Several studies of global wood and wood products supply and demand have recently been produced2. These have all contained projections of product supply and demand of roughly the same order of magnitude. In contrast, however, many of the studies have arrived at different conclusions about the adequacy of forest resources to meet the wood raw material requirements underlying their forest product supply projections. Most of the studies broadly agree that, at the global level, raw material supplies will expand to meet production requirements. However, few of the studies foresee plentiful wood supplies and several have suggested that it may be difficult to meet future requirements in some regions or for some types of wood.
FAO has recently completed two major global studies relevant to this subject: the Global Forest Products Outlook Study (GFPOS), which presents forecasts of forest product supply and demand to 2010; and the Global Fibre Supply Model (GFSM), which examines potential future fibre supplies based on likely future developments in forest resources and alternative sources of fibre supply. This paper, drawing from these two studies, has been prepared by staff of the FAO Forestry Department as a background paper to the World Bank Forest Policy Implementation Review and Strategy.
The paper is in two main parts. The first part presents FAO's projections of wood and wood product supply and demand to 2010 and discusses the potential of the global forest resource and alternative supply sources to fulfil the wood and fibre raw material requirements underlying these projections. This sets the scene for a discussion of market developments in part two of the paper. In this section, emerging developments in the forest sector that have the potential to affect forest products markets are discussed. In particular, the second part of the paper examines factors that might reduce or extend the availability of wood raw material supplies and policy developments that may affect future trade in forest products.
The paper attempts to give some insight into the broad supply and demand developments that are driving the sector and will shape the future of the sector over the next decade or so. It also discusses areas where the World Bank could justify involvement in forestry on the basis of the sector's linkages to its key objectives of poverty alleviation, environmentally sustainable development and private sector development. The analysis places a greater emphasis on the supply side discussion since generally, issues of supply fall within the purview of forest policymakers while demand issues are more heavily influenced by national economic policies.
2 See, for example: Margules, Groome and Pöyry (1996); Sedjo and Lyon (1990); Apsey and Reed (1995); Nilsson (1996); FAO (1997a); and Solberg et al (1996).
