Future Prospects

        The ongoing threat of development, erosion, waste disposal, suppression of fire/ lack of fire management, logging, exploitation of remaining forests, fragmentation, and other human activities has lead us to believe that this ecoregion will soon be lost if we don’t take action now. Also the poor status of protected areas is something that needs to be changed in order to better ensure the livelihood of Southeastern Mixed Forests. Although there are some organizations and conservation partners trying to fix these issues, there is still a lot that needs to be done and only time will tell the outcome of this ecosystem. 

Some future prospects according to the Southern Forest Futures Project include (4):

• The interaction of four primary factors define the South’s future forests: population growth, climate change, timber markets, invasive species 
• Southern forests could sustain higher timber production levels, but demand is the limiting factor and demand growth is uncertain 
• Urbanization is forecasted to result in forest loses, increased carbon emissions, and stress to other forest resources 
• Bioenergy futures could bring demands that are large enough to trigger changes in forest conditions, management, and markets 
• A combination of factors has the potential to decrease water availability and forest conservation and management can help to mitigate these effects 
• Invasive species create a great but uncertain potential for ecological changes and economic losses 
• An extended fire season combined with obstacles to prescribed burning would increase wildland fire-related hazards 
• Private owners continue to control forest futures, but ownership patterns are becoming less stable 
• Threats to species of conservation concern are widespread but are especially concentrated in the Coastal Plain and the Appalachian-Cumberland subregions 
• Increasing populations would increase demand for forest based recreation while the availability of land to meet these needs is forecasted to decline