A new analysis quantifies US timber harvest and supply dynamics and finds that, although national timber supply is largely price inelastic, rapid growth in South-Central forests now makes private reforestation clearly profitable, according to David N. Wear, senior fellow at Resources for the Future institute, and John W. Coulston, scientist at the USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station.
Measured harvest rates from 115,643 remeasured FIA plots reveal that annual removals span from virtually 0 % of plots in the Southern Rockies to 4 % in the South-Central region. In their modeling of owner behavior, Wear and Coulston find that price signals drive increased cutting in every region and ownership class except public lands on the Pacific Coast. Simulated timber supply, derived via Monte Carlo on current inventories, yields less than a 1 % output rise for each 1 % price increase nationwide. The Pacific Northwest is the sole exception, where elasticity is about 1.5, meaning a 1 % price bump prompts a 1.5 % supply increase.
Supply responds more strongly to sawtimber than to pulpwood prices, underscoring the influence of higher-value markets on harvest intensity. Tree-planting choice models further show that private landowners in high-production regions (South, Northeast, Pacific Northwest, Northern Rockies) boost reforestation probability by roughly 0.5 % for every 1 % rise in sawtimber price.
Crucially, long-run inventory projections demonstrate that South-Central forests achieve nearly 200 m³/ha of growth over a 25-year rotation, far exceeding the 10 m³/ha break-even threshold for planting investments under a 3 % discount rate and $120/m³ sawtimber price, resulting in a positive net present value for reforestation. Combined harvest and planting projections show no signs of unsustainable extraction or looming timber scarcity, indicating that current management and regeneration practices can sustain future demand.
This integrated, plot-level research positions the eastern United States, especially the South-Central region, as the primary locus for future timber supply expansion under market-driven and sustainable forest management.
