Forest Facts
Forest America
Forest Facts
The United States is home to the world’s most sustainable and available timber supply.
Despite rapid population growth, this has remained unchanged for the past century due to proper management by private landowners, healthy markets, and a fair regulatory climate.
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American Forestland
- Total U.S. forestland has remained constant at 755 million acres for the past century.
- Today, the United States has 20% more trees than it did on the first Earth Day celebration more than 40 years ago.
- America’s growing timber stock – the amount of wood volume on the forestland in the United States – has doubled since 1953 while the forestland area has remained unchanged.
- The volume of annual net timber growth is 36% higher than the volume of annual timber removals.
American Wood
- About 91% of wood harvested in the United States comes from private forests.
- The United States is the largest supplier of forest products in the world, providing nearly half of the global supply of wood fiber.
- About 60% of the “privately-owned” fiber comes from some 10 million individual family forest landowners.
Private Forest Landowners
- Private forest landowners plant more than 4 million trees per day or more than 2.5 billion trees per year .
- 56% of forests nationwide are privately owned by family forest owners and companies.
- 87% of forests in the Southern U.S. are privately owned-68% of those acres are owned by small family landowners.
