Cleared forest land was replaced with young, rapidly growing trees. More recently, private owners apply even-aged management on their most productive sites by logging and rotating stands of timber between open and dense structures. Weeding and thinning is only applied to some productive sites. The result has been relatively small diameter, low quality timber, which is suitable for high volume processing facilities but of little use where high quality timber is needed. It also creates only moderate employment levels since thinning and pruning are minimal and only a moderate amount of manufacturing labor is used.
Integrated management is aimed at combining commodity and non-commodity values.
Managers harvest some stands and maintain and enhance others as long as they remain valuable. This approach requires more intensive management and more knowledge, skill, and technology than timber management for financial efficiency. Integrated management would more likely produce higher quality timber as a result of pruning, thinning, and longer rotations. Management costs would be higher due to more intensive, integrated management. Analyses suggest the total return to the government may be high enough in some cases to compensate the landowner for the extra management needed to provide the additional values.