Forest statistics of the United States, 1987.

Abstract

The Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act (RPA) of 1974 (88 Stat. 476 as amended) directs the U.S. Department of Agricutture to conduct a comprehensive assessment of all forest and range land resources on both public and private lands. Forest resource data collected from periodic surveys in each State and Forest Service Region were entered into a database management system, compiled, and summarized for the United States. Tables include information on area, volume, removals, and timber product outputs. This paper extracts sections of the 1989 RPA Assessment document.

An analysis of the timber situation in the United States: 1989-2040

“…A substantial amount of vested for pulpwood. This represents nearly 27% of total fuelwood is self-cut by households and comes from nonroundwood timber production (Waddell et al 1989: growing stock sources that do not otherwise produce veneer logs is over three times higher than the price paid products. The value of the total roundwood production in the United States was over $5 billion, with $4.8 billion attributable to softwood products and less than $1 billion to hardwood roundwood products (McKeever and Jackson 1990: table B-1).…”

“…areas potentially available for harvest of trees, but not capable of producing crops of industrial wood. Fir-spruce forests in interior Alaska and pinyon-juniper forests in the Rocky Mountain Region together account for 112 million acres of these forests with low potential for industrial wood product production (Waddell et al 1989: Recent inventories of timberlands throughout the United States indicate that 11 O/ O of the Nation's timberlands can produce in excess of 120 cubic feet of industrial roundwood per acre annually. The South-largely the loblolly-shortleaf pine, oak-pine, oak-hickory, and oak-gum-cypress forests in the South Central Regionaccounts for 45% of these highly productive timberlands ( fig.…”

“…And timberlands are now, as in the past, a minor part of the total forest area in the West, although timberland does constitute more than half of all forest land in Oregon and Washington in the Pacific Northwest region, and Colorado, Montana, and Idaho in the Rocky Mountains (table 36, Waddell et al 1989: in the millions, and represent the diversity of the Nation. Private forest industry holdings are excluded from this broad owner class.…”

“…Loblolly and shortleaf pines total 69 billion cubic feet or 66% of all softwood timber volume in the South and 46% of all softwood volume in the East (Waddell et al 1989: The hardwoods of the East are numerous, and their unique characteristics warrant tracking many of them as separately identifiable species (Waddell et al 1989: table 12). The oaks total 98 billion cubic feet.…”

“…Detailed regional and state level statistics for the Nations's timberland resources are provided in Waddell et al 1989. The data supporting this chapter were derived from the periodic forest inventories conducted by the regional Forest Experiment Stations and the Forest Service Administrative Regions.…”