Private forest-land owners of the Northern United States, 1994

Characterizing the historical process of private forestland ownership parcelization and aggregation in the Missouri Ozarks, USA, from 1930 to 2000

“…For the four counties that covered more than 75% of the study area (Iron, Madison, Reynolds, and Wayne county), the total population increase was low in the past, from 40 226 in 1930 to 42 445 in 2000, which was a 5.5% increase in 70 years (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1931Census, , 2000. As with most forestland in Missouri, the study area has been under the pressure of ownership parcelization in the last few decades (Birch, 1996;Hahn & Spencer, 1991).…”

“…Forestland owned by small-scale non-industrial private owners has been rapidly increasing in the United States, which has drastically changed the socio-economic and ecological aspects of the forest landscape (Birch, 1996;Butler & Leatherberry, 2004;Butler, 2008;Dennis, 1992;Germain, Brazill, & Stehman, 2006;Pan, Zhang, & Butler, 2008;Yaffee, Frentz, Hardy, Maleki, & Thorpe, 1996). In the contiguous United States, approximately 56% of the total forestland is privately owned, and 61% of the private family forest owners own less than 4 ha (10 acres) of forestland (Butler, 2008).…”

Forecasting landscape-scale, cumulative effects of forest management on vegetation and wildlife habitat: A case study of issues, limitations, and opportunities

“…Existing GIS coverages are available to (1) distinguish private lands from public lands, (2) distinguish forest land from nonforest, and (3) in some cases to distinguish conifer cover from hardwoods. We used those data layers to map the location of private forest ownerships and then used state-level data on the frequency distribution of ownership sizes (Birch, 1996) to create and overlay a hypothetical, ownership grid with approximately the same frequency distribution of parcel sizes. We used the intersection of ownership boundaries and mapped ecological landtypes to define locations for private land management units (i.e., a substitute for stand boundaries).…”

Farm woodlots in northern New England, USA: Characteristics, management, and contributions to the whole farm system

“…New Hampshire was the only state in northern New England in which the number of forestland owners and the amount of forest acreage have decreased during the period 1978-1994 3 (Table 1), and the amount of forestland area in that state appears to continue to erode, primarily due to development 2 .…”

“…For example, Birch 3 found that approximately 42% of the private forest landowners in the northeast US owned forestland primarily because it was 'part of the farm' or 'residence'. These ownerships were generally smaller than 30 acres.…”