Future of Wooded Land in Question Due To Timber Sales

Large sales of timberland in the Southeast have the potential to alter the region’s landscape.

This week,  International Paper Company announced it’s selling more than 200-thousand acres of timberland in ten states to conservation groups.  The Nature Conservancy of Tennessee is buying a 25-hundred acre tract near Hohenwald.  Director Scott Davis says he’s pleased to be able to save the land, which is home to a rare species of native grass.  But he says the Hohenwald tract is only a fraction of the 200-thousand acres of Tennessee forest land International Paper has decided to sell.  And soon, Bowater Incorporated will sell 230-thousand acres on the Cumberland Plataeu.

Davis says timber companies are selling much more land than groups like his can afford to acquire, and he worries what will happen to the rest.

“Even though at times the environmental community didn’t necessarily agree with their management approaches, there was a plan to keep these places forested and functioning as forested ecosystems.  This wholesale disposition of these industrial timber lands is going to change the character of these southern states in a pretty significant way in that, now there is no management plan.  Anything could happen to these woods.”

Davis says some larger tracts will probably be purchased by smaller timber management organizations, which tend to resell after five to fifteen years. Others will likely be the site of residential or commercial development.