyzed effects of taxes, land use regulations, government subsidies, and forest management standards (chapter 8) and found that:

• The current income tax code has mixed impacts on long-term investments in forestry; inheritance taxes can encourage forest liquidation and land parcelization.

• Incentives programs that subsidize tree planting on private land have a long and successful history in the South. This suggests that subsidies can increase forest area and change forest conditions. New programs with explicit wildlife and environmental objectives now complement the older programs that focused exclusively on timber production.

• In urbanizing areas, a proliferation of local regulations affecting land use and forest management can be seen as one reaction to forest losses and to increasing scarcity of green space. Local regulations affecting forest uses more than doubled in the South between 1992 and 2000. Expanding populations and development will likely continue this trend. Regulatory uncertainty can discourage long-term investments in forest land.

• While still influencing a relatively small portion of the region, conservation easements and outright purchases of important habitats are becoming increasingly common in the South. This approach can be used to protect wildlife habitats at broad scales on private landscapes.

• Compared to the number of regulatory statutes that apply to Federal and State land, relatively few are specifically directed at managing private forests. In the vast majority of situations, forestry is affected only when certain activities are feared to have the potential to impair water quality, air quality, or critical habitat for endangered species (chapter 8).

• Most forestry operations are exempted from the permit requirements of Federal and State nonpoint-source pollution programs. Although provisions exist to encourage operators to meet voluntary BMPs and to bring polluters into compliance, these rely more heavily on education and technical assistance than on fines and penalties (chapter 8).

• More often than not, implementation and enforcement duties for Federal protective regulatory statutes have been delegated to the States (chapter 8).

• A combination of factors—including strong markets, private ownership, good market information, and widespread mitigation of wildfire risk—has generated a positive environment for forest investment in the South. A strong competitive advantage explains the large investments wood products industries have made in forests and processing capacity in the South (chapter 10). Investment opportunities for intensive forest management and wood product manufacture have improved relative to other regions of the United States, especially over the last 15 years (chapter 15).