| Abstract: | Forest land area in the Commonwealth of Kentucky amounted to 11.97 million acres, including 11.6 million acres of timberland. Over 110 different species, mostly hardwoods, account for an estimated 21.2 billion cubic feet of all live tree volume. Hardwood forest types occupy 85 percent of Kentucky's timberland, and oak-hickory is the dominant forest-type group accounting for about 8.4 million acres. About 78 percent of timberland in Kentucky is owned by nonindustrial private forest land owners. Forest industry owns about 2 percent of the timberland in the Commonwealth, while Federal, State, and local government agencies manage about 11 percent or 1.03 million acres. In 2003 more than 21,500 individuals were directly employed at woodprocessing mills with a total annual payroll of over 700 million dollars. Many nontimber forest products are harvested in Kentucky, which ranks second in the Southern region in terms of the number of nontimber forest product enterprises. |
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