Forest Inventory and Analysis National Program

Program Features

National Woodland Owner Survey

Background

The National Woodland Owner Survey was initiated in 2002 and is designed to help understand who owns the woodlands of the United States; why these individuals and groups own woodlands; and what is the future of these lands.

To accomplish the objectives of the National Woodland Owner Survey, questionnaires are being mailed to approximately 50,000 of the individuals and private groups that own the woodlands where the USDA Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis program has established forest monitoring plots. Approximately twenty percent of these ownerships will be contacted each year with complete samples being completed in years that end in 2 or 7 to coincide with national census, inventory, and assessment programs. The target accuracies of the data are plus or minus 10 percent at the state levels.

In 2002 and 2003, a sample of woodland owners from each of the 11 North Central states was contacted. Albeit sample sizes are presently not large enough to produce reliable state level estimate; preliminary results from the 2002 National Woodland Owner Survey suggests that:

• the number of owners of smaller sized tracts continues to increase
  
  
• woodland owner tenure along with age is increasing
  
  
• many woodland owners are concerned about keeping their land intact for heirs
  
  
• forestry management apparently is not a high priority for most owners because most indicated that during the next 5 years they intent to leave their woodland as is, or apply only minimum activity to maintain it

Data

New! Preliminary tables from the 2002 and 2003 National Woodland Owner Survey are available. The focus of much of the information in these table is family forest owners and, in particular, family forest with total landholdings between 10 and 5,000 acres.

To learn more about the National Woodland Owner Survey please visit the National Woodland Owner Survey website.