proportion of commercial 

 forest land in pine and that 

 in the mixed pine and 

 hardwood types has been 

 relatively stable since 1 952. 

 The area in the pure pine 

 types has ranged from 37 

 percent to 40 percent of 

 the national forests' 

 commercial forest land 

 base. Probably the most 

 significant change has 

 been the 36-percent 

 reduction in the area of the 

 bottomland hardwood 

 types. However, that 

 decrease has been more 

 than offset by increases in 

 the other hardwood types. 



Certain interests in the 

 public sector continue to 

 pressure Congress to 

 designate additional areas 

 for wilderness and other 

 nontimber uses. Similar 

 pressures are being exerted 

 on the Forest Service 

 through the land and 

 resource management 

 planning process and the 

 courts to reduce the use of 

 clearcutting for stand 

 regeneration and to 

 lengthen rotations, 

 ostensibly to enhance 

 nontimber resources and 

 uses. If such changes in 

 management come about, 

 their effects on future timber 

 yields remain to be seen. 

 The Southern Region has 

 targeted 1.3 billion board 

 feet of timber for sale 



annually over the 10-year 

 period 1986-96. 



The impact of the national 

 forests on the South's timber 

 resources cannot be 

 measured or evaluated 

 solely by the volume of 

 timber produced on those 

 lands during the last 75 

 years. National forest timber 

 production, although 

 substantial, constitutes a 

 relatively small proportion 

 of the total output in the 

 South for that period and 

 today. National forest timber 

 resources in the South 

 should be viewed from the 

 perspective of fulfilling the 

 purposes for which those 

 forests were established 

 and have been managed. 



The underlying purpose of 

 the Weeks Law was the 

 acquisition of sufficient 

 areas of mountainous 

 nonagricultural land to be 

 influential in protecting the 

 watersheds of navigable 

 streams from the effects of 

 forest fires and destructive 

 timber cutting and other 

 land-use practices. As a 

 result of aggressive 

 fire-protection and timber 

 management programs, 

 new to the South at 

 inception, well-stocked and 

 well-managed stands of 

 trees now protect those 

 lands from erosion while 

 producing timber and 

 providing recreation, wildlife, 



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