The region's forests were heavily cut and damaged during the war and large-scale fellings continued also in the post-war years. Under the Socialist system almost all forests were subordinated to centralized management and roundwood production. Also Poland, which maintained private property of agricultural land, nationalized most of her forests. Slovenia was the only exception.
It seems, that most countries of the region adopted the sustained yield principle in forestry involving modest increase in removals and extensive silvicultural work.
As the factors affecting net annual increment (notably the structure and extent of the growing stock, climate) remain rather stable, the annual increment will not change much till 2020. Atmospheric pollution is a hazard which is undermining the growth potential. It is the main reason why a slightly declining trend is forecast for Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Lithuania.
The annual fellings have been below the increment for a long period, which has resulted in an increase of forested area and the growing stock (except possibly in Romania and Albania, although reliable data are lacking).
The underutilization of wood resources has several reasons. Forest assessment methods have not always been accurate enough. The share of young and immature stands is high in many countries (e.g. Hungary, Bulgaria), thinnings had not been practiced widely enough due to lack of technology, non-optimal species and/or assortment composition, mountainous terrain etc.
Local authorities have also had a tendency to deliberately underestimate the real roundwood potential in order to have hidden reserves in case of need. This has been especially evident in the Baltic republics, which, by underrating the local potential, have been able to receive large quantities of logs and pulpwood from Northern Russia. Also Hungary and Bulgaria have imported much of their softwood needs from the Soviet Union prior to 1990, even though these two countries could have increased their local production.
The level of removals has been slightly increased from the 1960s up to 1980 when it started to stagnate in all the countries of the region. This means, that the growing stock has considerably increased during the 1980s, including countries, where atmospheric pollution has done considerable damage to forests (Czech Republic, Poland).
There is then a considerable wood producing potential in the area accumulatively up to 2020 with marked differences between countries, though.
In the Czech Republic removals will be stagnant (the same possibly for Romania and Albania). The growth will be modest in Poland and Slovakia but moderate (more than 1% annually) in Hungary, Bulgaria, Slovenia and the Baltic states.
