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Forest Area and Ownership

Primary Question (chapter 16): What are the history, status, and projected future of southern forests?

Related Question (chapter 9): What motivates private forest landowners to manage their forest land, and how are their management objectives formed?

Based on the most recent FIA estimates, the South has more than 214 million acres of forest land. This area of forest is 60 percent of the area of what was likely present in 1630, and 91 percent of what was likely present in 1907 (fig. 31). Since the 1970s, the total area of forest land has remained relatively stable; 218 million acres were present in 1982, and 212 million acres in 1992 (chapter 16).

Ninety-three percent of the South’s forest land is classified as timberland by FIA. While not necessarily managed for timber products, this land has enough physical productivity to make timber production plausible. Also, timberland does not include public lands withdrawn from potential timber harvesting, such as designated wilderness areas. At 201 million acres, the area of timberland has been essentially stable since 1982 when it was 198 million acres. Many of the variables used by FIA to describe the characteristics of forests are recorded only for timberland, and detailed data on forests prior to the 1950s are generally unavailable. Accordingly, much of our description of forests is limited to the timberland portion of the South’s forest area since the early 1950s.

The stability in total area of timberland is the result of considerable area changing both into and out of forest cover. FIA records indicate that, over the past 20 years, as much as 2 to 3 million acres per year have experienced a change either from forest to nonforest or vice versa. These changes have been focused in different parts of the region, with recent losses prevailing in Florida and Louisiana and gains prevailing in Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Kentucky. Between the 1950s and 1990s, Florida had by far the greatest loss of timberland (3.5 million acres or about 19 percent) while Mississippi had the greatest gain (1.7 million acres or about 10 percent). Both Florida and Louisiana have experienced continuous forest loss over the past 50 years.

Timberland is held by a diverse group of owners in the South (fig. 32). Currently, about 11 percent (21.4 million acres) is controlled by various government agencies. The USDA Forest Service manages more than half of this public timberland. The remaining 89 percent of timberland is privately owned. Based on data for all Southern States except Kentucky (Kentucky’s data were not classified in this way), about 22 percent of private timberland is owned by the forest industry, 21 percent by farmers, 12 percent by other corporations, and 45 percent by other individuals.

Figure 32—Distribution of timberland by owner class, Southern United States, 1999.

Ownership distribution is dynamic (fig. 33). For example, the area of timberland owned by forest industry declined by about 1 million acres between the 1980s and 1990s. However, this decline was more than offset by about a 4-million-acre increase in ownership by other corporations. Many of these corporate owners—including Timber Investment Management Organizations or TIMOs—practice a forest management style similar to forest industry so that the net environmental and timber supply implications of a shift from forest industry to TIMO ownership may be minimal (chapter 14). Forest industry’s holdings also shifted westward during this period, with substantial reductions in Florida (681,000 acres) and Georgia (583,000 acres) accompanied by increases in Alabama (591,000 acres), Arkansas (239,000 acres), and Mississippi (209,000 acres). In the 1990s, some of the highest concentrations of industrial ownership were still in the Coastal Plain of Georgia and northern Florida.

The most substantial reduction in forest ownership since the 1950s has been in the farmer-owner category. The amount of timberland held by farmers has declined from 88 million to 35 million acres. Private individuals who do not farm hold an increasing share.

Between 1978 and 1993 the number of forest landowners increased by 12 percent in the South and stood at 4.9 million in 1993. Of these, 84 percent owned tracts smaller than 50 acres. Indications are that this trend continued through the 1990s. The implication is that an increasing share of southern forests is held in smaller parcels (chapter 9).