Sustainable Southern Wood

by Larry Tombaugh, Dean Emeritus of the College of Natural Resources at N.C. State University

With all that has happened recently, it is refreshing to read a government report that contains mostly good news. A week ago the federal government issued the Southern Forest Resource Assessment. The message in its Executive Summary: the total area of forests in the South has declined very little over the past 100 years and is not likely to do so in the foreseeable future.

The authors of this timely study identified 23 commonly expressed public concerns about the sustainability of our Southern forests. Experts from the U.S. Forest Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Tennessee Valley Authority and state forestry agencies then systematically addressed each of these concerns in a series of scientific studies that took more than two years to complete.

Their conclusion that we are not running out of forests is truly remarkable in light of all the pressures on our forestlands since the arrival of the first European settlers. The first major push was to clear land for agriculture. Over a 300-year period, practically every forested acre in the South was cut down to make way for agriculture or to provide timber for a growing nation.

In the 1930’s, land that could no longer support agriculture began to revert to forests in a significant way. At the same time, the young profession of forestry began to have a positive impact on the conservation and scientific management of forests.

As a consequence, there has been almost no net change in the total acres of forested lands over the past century. The area now in forests is 91 percent of that in 1907. It has hardly changed at all since the 1970’s, although some Southern states have experienced net losses while others have gained.

Urbanization has replaced agricultural land clearing as the major source of pressure on our forests. The rate of land developed for urban uses in the South increased from about 667,000 acres per year between 1982 and 1992 to about 1.1 million acres per year between 1992 and 1997.

Increased urbanization will negatively affect wildlife, water quality and recreational opportunities. The study anticipates that 12 million acres of forestland will be lost to urbanization over the next 20 years. North Carolina will particularly pay a price for being a great place to live, because it will lose forestland to urban development. Citizens will need to be insistent that parks and open space be preserved amid the onslaught of urban development.

Another source of pressure on forests comes from the forest products industry. This region produces nearly 60 percent of the U.S. Wood output. Furthermore, the industry is located in areas where economic opportunities are limited. It provides good-paying jobs in rural areas throughout the South. But is the industry in the process of depleting our forests?

The Southern Forest Resource Assessment concludes that, even at an assumed industry growth rate of 1.6 percent per year, the industry will not deplete the forest. In fact, it projects that hardwood inventory for timber production will be roughly the same in 2040 as it is now, and softwood inventory will actually increase. That is, the study anticipates that there will be more timber in the South in 40 years than there is now.

This is largely because pine plantings are projected to increase from 32 million acres to about 54 million acres. Pine plantations incorporate the most sophisticated advances in forest science, so they are extremely productive and highly managed forests. It is interesting to note that the current 32 million acres categorized as pine plantations represent only 15 percent of the total forested acres throughout the South. The other 85 percent are those that most people think of as "natural forests."

Timber harvesting does change the structure of forests, as noted in the Assessment, but "strong timber markets in the South have also encouraged landowners to keep land in forest cover, to convert agricultural land to forest uses, and otherwise invest in silvicultural activities." The report projects that 10 million acres will actually be added to the forest resource base, largely because of tree planting on agricultural lands. This will come close to offsetting the projected losses from urbanization.

The authors do identify several areas of concern that deserve attention by the public and professional resource managers. The major message, however, is that the forestland base of the South should remain fairly stable for at least the next 40 years.

Ownership patterns, species composition and locations of forests will continue to shift in response to changing pressures as they have for three centuries. The good news, though, is that the South is not running out of healthy, productive forests.

This article appeared in the Raleigh News & Observer on December 3, 2001.