Private Forestland Research Articles

Stewardship Ecosystem Services Study: Carbon Stores on Florida Forest Stewardship Program Lands

Nonindustrial private forestlands in Florida provide many environmental benefits, or ecosystem services. Ecosystem services are benefits from nature that are directly enjoyed, consumed, or used by humans, such as water quality improvement or protection, recreation, biodiversity, and even timber. Another benefit from forests that is gaining interest is their ability to store carbon through the photosynthetic capture of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, in tree, plant, and soil biomass. The carbon dioxide that is stored over the life of a forest, called carbon stocks, is not only important for mitigating greenhouse gas contributions to climate change, but it can also be valued in several markets and incorporated into environmental policy instruments. This 5-page fact sheet was written by Nilesh Timilsina, Francisco J. Escobedo, Alison E. Adams, and Sonia Delphin, and published by the UF Department of School of Forest Resources and Conservation, October 2013. http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fr384

Methods Of Forest Law-Making

Within the United States, natural forestland is a precious and unique resource providing timber for construction and paper, a habitat for wildlife, as well as recreation areas and aesthetic value for visitors. The fact that a large portion of forestland in the United States is privately owned and not subject to uniform federal control exacerbates the potential conflict between each of these uses as well as the decision to convert forestland to farmland. This article reviews the development, goals, and various state legal instruments, or “methods,” of private forestland management that directly influence forested property in private ownership. The current state methods can be summarized as: (1) the prescription or regulation of forest practices by statutory and common law constructs; (2) the furnishing of incentives to encourage desirable behavior, and the assessment of charges to discourage undesirable behavior; and (3) the encouragement of voluntary measures that promote land-management practices preferred by the public. Through thorough, objective analysis of the benefits and drawbacks of each of these methods, the author judges the efficacy and likely future implementation of these methods by state legislators and regulators.Ownership of private commercial timberland can be categorized into three general groups: agriculture, wood industry, and other private owners. These three groups are quite disparate in their interests and practices. Legislation that attempts to control privately owned forestland primarily addresses the goal of promoting forest regeneration for sustained timber production. Additionally, it seeks to protect forestland resources, wildlife habitat, and soil and water quality. Finally, and most controversially, a recent trend is the recognition of recreation and aesthetics as legitimate goals of private forestland management legislation. However, upon analysis of the legislation from five states which explicitly include protection of forest aesthetic or recreational value as a legislative goal, as well as the law of Oregon which mentions aesthetics in the context of protecting scenic views from highways, it is clear that aesthetics are not given much protection in practice under such legislative schemes.Regulations are widespread, but certainly not uniform. They attempt to specify the uses a private owner may make of forestland without violating constitutional restrictions against the taking of private property without just compensation. Conflicting goals, differing agency structures, and changing political climates are disadvantages to the regulation method. As incentives are politically more palatable than direct regulation, they are often more readily enforceable, and therefore more efficient than direct regulation. Many states utilize a system of tax incentives to achieve a wide range of goals, and it is likely that – along with other forms of incentives – they will be used more often in the future. However, little use is made of disincentives, measures that make the undesirable activity more difficult or more costly, such as environmental charges. Opportunities exist for state legislatures to employ environmental charges to discourage undesirable activities much like the bottle-bill legislation influences people not to discard bottles into non-recycling facilities. The benefits of disincentives include greater compliance, administrative ease, and efficiency. They could be more profitably utilized that is presently the case.Voluntary programs can also be extremely effective, as has been demonstrated by the results of avid, mostly voluntary recycling in Germany and Denmark. Common elements of effective voluntary programs are: public conviction that the programs are worthwhile; widespread compliance among similarly situated people; and ease of compliance. Although not a primary method of private forestland management, voluntary compliance schemes may become more important in the future, as the public's desire to protect and to preserve the environment increases.

The effectiveness of state preferential property tax programs in conserving forests: Comparisons, measurements, and challenges

Forest property taxes have been identified as one of the major driving forces behind forest loss and parcelization. Among various policy alternatives for reducing the burden of forest property taxes on landowners, preferential property tax programs have been widely used across states. Existing research has mostly focused on individual property tax programs, particularly those based on current use valuation, while little has been done to document, analyze and compare programs across states. By examining survey data from state preferential property tax program administrators across the United States, this paper describes the commonalities and differences among states regarding their preferential property tax programs, provides a preliminary understanding of the relationship between state preferential property tax policy and trends in private forest conditions, and identifies issues related to the effectiveness of state preferential property tax programs and private forest land management and conservation. Our analysis revealed three fundamental disconnects: (1) Program attributes that were previously considered to be important for preferential property tax programs to be effective in retaining forest land and fostering management did not consistently correlate with program effectiveness as viewed by the administrators of these programs; (2) These program attributes did not consistently correlate with actual program effectiveness as measured at the state level by forest trend indicators used in this study (i.e., change in private forest land cover, change in average size of private forest holdings, extent to which private forest land is being actively managed); and (3) The self-assessed program effectiveness did not consistently correlate with actual program effectiveness, either. The various ways in which the effectiveness of preferential property tax programs is defined and measured contribute to explaining these disconnects. It is particularly important for researchers and policy makers to be explicit about how they define and measure effectiveness and the scale on which they conduct their analysis before assessing and comparing programs or suggesting improvement strategies.

Using Nonmarket Valuation to Target Conservation Payments: An Example Involving Georgia's Private Forests

Using landscape analysis and economic valuation, this article shows how valuation techniques can inform prioritization of private forestland for ecosystem service conservation and highlights the methodological challenges in doing so. We classify forests according to six ecological and social characteristics. If ecosystem service priorities are known a priori, this landscape analysis might be sufficient for targeting conservation efforts. However, if priorities are not known or there are multiple priorities, economic valuation techniques can be used to estimate preference weights to prioritize forests based on the benefits of the ecosystem service provided. We create priority conservation maps using two different valuation methods: benefit transfer and an original stated choice experiment. The two approaches result in significantly different priority maps, largely due to how the two methods operationalize value. These differences underscore the importance of carefully evaluating the methodological implications of using a particular valuation technique

Managing private forestlands along the public–private interface of Southern Illinois: Landowner forestry decisions in a multi-jurisdictional landscape

Private forest landowners in the southernmost region of Illinois operate within a multijurisdictional, intermixed public–private landscape. As such, they operate within the context of traditionally studied drivers of forest management on private lands, but also manage their lands within the context of the contentious debate about how the Shawnee National Forest is managed. We posited that this debate about the management of public land could affect forest management actions on private parcels. We also studied the effects of traditional drivers in private forest landowner research: land characteristics, demographics, and landowner objectives. Mail survey results for private forest landowners in the southernmost 11 counties of Illinois were used to examine the factors influencing the adoption of four actions: seeking advice from a forester, obtaining a written forest management plan, doing a commercial timber harvest, and implementing timber stand improvement. Results highlighted that traditional personal factors—financial objectives and parcel size—were strongly related to forest landowner management action adoption. Landowners' actions were largely independent of proximity to the Shawnee National Forest and largely independent of overall satisfaction with Shawnee National Forest management. In the context of decreasing parcel size and generally low financial objectives for private forestland parcels, we emphasize the need for policy and practice to better adapt to address these trends in order to maintain sustainable forest management across the landscape.

Prioritizing Ecosystem Service Protection and Conservation Efforts in the Forest Plantations of the Red Hills

We use a stated choice experiment to estimate household willingness-to-pay for a program providing incentives to private forest land owners in the Red Hills region of southwest Georgia and northwest Florida. The estimated values of various program attributes inform a landscape analysis that identifies high-priority private forest land that could be targeted for conservation incentives. Households report an increase in utility from the program when it explicitly identifies a target ecosystem-service priority. Also, inclusion of stated preference values in the prioritization plan highlights a potential scarcity effect that has important implications for conservation targeting.

The future of public forests: An institutional blending approach to forest governance in England

Early in 2011, the Government initiated a consultation on the potential sale of the Public Forest Estate in England. This proposal leads to vociferous negative public reaction and the consultation was withdrawn and an Independent Panel established. This paper reviews the arguments as to the options and appropriate institutional arrangements for forest management. The Government's proposal reflected a continuing focus on neoliberalisation. However, we argue that discussion of neoliberalism has become excessively broad and contradictory and we set the debate about the PFE in the context of institutional blending. First we consider whether forestry operations might be more efficient if held under private ownership and the role of contracting out forest and recreational activities on the estate. Forest land produces multiple outputs, including both private and public goods. After briefly reviewing the ways in which the state can regulate environmental management of private forest land, we consider alternative types of private ownership and their potential contributions to forest governance. Appropriate institutions will depend on the public objectives and circumstances of particular locations and we briefly outline alternative arrangements suited to particular contexts. Finally we reflect on the outcome of the review and on the role of the Forestry Commission in contemporary circumstances.

Erratum to ‘Identifying policy target groups with qualitative and quantitative methods: the case of wildfire risk on nonindustrial private forest lands’ [Forest Policy and Economics 25 (2012) 62–71

Erratum to ‘Identifying policy target groups with qualitative and quantitative methods: the case of wildfire risk on nonindustrial private forest lands’ [Forest Policy and Economics 25 (2012) 62–71

Where Is the Carbon? Carbon Sequestration Potential from Private Forestland in the Southern United States

Uncertainty surrounding the future supply of timber in the southern United States prompted the question, “Where is all the wood?” (Cubbage et al. 1995). We ask a similar question about the potential of southern forests to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by sequestering carbon. Because significant carbon sequestration potential occurs on individual nonindustrial private forest (NIPF) lands owned by individuals, the accuracy of projections depends on how NIPF landowners respond to prices and their ability and willingness to participate in carbon offset programs. Striving to produce a more realistic assessment of the potential for southern forests to sequester carbon in response to future markets or policies, we use National Woodland Owner Survey data from the Forest Inventory and Analysis program to link landowner demographic and behavioral data with forest conditions. We also examine barriers to NIPF participation in carbon offset programs and offer recommendations for overcoming those barriers.

Family Forest Owners’ Motivation to Control Understory Vegetation: Implications for Consulting Forestry

Forest vegetation management has evolved as a recognized component of intensive forest management practice. It involves the management of competing vegetation necessary to obtain the high yields expected in modern forest plantations via control of interfering plants that influence regeneration outcome, impact timber stand development, and limit native plant and wildlife diversity. It includes cultural control, fire control, mechanical control, biological control, and chemical control. The public perception of forest vegetation management, especially chemical control, is sometimes negative due to health and environmental concerns. It is an important tool in the forest management alternatives available to consulting foresters managing family forest lands (the vast majority of private forest land in the United States). We report on a study that addresses the motivations of family forest owners that implement forest vegetation management practices and the motivation of those who chose not to implement after forester recommendations to do so. For those who do implement forest vegetation management, improvement of wildlife habitat and increased timber growth was the main motivation. For those who did not, cost was the main concern. Size of forest holding plays a major role in determining who will practice intensive forestry.

Forest Fuel Reduction and Biomass Supply: Perspectives from Southern Private Landowners

Removing excess biomass from fire-hazardous forests can serve dual purposes: enhancing the health and sustainability of forest ecosystems and supplying feedstock for energy production. The physical availability of this biomass is fairly well-known, yet availability does not necessarily translate into actual supply. We assess the perception and behavior of private forestland owners in the southern United States with respect to thinning overstocked forests for bioenergy production. Landowner perception is then integrated with the USDA Forest Service's Fuel Treatment Evaluator to estimate the biomass supply from fuel treatments on non-industrial private timberlands in the region. Due to competing uses for lumber and pulp/paper products, only about one-third of this biomass could be used as bioenergy feedstock. Between 6 and 66% of landowners would consider thinning overstocked forests for bioenergy purposes depending upon whether financial incentives and technical assistance are provided. Accounting for competing uses, landowner willingness, accessibility, and recovery loss, annual feedstock supply from Southern private treatable timberlands is estimated between 0.9- and 11-million dry tonnes (dt). The average production cost is proximately $48/dt. Government cost shares, biomass market development, and technical assistance could significantly stimulate private landowners to procure biomass from fire-hazardous forests while mitigating wildfire risk.

Identifying policy target groups with qualitative and quantitative methods: The case of wildfire risk on nonindustrial private forest lands

Designing policies to harness the potential of heterogeneous target groups such as nonindustrial private forest owners to contribute to public policy goals can be challenging. The behaviors of such groups are shaped by their diverse motivations and circumstances. Segmenting heterogeneous target groups into more homogeneous subgroups may improve the chances of successfully identifying policy strategies to influence their behavior. Findings from a multimethod study of nonindustrial private forest owners in eastern Oregon suggest four unique subgroups of owners with different fuel management motivations and suitabilities for policy tools: commodity managers could benefit from market-based incentives; amenity managers could benefit from capacity building programs paired with symbolic campaigns; recreational managers could benefit from public incentives provided through consultants or contractors who can help plan the work; and passive managers may benefit from opportunities to respond to the policy strategies designed for the other groupings until more information can be gathered. Incorporating qualitative analysis of interview data with statistical analysis of survey data improved understanding of the groupings and appropriate policy strategies for them.

A National Assessment of Public Recreational Access on Family Forestlands in the United States

Private forestlands in the United States are important for public recreation, but access to them may be threatened. Using the US Forest Service's National Woodland Owner Survey, we examined the following questions: (1) How prevalent is public recreational access on family forestland? (2) What influences whether a family forest owner allows public access? (3) Are there regional differences in the supply of public access? We found the provision of public access was modest, with 15% of respondents allowing it. Factors positively correlated with public access provision included owning more forestland, being a resident owner, owning an associated farm/ranch, participating in leasing or timber management activities, possessing a management plan, and allowing private recreational access. Negative factors included posting one's land, having privacy concerns, owning land for hunting, and being an older or more educated owner. Compared with landowners in the North, Southern landowners were less likely and Rocky Mountain landowners more likely to provide public access. Our results raise the question of whether family forest landowners are responsive to public access incentive programs.

Access to Natural Resources on Private Property: Factors Beyond Right of Entry

Discussions of access to natural resources on private lands in the United States often focus on property rights and ownership. In Maine, changing ownership of private forestland has been associated with increased posting against trespass. This raises concerns about the terms of physical entry to land for resource use. While the right of entry is an important component of access to natural resources, other factors also affect access. Building on a theory proposed by Ribot and Peluso (2003), this study of nontimber forest product gatherers and forest landowners/managers in northern Maine examines social and biophysical factors that affect access to natural resources. We consider who is affected by these factors, and suggest ways forward to promote more equitable access to nontimber forest products, especially for Native Americans in the region.

Wildfire Risk Management in a Landscape with Fragmented Ownership and Spatial Interactions

This article examines how the spatial configuration of forest ownership influences risk-mitigating behavior of public and private forestland owners over time. We use a game theoretic framework to examine how the public landowner’s investment in fuel management influences, and is influenced by, decisions made by private forestland owners. We find that spatial configuration and location affect the timing and amount of fuel treatment on the landscape. There is less investment in fuel management on landscapes characterized by fragmented ownerships. We also find that the type of strategic interaction between landowners depends critically on the shape of the wildfire damage function. <i>(JEL Q23, Q24)</i>

Risk and Cooperation: Managing Hazardous Fuel in Mixed Ownership Landscapes

Managing natural processes at the landscape scale to promote forest health is important, especially in the case of wildfire, where the ability of a landowner to protect his or her individual parcel is constrained by conditions on neighboring ownerships. However, management at a landscape scale is also challenging because it requires cooperation on plans and actions that cross ownership boundaries. Cooperation depends on people’s beliefs and norms about reciprocity and perceptions of the risks and benefits of interacting with others. Using logistic regression tests on mail survey data and qualitative analysis of interviews with landowners, we examined the relationship between perceived wildfire risk and cooperation in the management of hazardous fuel by nonindustrial private forest (NIPF) owners in fire-prone landscapes of eastern Oregon. We found that NIPF owners who perceived a risk of wildfire to their properties, and perceived that conditions on nearby public forestlands contributed to this risk, were more likely to have cooperated with public agencies in the past to reduce fire risk than owners who did not perceive a risk of wildfire to their properties. Wildfire risk perception was not associated with past cooperation among NIPF owners. The greater social barriers to private–private cooperation than to private–public cooperation, and perceptions of more hazardous conditions on public compared with private forestlands may explain this difference. Owners expressed a strong willingness to cooperate with others in future cross-boundary efforts to reduce fire risk, however. We explore barriers to cooperative forest management across ownerships, and identify models of cooperation that hold potential for future collective action to reduce wildfire risk.

Tree Farms on Display: Presenting Industrial Forests to the Public in the Pacific Northwest, 1941–1960

The Northwest timber industry faced growing public dismay during the 1940s over the impact of clear-cutting practices on private forest lands, prompting lumber companies to coordinate a comprehensive public relations campaign. Along with producing promotional materials championing logging as an essential regional economic enterprise, the companies invested in planting tree farms on harvested lands. Not only did tree farms help regenerate private timberlands cleared by logging and fire, they also provided visible evidence of the industry's commitment to responsible environmentalism. By inviting the public onto private timberlands and engaging them in the planting of tree farms, the timber industry was able to foster a sense of transparency and communal stewardship. Historian Emily Brock documents the industry's public relations efforts and invites readers to consider the ecological significance of tree farms, particularly those that now hold mature Douglas fir.

Forestland and Timber Donations: Challenging Management Opportunities for Foundations

Over half of the forestland in the United States is in private hands. Just over 10 million individual and family owners control about 60% of this private forestland. Ownership of family forests changes on a regular basis; sometimes from generation to generation and sometimes to outside of the family. Often new owners are not interested in forest management and sell off the asset. Some owners attempt to ensure their family forest remains pristine and undeveloped. This is leading to timberland donations to entities that can be expected to hold the donated forest permanently and ensure sustainable forest management. University foundations and forestry schools are increasingly receiving timberland as donations. It is a way for donors to monetize the asset (with tax breaks) and protect it at the same time. Foundations have a problem with timberland as they often don’t fully understand it as an investment. Certainly there are even times when a foundation should not accept it as a donation. The nature of timberland as an investment is explained, along with basic terminology that is common use. Age class distribution and the resulting cash flow dis- tribution is explained, as well as timber volume, harvest scheduling, timberland investment analysis, tim- ber value, timber sales, and timber contracts. All of these are tools foundation board members need to evaluate timberland donations.

EFFECT OF FORESTLAND AVAILABILITY BY OWNERSHIP TYPE ON LICENSE SALES FOR HUNTING: A SPATIAL APPROACH

Abstract The effect of forestland availability under different ownership types on license sales for hunting in nine Southeastern states is empirically evaluated. An equation that represents license sales for hunting is estimated assuming the sale of hunting licenses in a particular county is related to the characteristics of that county as well as the characteristics and license sales for hunting in its neighboring counties. The positive effects of the amounts of both national and private forestland on license sales reaffirm the potential benefits of maintaining forestland to stimulate hunting. The positive spillover effect of national forests on license sales for hunting suggests that availability and close access to hunting in national forests within neighboring counties are important in supporting hunting license sales in a county. This study contributes to the general understanding of the drivers affecting individuals’ decisions to use natural resources for hunting. Advances in natural resource modeling, specifically the spatial process model and geospatial data used in this research, make it possible to examine the interactions between the spatial dynamics and ownership attributes of the natural system, allowing policy makers to design natural resource management practices that respond to a system characterized by these interactions.

Consulting Forestry / Certification and Ecosystem Services

Abstract 45The industrialization of the United States throughout the 19th century resulted in the exploitation of millions of acres of timberland across the country. Logging during that era was described by critics as “cut out and get out” because the land was usually abandoned after the merchantable timber was exhausted. Concern about future timber supplies and the effect of logging on watersheds spurred the development of professional forestry after the Civil War. The first forestry leaders, including Bernhard Fernow and Gifford Pinchot, encouraged private non-industrial forest owners to sustainably manage their woodlands and specifically warned against destructive logging practices—including “cutting the best and leaving the rest”—aka high-grading. During the 1920s and 30s both the Forest Service and SAF spurred initiatives to encourage sustainable timber harvesting practices on private forestland. Although great progress has been made in forest management, logging on most private non-industrial forest land in the east has not changed significantly since the 19th century. Landowners usually sell timber without using the services of a forester, allowing the buyer to selectively cut the most valuable trees in the woodlot. Although this can reduce future value by 70-90%, it remains common practice because both the landowner and the timber buyer maximize short term income. The timber value and productivity of millions of acres of woodland throughout the United States have been significantly degraded as a result. This paper will trace the history of high-grading as described by forestry leaders from the 19th century through the 21st and will show that much work remains unfinished.