Oral Abstract Details

Author(s):
Brett J. Butler and Stephanie Snyder

Affiliation:
USDA Forest Service

Presentation Type:
Oral

Topic Area:
Monitoring and predicting human influences on landscapes and ecosystems

Abstract Text:
The fate of the forest lies largely in the hands of those who control it. In the United States, over half of the forestland is privately owned and of this, nearly two-thirds is owned by families and individuals. These proportions increase dramatically across much of the eastern U.S. – 87 percent of the forests in the South is privately owned and 74 percent in the North. Understanding who these landowners are and what they intend to do with their land is critical for understanding the future of the forests. We will use data on landowners’ attitudes and behaviors from the USDA Forest Service’s National Woodland Owner Survey (NWOS) combined with population data from the U.S. Census to investigate differences among forest landowners across the urban to rural spectrum. From the NWOS we know that there are over 11 million private forest owners in the U.S. and that the vast majority of these owners own relatively small parcels of land. This has important has implications, or at least high correlations with, landowners’ attitudes and behaviors. For example, as the size of a forest parcel decreases, the relative importance of amenity values increases, importance of financial objectives decreases, and the probability of managing the land for timber similarly decreases. As we move along the urban-rural spectrum, we see changes in, among other variables, the size of forest holdings; size of holdings is negatively correlated with population density. We will also discuss the implications of projected changes in population density on forest ownership patterns and the resulting consequences for forests.