Highlights from the Most Recent Vermont Forest Inventory
(from Frieswyk and Widman, Northeast Forest Experiment Station, 2000)

Vermont, with 4.6 million acres of forest land, is 78.2% forested. Forest land has increased 93,000 acres since the 1983 inventory.

More than 97% of Vermont s forest land, 4,483 thousand acres, is classified as timberland (formerly known as commercial forest land).

Area of timberland has increased 770,000 acres between 1948 and 1997 inventories.

Sawtimber stands continue to dominate with 61% of timberland area or 2,742 thousand acres. This is a 10% increase over the 1983 survey. The forest is continuing to mature.
85% of Vermont s timberland is privately owned. The amount of acres owned by forest industry has dropped to 253,000 acres or 1/5 of the 1983 total.

Vermont has experienced a steady increase in the diameter of trees 5 inches or more in diameter. Since 1966 the average diameter of trees has increased from 8.3 to 9.2 inches.

Since 1966 most of the increase in the number of trees occurred in diameter classes above 8 inches. The number of trees in the 6 inch diameter class decreased in the same period.

The average volume of trees per acre has increased steadily from 14.4 cords per acre in 1966 to 26.1 cords per acre in 1997.

When ranked by volume, sugar maple is the leading species followed by red maple. Red maple ranked sixth in volume in 1948.

In Vermont, the net growth of trees has exceeded removals since the first inventory in 1948. About twice as much wood has been grown than was cut or otherwise removed.

Major types of Forest in Vermont

Vermont s forests consist of a mixture of different species with poorly defined boundaries between major type groups. However, there are basically seven type groups recognized. They are the following:

Northern hardwoods with sugar maple, beech, and yellow birch the main species. This is the composition of the majority of our forests.
White pine/red pine
Spruce-fir
Aspen-birch
Oak-hickory
Elm-ash-red maple
Oak-pine

The first three types cover the greatest areas, and the first five types include most of the hardwood and softwood species as major components of the group.

Excerpts from 2002 Vermont Forest Resource Harvest Summary
(Vermont Department of Forests, Parks, and Recreation 2003)

Almost 205,000,000 board feet of sawlogs and veneer logs were harvested in 2002, of which hardwoods comprised 53%.

Log exports of 69 million board feet were balanced by log imports to Vermont of 72 million board feet.

Pulpwood volume harvested was nearly 232,000 cords in 2002, a reduction of 99,000 cords from the 1991 harvest.

There are 168 sawmills and veneer mills in Vermont. Six of these mills produced 45% of the lumber sawn in Vermont in 2002. Ninety-nine of these mills produced 1% of the total.

Eighty-five percent of the logs processed in Vermont in 2002 were in mills of 2.5 million board feet or greater yearly production.