Global wood consumption has risen by 64 percent since 1961. Demand for fuelwood and charcoal rose by nearly 80 percent and more than half the world's wood fiber supply is now burned as fuel.

Consumption of sawlogs, veneers, pulp for paper-making and other industrial forms of wood fiber rose by nearly 50 percent over the same period. Rising demand for industrial wood has encouraged widespread planting of industrial plantations and, today, they account for nearly 25 percent of supply.

However, the bulk of wood fiber for all uses still comes from old-growth or secondary-growth forests. Demand for wood fiber is a major, though by no means the only, cause of deforestation.

• Commercial logging has accelerated the clearance of old-growth tropical hardwood forests; since 1960, more than one-fifth of the world's entire tropical forest cover has been removed.
• Logging is also the primary cause of conversion of old-growth coniferous forests in temperate regions to managed forests with more uniform structure and lower biodiversity.

Demand for industrial wood fiber is projected to rise by between 20 and 40 percent by 2010. Most forestry analysts expect that demand will be met at the global level, but that regional shortfalls will occur, leading to higher fiber prices.

If current patterns of production are not changed, pressure of demand will result in supplies being drawn from the world's last remaining "frontier" forests.

• The tropical forests of the Amazon and equatorial Africa and the boreal forests of Siberia and Canada will not survive in their current form.

Projections of future woodfuel consumption range more widely, due to poor data and uncertainties over the difference between what people actually consume and what they would consume, if their needs were fully met.

• Consumption might rise by only 1 percent by 2010, if supplies are constrained by lack of availability.
• Consumption could more than double, if constraints were removed.

Many studies predict that critical shortages will affect parts of Africa and Asia, unless more effort is made to establish woodfuel plantations.

Opportunities for change

The wood fiber sector offers considerable scope for efficiency improvements, if regulatory and economic incentives are applied.

• Technological advance has already improved the efficiency of fiber utilization and enabled some substitution of non-wood materials.
• The proportion of wood fiber which is recovered during processing and manufacture, and the percentage of paper made from recycled fiber have risen impressively over the past 30 years and could rise further.
• Consumer concerns over tropical deforestation could further develop the market for sustainably produced hardwood products.

In theory, the world's entire current demand for industrial wood could be met from intensively-managed plantations covering an area equivalent to less than 10 percent of today's natural forests -- even after allowing for extensive environmental protection measures.

In practice, a very substantial part of the forecast increase in consumption could be supplied from plantations, if:

• legal protection of old-growth forests were strengthened,
• forestry management standards were tightened, thus raising costs, and
• financial incentives for plantation establishment, and good management, were increased.

Community plantations to provide fuelwood have proved successful in a number of developing countries and represent the most realistic short-term policy option until rising wealth enables the transition from woodfuels to commercial alternatives.