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Planning Committee

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Research into the intensive management of fast growing plantations has demonstrated impressive opportunities to improve the productivity and profitability of forest management at the stand level and supplant harvests of natural forests. In several places around the globe, including the U.S. South, this enhanced productivity has transformed forestry. Intensive management and forest biotechnology generate higher yields and moderate timber price increases. However, such gains may adversely affect long-term sustainability, biodiversity, and traditional local employment. Aggregate timber supply increases may suppress prices, decreasing investment returns so that forest land is lost to other uses.

This conference will examine these relative merits of forest plantations. It will focus on biological, economics, planning, and management components of plantation productivity gains and how the intensification of management is applied in practice. The U.S. South, with 21% of its forests under plantation management, provides an excellent site for exploring this set of issues.

The conference will be organized around the following four topic areas:

• Forest sector analysis / economic drivers and implications of intensive management
• Biophysical analysis of intensive management options
• Biological and environmental consequences of intensive management
• Social issues surrounding the management of plantations

Sponsored by:

	IUFRO 4.04.02 Planning and economics of fast-growing plantation forests working group
	USDA Forest Service
	CellFor
	ArborGen
	North Carolina State University