Economics of Southern Pines With and Without Payments for Environmental Amenities in the US South

Karuna Paudel,Puneet Dwivedi

doi:10.3389/ffgc.2021.610106

Abstract

During the early 1900s, nearly 37 million hectares of land in the Southern United States were under longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) relative to the current area of 1.6 million hectares. This study compares the economics of southern pines (longleaf, loblolly (Pinus taeda), and slash (Pinus elliottii)) to facilitate the decision making of family forest landowners and design suitable financial incentives for increasing the area under longleaf pine in the region. We simulated six growth and yield scenarios for selected southern pines over three site indices in the Lower Coastal Plain of South Georgia. We estimated land expectation values (LEVs) of each scenario for the three cases, i.e., payment for forest products, payment for forest products and net carbon storage, and payment for forest products, net carbon storage, and net water yield. Our findings show that pine straw income significantly increases the LEV of longleaf pine. The financial risk of growing longleaf pine is lower than that of other southern pines. Existing financial support through various governmental incentives or additional monetary support for ecosystem services provided by longleaf pine ecosystems is needed to increase the area under longleaf pine in the Southern United States, in general, and in South Georgia, in particular. However, a need exists to reevaluate the conservation values provided by longleaf plantations considering expected shorter rotation ages due to the income provided by pine straw markets in Southern United States.

Highlights

Out of 310 million hectares of forestlands in the United States, 26 million hectares are under plantations, out of which 19 million hectares are in the Southern United States alone (Miles, 2019)
The Mean Annual Increment (MAI) for all species increased with the increase in the site index (Figure 3)
We used a similar set of assumptions for understanding differences in profitability across southern pines

Summary

Introduction

Out of 310 million hectares of forestlands in the United States, 26 million hectares are under plantations, out of which 19 million hectares are in the Southern United States alone (Miles, 2019). Several studies have noted that longleaf pine is more resilient to the expected climate changes as it can grow in dry and wet conditions, has a higher fire-tolerant capacity, and is resistant to beetle infestation (Van Lear et al, 2005; Oswalt et al, 2012; Samuelson et al, 2014). This could decrease the financial risk posed by changing climate for southern family forest landowners

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Conclusion