Production of industrial roundwood, which comprises all wood fiber products from logs to pulp, is a major industry.
North America, Asia, and Western Europe dominate industrial roundwood production. However, the timber industry is of greater economic importance to some developing countries, where wood exports can account for up to 80 percent of foreign currency earnings. Overthe past three decades, international trade in forest products hasincreased roughly threefold in terms of value, adjusted for inflation,and now accounts for about 3 percent of total world trade.
Industrial roundwood consumption is rising fastest in the rapidly growing economies of Asia and Latin America, where demand is strong for construction timber, processed wood products, and paper and paperboard.
Of all industrial roundwood products, paper and paperboard are growing the most rapidly. Globally, paper consumption has increased by a factor of 20 this century and has more than tripled over the past 30 years. In addition to the traditional print products (books, newspapers, stationery), new markets for mail order catalogues, marketing and promotional materials, household and sanitary papers,and packaging have kept consumption buoyant over recent decades. The advent of computers and other electronic equipment has fueled rather than decreased demand.
The three main sources of industrial roundwood are primary forests (sometimes known as natural, old-growth, or virgin), secondary-growth forests (sometimes known as seminatural), and plantations. These highest wood fiber yields accrue through clear-cutting mature trees in primary forests. This method of harvesting is still widespread, for example, in parts of Amazonia, Canada, and Siberia. But is obviously a one-time operation.
More fiber production today occurs in secondary-growth forests – those natural forests that have been cut but have regrown (sometimes several times), or have been partially replanted, and are now managed more or less intensively for wood production and other purposes.
The following summarizes key findings of the PAGE study on conditions and trends in industrial roundwood production, as well as the quality and availability of data.
Conditions and trends
- Global industrial fiber production totals 1.5 billion cubic meters. Production has risen by 50 percent since 1960 and is expected to rise by between 20 and 50 percent by 2020. Nearly 80 percent of fiber production today comes from primary and secondary-growth forests.
- Less than half of global forest area is defined by FAO as currently available for fiber production. The remainder is restricted either by current market conditions or by legal protection. Production is concentrated in North America, Europe, and Asia. The greatest reserves of currently unexploited mature trees exist in Canada, Russia, and Brazil.
- Only the United States and Western European countries currently harvest less wood from available forest land than regrows annually. Canada, Russia, Central and Eastern Europe, and most developing countries harvest above replacement rates in their available forest areas.
- Industrial wood plantations now supply just over 20 percent of fiber production. This share is expected to increase in future, but increased production from plantations will not necessarily decrease harvest rates in natural forests.
- Well-managed industrial wood plantations, especially those in the Southern Hemisphere, are capable of yields 5, 10, or even 50 times greater than those obtained from natural forests. However, some plantations in developing countries appear to have high planting failure rates.
- Production forests which have been managed for decades tend to become more uniform in structure; their trees, on average, are younger and smaller in size than in unmanaged forests.
- Immediate local-level impacts of logging on tropical forest biodiversity can be severe, but many groups of species appear to recover over time. Different taxa vary in their requirement for large, intact areas of undisturbed forest.
Information status and needs
- Data on production volume and value are generally good, although estimates are involved for some developing countries. Information needs include spatial information at the subnational level on timber harvests, national-level data on the share of production from primary and secondary forest, and better monitoring of the extent and location of illegal logging.
- More economic analysis is required of the relationship between fiber prices, wood industry technologies, and the likely balance of supply from plantations and natural forests.
- Good forest inventory information is available for most industrial countries, but is incomplete for developing countries, where better information on growth rates, age and diameter class size, harvest rates, tree mortality and planting, and methods of harvesting is needed at the national and subnational levels.
- Reporting on plantation establishment and success rates is uneven in some developing countries. Definitional difficulties among seminatural and plantation forests obscure plantation extent in industrial countries. Better information is needed on the amount and types of land converted to plantations (closed or open forest, degraded land, other) each year. Information on reported and net plantation area should distinguish between failed and harvested plantations.
- Good yield data are available for individual plantations but usually not at national level. High yields are recorded on some plantations and in field trials but it is not clear how far these have been translated to the field. More information and indicators are needed on long-term yields and biological and management parameters of plantations.
- The impacts of logging on biodiversity are still poorly understood. Information is needed on impacts on species other than birds, moths, and butterflies, especially invertebrates. More studies are needed of impacts in nontropical forests. There is an urgent need for agreement on relatively simple biodiversity indicators that can be monitored as logging operations progress.
Quality and availability of data
PAGE measures and indicators
Data sources and comments
Production volume FAOSTAT. Electronic database. Available on-line at http://FAOSTAT.fao.org/cgi-bin/nph-db.pl?subset=forestry.
Generally good data on production volume and value, although some estimation involved for Africa
Availability of productive forest land Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). 1998. Global Fibre Supply Model. Rome: FAO.
Area of economically available forest will change with fiber prices.
Harvesting intensity Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). 1998. Global Fibre Supply Model. Rome: FAO.
Data incomplete for many developing countries.
Plantation area
FAO.
Pandey, D. 1997. Tropical Forest Plantation Areas 1995. Report to Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations project GCP/INT/628/UK.
Brown, C. 1999. Global Forest Products Outlook Study: Thematic Study on Plantations. Working Paper No. GFPOS/WP/03 (draft). Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Global coverage but data uncertain for many countries
Plantation productivity
FAO.
Pandey, D. 1997. Tropical Forest Plantation Areas 1995. Report to Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations project GCP/INT/628/UK.
Brown, C. 1999. Global Forest Products Outlook Study: Thematic Study on Plantations. Working Paper No. GFPOS/WP/03 (draft). Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Good yield data available but scattered.
Tree diameter size Haynes, R.W., D.M. Adams, and J.R. Mills. 1995. The 1993 RPA Timber Assessment Update. United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service. General Technical Report RM-259 Fort Collins, Colorado: USFS.
Case study of United States production forests.
Impacts of logging on biodiversity Survey of local studies in tropical countries of impacts on birds, butterflies and moths.
