People invest in what they value. When demand for forest products is strong, this increases the value of private working forests. People are then incentivized to invest in those forests and not convert them into high-value land uses like real estate development or agriculture.
This is especially important for small forest landowners deciding how to get the best return on investment possible from their land to support their families. If we can support these landowners with healthy markets for forest products, they will have an economic incentive to keep their land as forests.
A 2017 study by Forest2Market on the relationship between demand and forest productivity in the U.S. South concluded that “Increased demand for wood did not deplete forests in the U.S. South; instead, it encouraged landowners to invest in productivity improvements that dramatically increased the amount of wood fiber, and therefore the amount of carbon, contained in the South’s forests.”