-- Dennis Haldeman

Using Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act (RPA) assumptions and projections and the Southern Regional Timber Supply (SERTS) model, Fred Cubbage of the North Carolina State University in Raleigh has projected horrifying and inconsistent scenarios for the future of our remaining native forests. The following statistics are taken from Cubbage’s report to the South Carolina Forestry Association (dominated by pulp and paper interests).

Estimates for 1991 through 2010

• Wood pulp production will increase by 16%
• Total US wood fiber consumption will increase from 85.6 million tons to 114.2 tons.
• US paper, board, and structural panel board production is projected to increase 33%.
• Southern lumber an panelboard production is expected to increase proportionately more than national trends.
• RPA projects very large increases of 59% in Southern hardwood removals and softwood removals to increase by 19%.
• Softwoods have been over cut in the south by 12% annually since 1991.
• Total Southern forest consumption is projected to increase 61% compared to the national increase of 8%.
• Nationally, almost all (90%) the increased softwood timber cutting is projected to occur in the South as is 70% of the hardwood cutting.

Cubbage notes that there will be large decreases in forest removals on national and other public lands with Non-Industrial Private Forestlands (NIPF) expected to almost entirely bear the brunt of industry demands. He admits freely that the forest industry has already severely over cut its own lands.

The latest projections from Auburn University indicate that the area of pine plantations in the South is to increase by 77.7% from 23.03 million acres today to 40.92 million acres by 2010. This near doubling has moved up by three decades from previous estimates of plantation conversions. RPA assumed a 74% increase in plantation growth rates while Cubbage calls that "an optimistic assumption when applied to all owner classes and site qualities..." Other studies show declining growth rates in plantations and substantially increasing mortality among softwoods and hardwoods in natural stands.

Activist researchers in Tennessee conclude that information is conflicting, unavailable, confusing, and manipulated by various agencies for needed findings of their special interest timber groups. Nonetheless, it was concluded that chip induced cutting has increased in Tennessee by 150% in just seven years, virtually all from private lands. In his report, Cubbage indicates that sawtimber prices will double, in real terms, within a couple of decades and that an attempt to stabilize forest inventories and supplies "will require NIPF landowners to make timber investments at a rate unparalleled in our history," Cubbage assumes that the higher prices induced from over-cutting and attendant shortages will make intensive timber management for NIPFs more attractive than before. He goes on to urge his colleagues to join with him to push NIPF owners to "achieve the promised holy grail of wise forest management and enhanced public trust, at the same time we increase the frequency of timber harvest and intensity of landscape manipulation."

NOTE: The national forests will become differentiated from these "working forests" more and more. The future role of the National Forests as recreational, research and recovery areas is more widely recognized.