Background

The breakup of the vertically integrated forest products companies (VIFPCs) in the 1970s to 2000s profoundly affected industrial forestland ownership around the world, and particularly in the United States. Almost all VIFPC land has now been bought via Timber Investment and Management Organizations (TIMOs) or converted into Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs).  Economic globalization and competition from imports has accelerated structural change in the overall U.S. economy and in forest product markets, favoring survival of forest product enterprises that are more capital-intensive, less labor-intensive, and generally larger, more productive, and globally connected. Despite these changes, timberland assets still exhibit several unique characteristics that are attractive to investors, who look to enhance returns from alternative asset classes, meanwhile diversifying their traditional portfolios. Most of the current investment markets (i.e., pension plans, endowment and private equity funds, insurance companies, and foundations) rely on TIMOs to advise them about their investments in timberlands and to manage those timberlands on their behalf. REITs manage their own timberlands and are mostly organized as publicly traded forest products companies.

Aim and Scope:

Although forestry as an asset class has evolved substantially over last thousand years, a large sector of forest and timberland investments have developed over the last three to four decades, which is the focus of this Special Issue.

Despite these massive changes in the global forest sector, business and economic considerations within timberland investment environment are not well represented in forest sector refereed literature. Therefore, we would like to redress this knowledge gap by highlighting forest investment dynamics as an important influence on forest resource management activities and markets.

History:

The first Special Issue on timberland investments, supply chain and market dynamics stemmed from an International Forest Business Conference held in Poland, in 2018. Between 7-8 December 2020, the second edition of the IFBC will take place and thus we would like to continue the tradition of publishing a special issue that is based on speeches at that conference, as well as from others on similar topics.

Cutting-edge Research:

This subject will help scientific community to develop their research work about timberland investments. Interest also include timberland investment professionals in developmental stages of their careers and forestry, accounting, legal, and conservation professionals who interact with them; investment analysts, portfolio managers, financial planners, and trust officers who make decisions regarding timberland assets; and public-policy officials who desire to better understand institutional timberland managers.

What kind of papers we are soliciting?

Topics addressed in this Special Issue include:

• timberland investments,
• forest finance,
• intensively managed plantations,
• risk, uncertainty and decision-making,
• business structures and investment strategy,
• conservation forestry,
• corporate social responsibility,
• portfolio management,
• wood markets,
• wood-product trade and policy,
• policy and law,
• timber prices and forecasts,
• forestry contractors.

Submission:

To submit papers to this Special Issue click HERE and in step 2 under the form item “Category of Submission” select ‘Special Issue on International Forest Business’.

Recommended paper length:

3,000 – 3,600 words
Around 7-8 Word default pages (font 12, 1.5 spacing, Times New Roman)
incl. graphs, tables and references

Deadline to submit the paper:

July 1, 2021

Contact to Guest Editors:

Rafal Chudy (rafal@forest-analytics.com)

Bin Mei (bmei@uga.edu)

Frederick Cubbage (fredcubbage@yahoo.com)