Forest management issues of the southern United States and comparisons with Turkey

Abstract

Most of the forest area in the southern United States has been cleared, regrown, purchased, and sold several times over the last 200 years, and forest management practices generally focus on wood production. Agricultural expansion, use, and the abandonment of land have been the major forces behind land use change, and now human population expansion is a major issue. The land tenure system of the United States has allowed individuals and companies to acquire, use, and sell land since the time of European colonization; thus, private ownership of land dominates the southern region. However, new private, corporate, nonindustrial entities have arisen in the last 20 years, mainly as a result of tax policies and changes in industrial business organizations. While in Turkey planning systems are centralized, these systems vary by landowner group in the southern United States. They range from those that are relatively absent (nonindustrial private landowners) to those that are very formal (national forests). The management of forests in the southern United States is also guided by a number of federal, state, and local policies rather than a single enterprise plan, and these policies affect the direction of both public and private forest management. Specifically with regard to public land, the mission and objectives of forestry are similar to those in Turkey, except when considering the needs of local citizens, which has been given greater emphasis in Turkish forest management and planning.