eration of nonstocked areas, harvesting mature 

 stands and regenerating the harvested tracts, and 

 converting existing stands to more desired species. A 

 majority of the opportunities, 74 percent, is on farmer 

 and other private ownerships which collectively con- 

 tain about 58 percent of the commercial timberland 

 (fig. 6.7). Most of the remaining opportunities are on 

 the 14 percent of the commercial timberland in forest 

 industry ownership. All economic opportunities on 

 the National Forests are currently scheduled or 

 planned and are not shown in table 6.30. 



As illustrated in table 6.30, there are economic 

 opportunities for management intensification in all 

 regions. The opportunities are concentrated in the 

 southern regions — 53 million acres in the Southeast 

 and 64 million acres in the South Central. Treatment 

 of these acres, which include almost two-fifths of the 

 commercial timberland acreage in the South, would 

 require investment of $10.1 billion dollars and 

 increase timber growth by more than 9.2 billion cubic 

 feet. Net annual growth in the South in 1976 was 10.7 

 billion cubic feet. 



In the Southeast, the opportunities are predomi- 

 nately for reforestation or conversion on farmer and 

 other private ownerships. In the South Central 

 region, there are also large opportunities for reforest- 

 ation or conversion. In this region, stocking control is 

 important; it is economical on nearly one-third of the 

 acres. 



^* Dutrow, George F., J. Michael Vasievich, and Merle E. Conk- 

 in. Economic opportunities for increasing timber supplies in the 

 United States. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service and 

 Forest Industries Council. (In process.) In this study, over 400 

 university, industry, and government foresters in 7 timber supply 

 regions and 25 individual States selected what they considered 

 significant economic opportunities to increase timber supplies 

 through intensified forest management. Although management 

 opportunities were chosen on the basis of augmenting timber sup- 

 plies, forestry experts made their selections with three general con- 

 straints in mind: management actions had to be environmentally 

 acceptable, financially sound, and incremental to efforts already 

 scheduled or planned. In preparing the estimates of economic 

 opportunities, these experts (1) prescribed specific treatments for 

 existing conditions on commercial timberlands, (2) assigned prob- 

 able costs of application, (3) estimated increases in timber yields 

 from each treatment, and (4) outlined existing ranges of stumpage 

 values. Resource analysts in the Forest Service added acreage 

 estimates for each identified forest condition in the 25 major 

 timber producing States. Over 200 investment opportunities were 

 identified. These opportunities varied by site, physiographic 

 region, and managerial action, and were consolidated into the two 

 major types of management opportunities used in this study — 

 reforestation/ conversion and stocking control. All cost and 

 response data for conversion, regeneration, timber stand improve- 

 ment, cleaning operations, and release practices for a number of 

 sites, geographic categories, and species were averaged. All calcula- 

 tions were based on costs, prices, and interest rates measured in 

 constant 1967 dollars — adjusted to exclude changes resulting from 

 inflation or deflation. Future stumpage prices were based on the 

 equilibrium projections shown in tables 6.27 and 6.29. 



There are economic opportunities for management intensification 

 in all regions, but they are concentrated in the South. 



In the northern regions (Northeast and North Cen- 

 tral) there are 35 million acres — 23 percent of the 

 commercial timberland area — that would yield 4 

 percent or more on investments in management prac- 

 tices. These opportunities would require an invest- 

 ment of about $2.5 billion and increase timber sup- 

 plies by 1.5 billion cubic feet a year. Such an increase 

 is about a quarter of the net annual growth in 1976. 



In the Northeast region, stocking control is the 

 largest economic opportunity on an area basis. In the 

 North Central region, there are substantial oppor- 

 tunities for investments both in reforestation/ stand 

 conversion and stocking control practices. As in the 

 South, the opportunities in the northern regions are 

 predominately on the farmer and other private 

 ownerships. 



Nearly all of the remaining economic opportunities 

 for management intensification are on the commer- 

 cial timberlands on the Pacific Coast. There are 

 about 8.8 million acres in the Pacific Northwest and 

 7.6 million in the Pacific Southwest which would 

 yield more than 4 percent in constant dollars on 

 investments in various management practices. These 

 investments, about $2.6 billion in total, would 

 increase net annual timber growth by nearly 2 billion 

 cubic feet — about three-fifths of current growth. 



260 



