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Multiple-Use Intentions and Outcomes on Private Land

Private forests provide a wide range of uses and benefits, including timber, watershed maintenance, soil retention, range potential, wildlife habitat, and recreation opportunities. Timber production and nontimber uses are linked in several direct and indirect ways. Timber growing may increase some nontimber benefits, decrease others, or replace existing uses with different ones (Rudis 1988). The multitude of management objectives and ways to achieve them make it difficult to determine the multiple-use intentions of private landowners. Linking multiple-use intentions and outcomes also is difficult because forests managed exclusively for a single use, such as timber growing, still support a range of nontimber benefits.

Industrial owners, FI and TIMOS, manage their land primarily for timber. Despite timber management’s predominance, nontimber uses are recognized in forest management through best management practices. In the end, these industrial forests produce timber while supporting a range of nontimber uses.

NIPF owners are much less uniform in their approaches to forest management. They have multiple objectives, and their actions are far more complex than industrial owners (Conway and others 2000, Dennis 1989, Klein and others 2000, Newman and Wear 1993, Swallow and Wear 1993). Their management approaches range from very intensive management, similar to FI and TIMOS, to an entire disregard of forest management. NIPF owners who value nontimber benefits are less likely to manage their forests for timber production if it reduces these uses. NIPF owners may extend rotations if nontimber services increase with forest age and volume.

Certainly, timber is an important reason for ownership, as is improving the value of land. A comparison of industrial and nonindustrial owners indicates that the behavior of both groups is consistent with profit motives behind forest management (Newman and Wear 1993). But NIPF owners capture significant nontimber benefits, and their behavior differs from FI. They produce proportionally less softwood than their land share would indicate.

Nearly 45 percent of private owners in the South have harvested timber on about 78 percent of forest land (Birch 1997). Owners of 60 percent of forest land plan to harvest timber within 10 years, and owners of only 12 percent of southern forest land declare that they will never harvest. This outcome also indicates that private owners holding most timberland in the region respond to economic incentives and harvest timber at some point in time (Sampson and DeCoster 1997).

Overall, there are about 5 million forest owners in the South (Birch 1997). While corporate owners, which include FI and TIMOS, constitute only 1 percent of all southern owners, they manage nearly 30 percent of southern forests. Nearly 4.7 million NIPF owners manage about 60 percent of southern forest land. Their management intentions depend on personal objectives and financial constraints, which can be inferred from certain characteristics, such as tract size, occupation, and income.

The average size of NIPF forest holding is quite small (Birch 1997). Two-thirds of NIPF tracts are smaller than 10 acres, and three-quarters are smaller than 20 acres. Owners of these small tracts control about 12 percent of forest land in the South. The small size of tracts makes regular forest management more difficult. Small tracts, for example, may be characterized by higher harvesting costs (Comolli 1981). Small tracts, therefore, are associated with lower removals and planting rates (Thompson 1997, 1999; Thompson and Johnson 1996). This forest land is also less likely to be intensively managed for timber in the presence of substantial nontimber benefits. Major purposes of ownership include a place of residence, farming, recreation, and investment (Birch 1997). For a majority of NIPF owners, their forest is a part of their residence, but absentee owners also are common.

Progressing forest fragmentation may have some impact on regional timber production and nontimber uses. Between 1978 and 1994, the number of tracts smaller than 10 acres increased by 50 percent (Birch 1997). The number of new forest owners is expected to increase, and more forest land may be managed less for timber production and more for nontimber uses (Sampson and DeCoster 2000). Moreover, it also is possible that landscapes composed of many small owners with diverging objectives will make the achievement of nontimber uses ranging from wildlife to recreation increasingly difficult.

The shift towards more intensive management and pine plantations raises concerns about nontimber uses and values. Regional impacts of these trends are hard to determine because of the complexity of possible interactions. Pine plantations are criticized for low diversity, increasing herbicide use, and large even-aged stands that provide fewer opportunities for recreation, beauty, and wildlife. These negative outcomes can, to some extent, be mitigated by practicing thinning, prescribed burning, and partial harvesting, extending rotations, reducing herbicide use, and limiting plantation size, while promoting irregular boundaries (Allen and others 1996). Some of these approaches, however, may decrease the efficiency of timber production.

Still, plantations provide nontimber benefits and may even increase their overall provision if, for example, they are established on highly erodible agricultural land. In order to fully assess their impact on nontimber products and benefits, one must consider alternative uses, adjacent land uses, and site-specific needs for nontimber benefits. Today, pine species do not dominate any ecological province in the South (Rudis 1998). It is unlikely that they will ever dominate the region, even though planted pine area is expected to grow because of economic and environmental constraints that will eventually limit their expansion.

Forest owner surveys indicate that approximately 66 million acres are managed primarily for timber, 92 million acres are managed for a range of timber and nontimber uses, and 22 million acres are managed primarily for nontimber uses (Birch 1997, Moffat and others 2001, Siry 1998, Siry and Cubbage 2001, Siry and others 2001). Forests managed primarily for timber still support a range of nontimber uses. Forests managed for nontimber uses probably will produce less timber, but some management actions taken to enhance nontimber uses may produce some timber. Depending on circumstances, planted pine may either reduce or increase the provision of nontimber benefits. In order to determine net effects of increasing planted pine area on nontimber benefits, conditions across other forest types and owner groups throughout the region must be considered. It is apparent that the number of small forest tracks will grow in the future. This trend can make management for timber and nontimber products and uses more difficult.