«If we are interested in the future of the forests of the United States, we must be interested in those who own the land and in particular
this means family forest owners who own a plurality of this vital resource,» said Tony Ferguson, Acting Director of the USDA Forest Service's Northern Research Station and the Forest Products Laboratory.
This does not
mean they are inactive on their land; nearly half of the timber harvested in the U.S. comes from
family forest lands, but only 13 percent of
family forest owners have written
forest management plans and only 20 percent had received professional forestry advice at the time of the survey.