The Future

Forestry

At the present time, softwoods (largely Loblolly Pine in N.C.’s case) are currently more profitable to produce than hardwoods. However, global demand for both soft and hardwood is increasing rapidly, particularly in Asia and notably in China. Softwood will continue to be grown, essentially as a 20- to 30-year “crop,” maintaining its current value and increasing production levels. On the other hand, the world’s hardwood stocks are shrinking, notably in the tropics. That will place a greater demand on hardwoods growing in more temperate regions. The Southeastern U.S., including North Carolina, is now the country’s largest wood producer. Despite the long maturing times of most of our hardwoods, increasing global demand and prices will provide better incentives to sustainably manage and harvest our hardwood resources. North Carolina is particularly well placed in this respect with over 55% of our land surface still forested, most of that still in natural hardwood species. Not only will those hardwoods support our own construction and furniture industries, but there should be an increasingly profitable export market, particularly to Asia. Increasing global pressure to protect tropical forests, both for biodiversity protection and global climate stability will lead to most tropical forests being managed under much closer control within the next decade. That in itself will divert much of the current interest in exploiting tropical hardwoods to other hardwood-producing regions, such as ours.