Base Case Projection

This chapter presents a “base case” projection that assumes no change in current public and private policies for the forest and related sectors. It provides one view of future changes in the forest sector and a partial basis for identifying emerging trends that might influence future forest management or forest products production. It envisions continued strong growth in total US forest products requirements (domestic consumption plus exports) to 2050. Imports would continue to grow, but provide a smaller share of the expansion in product requirements over the 2002–2050 period than they did over the 1952–2002 period. Future harvests from domestic forests would expand each year by 3.1Mm, close to the trend over the last 50 years of 3.4Mm3/year. At the same time, real product price growth would fall below long-term historical rates for all products.