Extreme wildfire is an increasing threat to lives, property, and ecosystems across the United States and many parts of the world. Family forest owners (FFOs) own a large percentage of forestland in the United States, and actions and behaviors on their forestland have a large impact on wildfire prevention and mitigation across the landscape. Using data from the USDA Forest Service’s 2018 National Woodland Owner Survey, we inves...

Family forest owners (FFOs) control a plurality of forestland in the United States, and the decisions these landowners make have a profound impact on the landscape. Most research on FFOs consists of cross-sectional studies, although many of these recognize the importance of capturing long-term trends to understand whether and how FFO attitudes, behaviors, and general characteristics are changing. We use data from the 2006, 201...

Wood products are an essential provisioning ecosystem service with US forests providing nearly one-fifth of global wood supply. As of 2018, an estimated 46% of the annual wood harvested came from corporate forests, 42% came from family forests, and the remainder came from other private, public, and Tribal forests. The supply of wood from corporate forests is well described by traditional economic models, but the supply from fa...

The Timber Products Output (TPO) survey is used to determine industrial uses of roundwood, reporting on volumes of roundwood received and residues generated by the primary forest industry by tree species and counties of harvest. This knowledge aids stakeholders in making informed decisions about available forest resources and/or harvest intensity. The widespread use of TPO estimates makes it important to understand the scale a...

Family forest owners (FFOs) hold a plurality of forestland in the United States, and programs and markets exist that compensate landowners for sequestering and storing increased carbon through extended rotations, improved forest management, and increased forest cover. We used USDA Forest Service National Woodland Owner Survey (NWOS) data from 2018 to estimate the number of ownerships and their associated acreage that are enrol...

Privately-owned forests provide important environmental, economic, and cultural benefits to the general public. Resulting impacts from landownership changes and conversion of working forests to other land uses threaten these benefits. The USDA Forest Service Forest Legacy Program (FLP) permanently protects threatened private forests that are of environmental, cultural, and economic importance to the greater public while keepin...