Arkansas has experienced a decline in the number of primary wood processing mills (PWPMs) despite maintaining relatively stable roundwood production, raising concerns about efficient utilization of surplus forest resources and long-term forest management. This study identified suitable and optimal locations for establishing new PWPMs in Arkansas using a GIS-based fuzzy multi-criteria analysis integrated with location-allocation modeling. Site suitability was evaluated using constraint and preference layers representing land use restrictions, flood hazards, transportation infrastructure, electric transmission lines, labor availability, market access, and terrain characteristics. Candidate locations were subsequently evaluated using a p-median location-allocation model that incorporated existing mills, surplus forest resources, hauling distance, and mill capacity. Potential employment opportunities and hauling costs were also estimated for medium- and large-sized softwood- and hardwood-processing mills. Approximately 11
The Northern Rocky Mountains region includes 42 million acres of forest land which is diverse in landownership, management objectives, tree species, site productivities, disturbance regimes, and silvicultural practices resulting in a mosaic landscape. Substantial changes in landownership, management objectives, markets, policy, forest conditions, and silvicultural practices have occurred over the last thirty years. This review provides a synopsis of these changes across different forest types in the region. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service remains the largest forest management entity in the region, encompassing all forest types. Silvicultural practices have largely shifted towards multiple objective management on federal lands, reflecting broad societal values. This includes restoring historical species composition and enhancing resistance and resilience to natural disturbances, with wildfire a dominant disturbance concern across all forest types. Large corporate landownerships remain concentrated on high productivity sites in the region. Many of these companies are now Timber Investment Management Organizations (TIMOs) and Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). The region has seen an uptick in the establishment of high-yield plantations on their land, dominated by Douglas-fir and western larch. State lands continue to manage to meet their endowment mandates with some examples of increased intensification through plantation establishment. Overall, the region is dynamic, and we expect continued emphasis on fuels reduction, timber production, recreation, wildlife habitat, among others, as meeting these objectives will help ensure the sustainability of forests for years to come.
The social, ecological, and economic value of non-timber forest products is considerable, but their management in North America is understudied, as is the effect of their harvest on the ecosystems that produce them. Maple sap and syrup are non-timber forest products of longstanding importance throughout North America, including in Vermont, which supplies more than half of all United States output. Production of maple in Vermont has swiftly risen since 2010, yet stewardship practices used to supply this product and resultant forest conditions are poorly understood, including impacts from changes in sap collection systems over the past several decades. We analyzed 99 forest management plans for sap producing forests (“sugarbushes”) enrolled in the “current use” tax abatement program in Vermont, investigating the role of voluntary sustainability standards, specifically USDA organic certification and Bird-Friendly Maple recognition, along with the effect of sugaring operation size and age on forest structure, composition, and management activities. Engagement with sustainability standards was associated with greater overstory species diversity, with large operations (> 10,000 taps) organic certified at higher rates than small (> 1,000–4,999 taps). More recently (≥ 2010) tapped sugarbushes were also associated with greater overstory diversity, while older operations (< 2010) were characterized by larger trees and higher live-tree stocking. Our findings highlight the potential benefit of voluntary sustainability standards to biodiversity. In addition, the limited range of forestry activities reported stresses the need for updated silvicultural guidance to sustain forest ecological conditions and account for the unique operational considerations in sugarbushes relative to management for traditional wood products.
The USDA Forest Service's Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program, the United States' national forest inventory operating since 1928, has undergone two independent Blue Ribbon Panel (BRP) reviews (1991–92, 1997–98) that drove major improvements, including the transition toward a nationally consistent annualized inventory system and integration of forest health monitoring. Today, FIA faces unprecedented demands from data-driven markets, intensifying disturbances, supply chain volatility, and sustainability frameworks requiring verified, frequently updated data at sub-county scales through accessible, open-standards platforms that clearly distinguish between design-based and model-based population estimates. Technological advances in remote sensing, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), small-area estimation (SAE), and geospatial analysis offer enhanced monitoring opportunities but pose complex challenges in data fusion, analytics, and governance. Non-US entities are accelerating investment in operational forest monitoring infrastructure, integrating satellite Earth observation with ground inventory data and AI-assisted supply-chain verification, creating competitive and regulatory pressure on the US forest sector. This evolving landscape demands a third FIA BRP to chart a path toward a world-leading national forest inventory system addressing SAE, data confidentiality, and AI/ML deployment. Without modernization, the US risks ceding leadership in forest monitoring and undermining the sector's competitive standing in global markets. The US forest sector currently lacks a unified strategic vision to navigate these challenges, perpetuating outdated assumptions regarding technology, governance, and partner coordination. A third FIA BRP would build technical consensus among leading experts and deliver actionable recommendations, enabling agency leaders, policymakers, and partners to ensure that FIA applies the best available technology, provides credible, decision-relevant forest information, and supports science-based digital forest intelligence that meets international market expectations.
Accurate forest carbon accounting is critical for climate mitigation and ecosystem service valuation, yet many current approaches exclude below-ground productivity, particularly fine roots. To test this assumption, we compared two carbon accounting methodologies for Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii), Lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta), Western hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla), and fir (Abies spp.)-dominated stands across Washington State, Oregon, and British Columbia. The standard approach uses look-up tables based solely on above-ground biomass, ignoring local site conditions. In contrast, we applied a field-calibrated method incorporating total net primary productivity (tNpp) that included both above- and below-ground biomass linked to climatic and edaphic variables. Results show that conventional accounting underestimates carbon sequestration by 38–68
An estimated 37% of the forestland across the United States, excluding Interior Alaska, is controlled by family forest ownerships. This paper examines trends in family forest ownerships with 4 + ha (10 + ac) based on data from the 2013, 2018, and 2023 iterations of the USDA Forest Service's National Woodland Owner Survey (NWOS). The overall profile of family forest ownerships remained relatively consistent between 2013 and 2023, but there were some significant changes. The percentage of ownerships with a primary decision-maker older than 68 years (the median age in 2023) increased from 32 to 46%. Several reasons for owning forestland and concerns for their land decreased, but the only ones that were significantly different were timber production as a reason for owning, which went from 23 to 21%, and concern about wildfire, which went from 64 to 57%. Harvesting trees for sale and for personal use significantly decreased from 18 to 14% and 41 to 35%, respectively. Participation in preferential property tax, conservation easement, and green certification programs increased from 15 to 18%, 2 to 4%, and 1 to 2%, respectively. These results provide important information for understanding the motivations and needs of family forest ownerships and are essential for monitoring the impacts of existing programs and services, as well as informing future programs and services.
Puerto Rico (PR) and the US Virgin Islands (VI), two archipelagos located in the Caribbean region, possess forest ecosystems with high species diversity, which remain largely underrepresented in forest modeling research compared to temperate forests. Accurately characterizing tree allometry is essential for monitoring forest status over time and predicting tree growth and yield in sustainable forest management. Height-diameter relationship models, denoted as H–D models, are widely used in forestry practice since they effectively reduce the time and cost of field data collection and provide quick estimates of the height of trees based on tree diameter at breast height. For diverse forests, mixed-effects models have often been proposed. In these models, fixed effects provide the predicted H–D curve for the population average (all species) while a calibrated prediction of H–D relationship for each species can be made with the inclusion of both fixed and random effect terms. This study developed species-specific H–D relationship models for different forest types across PR and VI. A total of 25 parametric model candidates published in the literature were examined for each forest type on each archipelago, and the best-fit model in each forest type was selected to build a mixed model for a given forest type and archipelago. The mixed model was then used to generate species-specific predictions of total tree heights. Tree data used were collected from the permanent plots of the USDA Forest Service’s Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program. A total of 419 species with 51,166 observations were collected from eight forest types across the two archipelagos. The results highlight variations in H–D relationships across forest types and archipelagos, emphasizing the need for forest type–specific models to capture their unique ecological traits of species. Results show that three-parameter H–D models provide more accurate predictions than two-parameter ones. Carefully examining all possible combinations of placing the random effects when constructing mixed models is suggested, which can improve model predictability for capturing the H–D relationships for diverse species forests.
With visitation to public lands rising, managers are increasingly implementing permit programs to mitigate biophysical and social impacts—particularly for trails and backcountry areas. While many studies have focused on determining use limits, there has been little research examining use rationing program design and implementation. This study examines recreational permit programs for trails and remote areas within US national parks and forests to identify their components and implementation implications. Our exploratory process scanned 217 land units to identify the major components of 64 permit programs. We selected a purposive sample of 15 programs and conducted detailed investigations using online information and telephone interviews. The findings provide a comprehensive summary of permit system components and management implications related to quotas, physical layout, user safety, fairness, and public interaction. We also discuss how these findings can assist managers and researchers and point to research tools and needs to support management.
Understanding historical disturbance patterns is important for silviculture. In temperate rainforests of the Pacific Northwest silviculture principles have been constructed from disturbance models that have emphasized long multi-century intervals between large, stand replacing disturbances. Recent research highlights the additional influence of historical small-scale disturbances, including non-stand replacing (NSR) fires. These disturbances were frequent, patchy, and provided high variability in stand development at smaller scales. We suggest expanding the discussion about disturbances to reflect the variety of NSR disturbance impacts on stand development as a way to tie silvicultural practices to landscape patterns. A new framework that includes the full suite of stand development models can provide the conceptual basis for applications of silviculture and restoration treatments. In addition, separating disturbance impacts on canopy trees, understory vegetation including tree regeneration, as well as forest floor conditions may be helpful to reframe stand development patterns and outcomes, especially in the context of efficient provision of a variety of stand structure components. We provide suggestions on how to integrate these elements into silvicultural treatments and propose to utilize the full range of stand development models for silviculture prescriptions within and among stands. Such a bottom-up approach may be especially useful in times of global change, where the treatments can encourage development of diverse, resilient forests with potential to address a wide variety of social and ecological challenges.
Modifying activities and restricting access through regulation are valuable mechanisms for reducing human-caused wildfire ignitions. Fire stage restriction policies implemented during periods of high fire risk entail three tiers of increasingly restrictive rules intended to prevent ignitions, culminating in forest closures. Stage restrictions are increasingly common on federal, state, and local public lands, yet little social science has documented experiences with this approach. We conducted 13 focus groups across three southwestern US locations–Payson, AZ, Flagstaff, AZ, and Los Alamos, NM–with 108 residents and professionals to document current support, understandings, and applications of stage restrictions. We found that while support for stage restrictions was widespread, divergence emerged regarding the use of forest closures; residents felt that closures were a prevention tool that should be used early and often while professionals saw closures as a last resort due to their logistical complexity and limited evidence of effectiveness. This difference emerged in part because resident participants were uncertain about how decision-making regarding enactment and enforcement of stage restrictions occurred, indicating opportunities for improved communication. Participants also felt that risk predominantly came from urban visitors who were not intercepted by prevention outreach efforts prior to their trips, indicating that the scale of current prevention activities may not align with the geography of public land users in a given location. Leveraging capacity-building public-agency partnerships and advancing documentation of human-caused ignitions present important pathways to more effective use of limited wildfire prevention resources on public lands.
Debates over forest conservation and management in the Pacific Northwest—and beyond—are often structured by a persistent dualism that casts protection and intervention as mutually exclusive. Although this framing is not universally held, it continues to function as a dominant tendency shaping public discourse, policy debates, and, at times, scientific communication. We argue that this dualistic logic reflects a broader intellectual inheritance within Western environmental thought, in which humans and nature are conceived as fundamentally separate, with disagreement arising primarily over how each should be valued. Drawing on examples from contemporary policy processes, media coverage, and scientific debates, we show how this framing constrains the range of perceived management options by reducing complex, context-dependent questions to opposing categories. These patterns appear across institutional and ideological lines, including cases in which the dichotomy is expressed in reverse, with ecological integrity framed as dependent upon active intervention. We further suggest that the persistence of this divide reflects not only conceptual simplification but also a deeper dilemma rooted in trust. In many cases, ecologically supported management practices such as thinning and prescribed fire are simultaneously recognized as necessary and regarded with suspicion due to historical and institutional concerns. This tension limits the effectiveness of science-based solutions alone. We argue that moving beyond this dichotomy requires reframing conservation as a spectrum of practices operating across integrated landscapes, rather than as a binary choice between use and protection. While abandoning false dichotomies will not eliminate conflict, it can expand the space of possible responses to the ecological and social challenges facing contemporary forests.
Sampling is a widespread practice used to generate estimates of common forest parameters. Growth and yield models use these estimates to generate projections necessary for timber management decisions. Informed by a case study in Virginia, USA, we demonstrate through simulation that an optimal amount of information exists for minimizing the difference between the true net present value (NPV) without incurring cost for the information and the estimated NPV obtained through investing monetary resources into sampling. In a 76.9 ha, 21-year-old loblolly pine (Pinus taeda) stand, 265, 135 m^2 sample units minimized this difference. Besides the smallest sample unit evaluated (40 m^2 ), a consistent 3–4
Peatland forest ecosystems play a critical ecological, economic, and cultural role by sequestering carbon, supporting biodiversity, the provisioning of conventional and non-conventional wood products, and providing habitat for specialists. Historically, forest management in these systems has used clearcut harvests to maximize pulp production, often resulting in structurally simplified stands vulnerable to climate change. As climate change reshapes boreal systems through warming, altered hydrology, and increased disturbance, identifying structural features that promote resilience is increasingly important. Ecological forestry, which aims to emulate natural disturbance and subsequent forest development, is an alternative approach to support a broader suite of ecosystem processes. To inform this approach, we examined how forest structure, quantified through lidar-derived metrics, varies across peatland forest types and stand ages, and how these structural attributes influence avian communities, with emphasis on peatland associate species. We used field measurements, bird point count surveys, and lidar data across productive black spruce, stagnant black spruce, and tamarack stands in lowland conifer peatlands of northern Minnesota. Results showed that canopy height, canopy cover, heterogeneity, vertical canopy complexity, and overall complexity did not differ among cover types but increased significantly with stand age, reflecting the gradual development of structural complexity over time. Total bird species richness and diversity showed limited associations with forest type, stand age, or structural metrics, likely reflecting the broad distribution of generalist species across stands. In contrast, peatland-associated species exhibited clear positive responses: their richness and diversity increased significantly with stand age and were positively correlated with lidar-derived measures of canopy cover and the overall complexity index. These results underscore the ecological value of older, structurally complex peatland stands in sustaining specialist bird assemblages and highlight the importance of incorporating fine-scale structural metrics into biodiversity assessments and climate-adaptive management planning aimed at sustaining habitat function under increasing climatic variability. Further, our results have application to the development of silvicultural approaches that better reflect the natural, complex structural dynamics of these ecosystems. Silvicultural approaches that emulate natural structural development, such as irregular shelterwood with reserves or variable density thinning, may enhance canopy complexity while maintaining forest productivity and habitat for peatland specialist birds.
This brief communication presents selected findings from recent social and economic monitoring of national forest policies in the Pacific Northwest. Qualitative interviews with timber industry professionals, USDA Forest Service (Forest Service) employees, and rural community members provided local perspectives on increasing the pace and scale of timber harvests on national forests. Challenges noted by interviewees included spatial consolidation of the wood processing facilities, limitations of the timber supply from federal lands, misalignment between timber sales and industry needs, market volatility, labor shortages, and regulatory complexity. Interviewees expressed skepticism about the Forest Service’s reliability in delivering consistent timber volume and highlighted barriers in the bidding process that disadvantage smaller operators. Workforce issues—both in wood processing facilities and logging operations—further constrain current and future production capacity. Our findings suggest that increasing timber harvests will require coordinated, long-term efforts to build trust, improve Forest Service capacity, and better align timber sale offerings with market needs. Rather than attributing production shortfalls solely to environmental regulation, the study emphasizes the need for federal policies that address structural and economic realities of the forest industry. These insights can inform durable strategies for forest restoration and timber production in the American West.
Pulp and paper mill closures have had a significant impact on the forest sector in the southeastern US over the last decade. These mills consume large volumes of pulpwood, and a complete shutdown of their operations has potential to significantly reduce pulpwood prices. In this study, we investigated the effects of pine pulpwood stumpage prices on financial returns in four different timber markets in the southeastern US (northeast and northwest Florida, south Georgia and east South Carolina). Through simulations of two stand densities (300 and 600 trees per acre), three thinning treatments (no-thinning, one and two thinnings), we assessed the Land Expectation Value (LEV) under scenarios of 50
Forest product mill monitoring can provide important information about opportunities for timber production. However, in the US, sourcing this information with high temporal and spatial completeness can be costly or the available information may lack needed production metrics. In this work, we develop an approach using National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) high-resolution embeddings to train two machine learning classifiers to detect the log yards near forest product mill properties throughout the Contiguous United Sates (CONUS). We used 175 examples of log yards from 120 forest product mills to train the models. We used two databases of known mill locations to randomly select our training locations in the US and to validate each state’s application. The final model matched 733 log yards with both validation datasets and detected 453 log yards, after removing false positives, that were not previously recorded in either validation dataset. All log yard detections were validated with visual inspection, resulting in a total of 1,787 unique log yards. We used a logistic regression model with geographic and production variables and found that the placement of a drain pond on the mill’s property, the log yard species being soft wood, and the average green tons the mill had during that acquisition year were significant predictors of the model’s ability to detect a log yard. Our work demonstrates that a CONUS wide log yard detection model, that can be routinely updated, is possible from high-resolution, freely available data.
Management of western United States dry-conifer forests has experienced a design shift from spacing-based treatments to maximize forest growth and minimize fire hazard towards balancing fuels reduction while restoring historical forest spatial patterns. However, successfully implementing spatially heterogeneous silvicultural treatments capable of mimicking a landscape’s historical range of variability (HRV) has proven challenging. Early individual tree marking (ITM) strategies aiming to create heterogeneous forest structure often had unclear or confusing instructions. This study evaluates the ability of five ITM strategies to recreate HRV forest structure in Black Hills, South Dakota ponderosa pine forests. We started by first comparing uncrewed aerial system (UAS) derived forest inventory data against field plots and then assessing the UAS-derived tree spatial patterns of each ITM strategy against HRV. The UAS-detected trees were comparable to field plots providing an F-score averaging 0.943. The five ITM strategies created tree group size distributions that captured the range of individual trees and tree-clump-sizes but varied in their approximation of the HRV distribution. The individuals, clumps, and openings strategy and the two lowest cut-to-leave tree frequency strategies consistently matched four of five HRV group size metrics, while the other strategies typically only matched two or three metrics. Additionally, the frequency cut-to-leave tree strategy with 1:2 small-tree and 1:1 large-tree more often achieved all five HRV group size metrics compared to all other ITM strategies. Given the relatively even-aged starting forest structure from the stand’s past management history, the lowest frequency cut-to-leave tree strategy provided the easiest to implement and most effective means of reproducing the HRV forest structure.
We demonstrate that the inputs and conceptual foundation needed for individual-tree-level precision thinning optimization algorithms are already available. As more resource managers adopt LiDAR-based inventories, precision thinning can become a value-added outcome of collecting these data. We use LiDAR to assess individual-tree stem volumes in Pinus taeda L. plantations in the southeast US. Rather than arbitrarily selecting starting rows in row thinning operations, we use field- and LiDAR-derived stem volume data to inform row selection. Among all three study sites, row-to-row tree volume variability was present, indicating that selecting rows to be removed deliberately could improve thinning outcomes. A machine learning model based on LiDAR-derived metrics was also accurate in estimating individual stem volume in the primary study site and LiDAR was accurate in measuring pre- and post-thinning stem counts, the data that would be needed to audit thins.
