Financial Incentive Programs’ Influence in Promoting Sustainable Forestry in the Northern Region

in the northern region are helping forest owners practice sustainable forestry, whether specific programs are more effective than others at accomplishing this goal, and the characteristics of effective programs. Extending from Maine to Minnesota, the 20 states of the U.S. North differ in terms of forest type and ecological regimes from other regions of the country. The region is home to 43% of the nation’s population and 44% of its estimated 10 million nonindustrial private forest owners. It includes 27% of all forestland in the United States but only 11% of all public forestland—most of which is held by state and local units of government. Of the forestland in the region, 75% is in private ownership, compared with 63% nationwide; of the nonindustrial private forest owners in the region, 62% own less than 10 acres of forestland and 90% own less than 50 acres (Butler and Leatherberry 2004). From these statistics one can deduce that forest parcels in the region are relatively small, and the impact of population and development surrounding forested areas is large.