US Forest Products Industry Statistics
Industry Statistics
- Of America's 2.263 billion acres, forests cover 747 million acres (33 percent of the land base)
- More than 244 million acres of federal land are set aside by various government agencies
- The U.S. contains 5 percent of the Earth's forest cover
- Despite a 143 percent increase in population, the U.S. has about the same area of forestland today as it did in 1920
- The volume of wood in U.S. forests is about 25 percent greater today than it was 40 years ago
- Each year, 1.5 billion new trees are planted in the U.S. - that's more than five seedlings for each American and 2,000 for every bear
- U.S. forest planting currently averages about 2.4 million acres per year
- Annual forest growth has consistently exceeded harvest in the U.S. since the 1940s
- Forests of the Southern U.S. (from eastern Texas to northern Florida) have the highest biodiversity of any forests in North America
- Over the past decade, the forest products industry has spent more than $100 million on wildlife and environmental research
- The U.S. forest products industry employs over 1.4 million people and produces wood and paper products valued at more than $200 billion annually