Private forests: more owners, fewer acres.

The good news about America's private forests is that millions of people want to own and cherish them. The bad news is that, with the amount of available forestland staying essentially the same, adding millions of new owners means the average size of individual parcels is plummeting - and that small plots will become increasingly hard to manage effectively. These startling trends in forest ownership were brought to light in a recent study of America's private forestlands that was based on U.S. Forest Service surveys and public opinion research in several state universities. The study illustrated the following:

* Small ownerships (less than 100 acres) are increasing at the rate of almost 150,000 per year. That's about twice the number of participants in the American Tree Farm System. If these new owners were going to participate in a similar program, each year someone would have to create and operate two new programs the size of the current Tree Farm System.

* Most owners say their priorities are aesthetics, wildlife, property value, and the like; fewer people own forests with timber production as a primary goal. Surprisingly, however, almost half think they will harvest some timber from their land in the next decade.

* For most forest owners, managing their forest is not usually an issue. They don't oppose it - they simply don't think about it. They don't belong to forestry groups, read forestry magazines, or belong to forestry organizations. When they need to do something in their forest, they often don't know how to do it right, nor do they know where to find the help they need. They become easy prey for people who can take advantage of their situation. The result is often lost opportunities both for the landowner and the long-term health and sustainability of the forest.

* Public forestry programs, built to provide technical assistance, and financial incentives can't expand to meet this situation. Those programs work well when the audience of landowners fits the traditional midsized forest landowner pattern. But that audience is shrinking, and a new and different audience is growing at an explosive rate.

* The result is that both public and private forestry programs need to develop new strategies, based on the most effective communications and marketing techniques, to reach a rapidly changing, huge new audience.

* New private service business opportunities abound, as the boundary between urban forestry and traditional forest management merge together in this new small-landowner pattern. The future of private forestlands in the United States looks much different than in the past, and the people and organizations who want to see sustainable, healthy forest landscapes in the future need to change their approach significantly, or these fast-moving trends will pass them by.