Arizona Forest
Restoration Products Inc.
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Arizona Forest Restoration Products Inc. |
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Arizona Wood Supply
Per the Resource Bulletin RMRS-RB-2, “Arizona’s Forest Resources, 1999”, published in January 2002 by the Rocky Mountain Research Station of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, the total land area of Arizona is almost 73 million acres. Roughly 27% or 19.4 million acres is forest land, including 9 % or 1.7 million acres in reserved status (protected from being utilized for wood products), resulting in 17.6 million non-reserved acres.
Forest land is subdivided into timberland and woodland. Timberland includes forests of tree species traditionally used in the forest products industry, such as ponderosa pine and Douglas-fir. Woodland includes tree species that typically have a multistem growth form and are not traditionally used for industrial wood products, such as pinyon, juniper, and oak. The pinyon-juniper woodland is by far the most abundant forest type in the State, covering over 7.7 million acres, or 40% of the forest land. Another 3.1 million acres, almost 16%, is classified as pure juniper, resulting in the combination pinyon-juniper and juniper composing 56% of Arizona’s forest land.
Distribution of the timber land is between ponderosa pine, 16% of the forest land; evergreen oak, 8%; mesquite, 7%; deciduous oak, 2%; and Douglas-fir, aspen, and Engelmann spruce, about 1% each. Other miscellaneous types combined, including nonstocked woodland, make up the remaining 8% of the forest land.
With 3.0 million acres, or about 16% of Arizona’s forest land, almost 2.9 million acres of which are classified as non-reserved - hence open to being utilized for wood products, the Northern Arizona ponderosa pine forest is not only the third most abundant forest type in Arizona (Arizona’s Forest Resources, 1999, p. 7), but it is also the largest continuous ponderosa pine forest in the world.
The total biomass in live trees in Arizona forests is estimated to be over 287 million tons, and the total volume of wood in live trees 5” in diameter and larger is estimated to be in excess of 15.5 billion cubic feet. The net volume of growing stock on nonreserved Arizona timberland (species traditionally harvested for lumber) is over 6.2 billion cubic feet annually, 1 billion cubic feet of which is ponderosa pine.
The ponderosa pine is the species estimated to have the greatest total biomass and the most cubic-foot volume in Arizona. It makes up 38% of the total biomass or 109 million tons, and 35% of the total volume or 5.4 billion cubic feet. It is the second largest species in terms of number of live trees on forest land in Arizona, and it accounts alone for 54% of the net annual growth of the Arizona forest (Arizona’s Forest Resources, 1999).
With over 5.4 billion cubic feet of wood in almost 800 million live trees over 3 million acres, and with 54% of the net growth of the Arizona forest, the ponderosa pine timberland is perfectly able to sustain with renewable natural resource not only one but several OSB plants.
Hypothetically, Arizona Forest Restoration Products’s entire annual wood requirement of 258,000 ccf would cause only approximately 1.2% of the Arizona ponderosa pine forest to be treated annually for fuel reduction, a definitely sustainable situation.
Much more relevant is the fact that Arizona Forest Restoration Products’s entire annual wood requirement of 258,000 ccf would represent only about a third of Arizona’s ponderosa pine annual growth, and does not even absorb the annual growth in Coconino County alone (486,000 ccf).
Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station Resource Bulletin RMRS-RB-2: Arizona’s Forest Resources, 1999. Published Jan. 2002.
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