Seeing the Forest or the Trees? How Rural Southerners Talk about Trees and Forests in the United States

Rural Southerners have complex relationships with trees and forests rooted in a long history of forest use, forest-based rural economies, and social and land use change. While economic and utilitarian valuations of forests are stronger in the South than in other regions of the U.S., forests are deeply valued for aesthetics, recreation, wildlife (game and non-game), family history, and community heritage. Our analysis will examine cultural models of trees and forests using interview and field notes from ethnographic fieldwork on wood-based bioenergy in two communities in Georgia and one in Mississippi. We discuss three main ideas: (1) the multiple, complex, and sometimes competing values ascribed to southern forests; (2) the ways that landowners talk about and ascribe meaning to hardwoods vs. softwoods; and (3) the ways that rural Southerners discuss and value different types of pine trees: loblolly pine (Pinus taeda), slash pine (Pinus elliottii), and longleaf pine (Pinus palustris).