One Challenge for Improved Forest Management:                                                                  The Case of Small-Tract Land Owners (2020) 

Discussions about environmental sustainability for our Southern timberlands can involve many complex issues. Often the focus tends to be on current and potential practices of corporations heavily invested in commercial forestry management. Yet the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry’s current website reports that private, non-industrial landowners own 62% of our state’s forest land.  This contrasts to forest products industries that own 29% and the public that owns nine percent of state forest land, based on 2010 data. 

In the last decade or so, there have been increased criticisms by some hunters, outdoor recreational enthusiasts, and environmentalists concerning pine forest monocultures.  On more than one occasion, I’ve listened to long rants and complaints by individuals.  Native Southern timberlands had some of the highest concentration of tree species anywhere in the world.  These massive native forests were home to abundant plant and animal species.  As some of our native forests were transformed into monoculture pine plantations, we sacrificed some of this abundance and diversity of flora and fauna.   

An important part of the history of our Southern timberlands was the large numbers of pioneering American families who ventured south and west as early settlers. These settlers, before and after our Civil War, endured hard times and lived a very different lifestyle than families do today.

At the end of the virgin timber a century ago and before the Great Depression, significant parts of rural Southern timberlands were populated by farm and ranch families. The relative prosperity fueled by farming and ranching and from timberland income often produced families with many children. My Winn Parish grandfather, born in 1879, was one of seven children, and my father was one of ten. Depression era threats and more attractive job opportunities in cities led my father, my uncles, and many others of that generation away from their rural homes in this Southern timber country.

Land grants and purchases of my grandfather's and his father's generation often totaled 100 or more acres. Unlike England with its primogeniture policies, the death of parents of a Southern timberlands family usually meant that all or many of the surviving children inherited some share of that private property. As a result, Southern timberland ownership numbers have increased while tract ownership size has decreased over the decades.   

My father's share of my grandfather's property was a tenth of his total acreage. Now the land once owned by my grandfather is owned by a multitude of my cousins and second cousins. Most of that land is in 20, 10, and fewer acre tracts, and most of these tracts have absentee owners. There are few tracts of that land on which their owners have an existing house or cabin.  Few of these small tracts are currently used by owners for hunting or recreational activities.  Only a limited number of these and other small tract owners in the South engage actively in forest management practices such as planting and carefully thinning trees, wildlife habitat improvements, or natural resource conservation. 

Non-resident owners of many of these small tracts of Southern timberlands often do contract with loggers for harvesting and sale of their timber on a cyclical basis.  Often one or several small tract owners in an extended family, or among adjacent neighbors, take the lead in marshalling others to sell their timber.  By banding together and offering many small tracts of timber land, it has long been easier to attract logging outfits and get better timber deals.    

 

Forestry researchers and professionals have recently been encouraging land owners to study and consider management of mixed pine and hardwood stands.  Beyond environmental sustainability and hunting attractions of mixed-stand forests, there can occasionally be economic advantages for land owners. Shaun Tanger and Michael Blazier reported last year in an LSU Ag Center publication on both management and economic considerations for mixed pine and hardwood stands.  Although there are likely increased establishment costs for mixed stands, hardwood establishment can be cost shared by land owners, similar to pine stands, through government programs. Tanger and Blazier also explain that biological and financial risk hedging from mixed stands can occasionally make this an attractive alternative to pine-only tracts.  

Pine monocultures have biological risk factors including insect pests, such as pine bark beetles. Pine bark beetles seem troubling, if trends for more frequent and intense droughts in the South continue. Financial risk factors include timber market prices.  There have been softwood price declines at times, while hardwood markets have been more stable. Although mixed stands will tend to grow somewhat slower than pine and have a lower rate of return on investment, some land owners do not place maximizing profits from timber sales as their dominant or only priority. 

Mixed stand management can also offer advantages for small tract, absentee or busy landowners in contrast to management of softwood stands.   Mixed stands may involve almost no management, or only consist of a single management action until the stand reaches the age of thinning or rotation. For example, a one-time release herbicide application can be used to alter species composition and reduce competition for more desirable hardwood species in tracts.    

Mixed stand management offers a viable alternative to pine tract management for private landowners in certain situations. Landowner objectives, owner tract size, particular site characteristics, current tree species, and proximity to both hardwood and pine sawmills are just some of the factors to consider in deciding whether to try to develop mixed-stand tracts.   

Many non-resident and otherwise busy small-tract timber owners have not had the financial stakes or other incentives to study and actively manage their timberland, as some larger tract owners have. The smaller sizes of their forest tracts, as well as the sizes and characteristics of adjacent tracts and the assumed motives of their owners, can limit an owner’s options for timber management. Another key limitation for non-resident small-tract owners can be their limited knowledge of forest management options and government assistance programs.     

Consultations with area foresters or natural resource conservation professionals can help small tract timber owners determine if mixed stands, and particular hardwood species, are better timber management options.  C.C. Richmond with the state Wildlife and Fisheries Department has helped land owners decide which trees to plant, when to burn, when to fertilize, and other concerns. Foresters associated with the LSU Ag Center Extension, such as Shaun Tanger, Michael Blazier, and Keith Hawkins, can also be contacted for information and advice (https://lsuagcenter.com/topics/environment/forestry). There are occasional courses and webinars as well to educate land owners on forest management options and strategies. These information sources likely will have limited impact, though, for small tract forest owners, and particularly for many non-resident land owners.    

Keith Hawkins of the LSU Ag Center explained to me that outreach programs geared for non-resident forest landowners can be challenging. One approach that he has used was trying to contact area land owners with information and resources using the local assessor’s office.  For the expense of mailing brochures, he expressed doubts that these contacts produced any significant response from non-resident woodland owners.  Strategies for more comprehensive forest sustainability will need to address the huge challenge of how to contact, inform and motivate many non-resident and small tract forest owners.