According to an Oct. 9, 2018 feature by the Wall Street Journal (New York, N.Y., USA) forests in the southeastern USA have become so filled with trees that it's affecting the retirement investment of many landowners in the region. During the 1980s many investors in American families purchased southern pine plantations in anticipation of eventually harvesting the matured wood on the land to pay for their children's college and other expenses such as those related to retirement.

 

However, since the current, modern-day amounts of wood being harvested for pulping or for other uses (such as in construction) has not met expectations and actually produces a market glut versus what can possibly be turned into wood-products, the article suggests that the current climate is threatening the prospects for the future of many tree farms. While some regions around the world have suffered from deforestation, which is largely now being addressed by the modern accepted players in the global forest industry, it remains a lesser known fact that certain regions such as the southeastern U.S. face a glut of wood that could be processed despite the fact that parts of the region have aggressive processing of prime and semi-prime wood chips for bio-energy production.

More information is available in the full article online.