1. Overview

In Ethiopia, natural forests and plantations are important in maintaining environmental stability, providing fuel wood, saw logs, building posts and poles. They are also used for household consumption and as a source of industrial raw material. They also provide a variety of non-wood forest products such as gum arabic, incense, medicinal plants, foodstuffs and honey.

The country is known for its natural resource endowment and diversity. Until recently the various natural resource base potentials of the country had not been identified and inventoried, and the inter-dependence and inter-relationships of the resources not been studied nor their characteristic defined.

For a country like Ethiopia where sustainable forest management is a priority for the overall development, availability of relevant forest information at all levels is very crucial. Access to information is also a prerequisite for formulating effective policies and strategies at both the federal and regional levels. It promotes the efforts towards sustainable forest management.

At present, organised forest product data is not available or that available is not properly managed and not easily accessible to users. Several forest product data are confined in certain institutions and not properly shared. The collection of reliable, comprehensive and timely statistical information on forest products is very essential for planning purposes and formulation of policy.

Although precise figures are not available, the major demand for forest products is for fuel wood. It is estimated that about 24 million cubic meters of wood is produced annually, of which 10 % is used for industrial and building purpose and the remainder for fuel wood and charcoal. Estimated consumption demand for fuel wood for energy varies from 49 to 64 million m³. However, considerable quantities of wood are also used for construction purposes (poles and posts, as well as lumber). Plywood, fibreboard, particleboard, sliced veneer, pulp and paper manufacturing units also consume industrial round wood.

Industrial wood production (and consumption) per capita is one of the lowest in the world. The low level of production and consumption reflects the fact that the country has limited forest resources base, which has been, and continues to be primarily exploited for fuel wood. The current demand for industrial wood in the whole of the country is estimated at about 400,000 m ³ per year. Projection for the year 2014 according to EFAP report of 1994 is 1.6 million cubic meters.

The annual demand for construction wood is estimated to be 2.1 million m ³ , which is anticipated to be 4.2 million m ³ by the year 2014.

Major sources of supply of forest products are:

Natural forests

Plantations, and

Trees outside forests such as, trees around homestead, trees along the road side, trees on farm land and import of forest products

The area of natural forests and other woodlands is estimated to cover 31.5 million hectares based on the information collected for FRA 2000. Plantations are estimated to cover an area of 255,000 hectares and are sources for construction wood, fuel wood and to a limited extent sources for wood based industries.

Forest product suppliers are state enterprises, private dealers and small-scale rural suppliers.

Forest products consumption and production are categorised as fuelwood and charcoal; industrial round wood which consists of saw logs and veneer logs which give veneers, sawn wood and ply wood; wood-based panels which include particle board, fibre board and plywood, and other forest products such as pulp and paper.

Fuel wood and charcoal: data on the production of fuelwood and charcoal are not reported despite their value. Estimates are based on the per capita consumption that is estimated at 1 m ³ for rural households and 0.94 m ³ for urban ones.

Round wood: include wood after harvest with or without the bark. It is measured in solid volume. Round wood is produced, consumed and exported, however limited. Most of the production is mainly from non-conifers. There has been very insignificant export to neighbouring Eritrea, which is estimated up to 3000 m ³.

Industrial round wood: includes saw logs and veneer logs. Industrial round wood is mainly produced from non-conifers and the product is produced locally and is mainly consumed in domestic markets.

There has been a decline in the production of logs from 130,000 cubic meters in 1980s to 20,000 cubic meters in 1996. This could be due to the decline in the available forest resources in the country. See the trend in the table below.

Table 1. Production trend of industrial round wood

Year	Log input in m 3
1981	133,378
1982	124,184
1983	121,377
1984	112,012
1985	101,497
1986	66,929
1987	80,342
1988	62,734
1990	60,991
1994	60991
1995	28257
1996	20795
1997	9713
1998	4985
1999	5563

1.1.1. Production of sawn wood:

The production of lumber is also on the decline when one looks at the trend in production from 1979 to 1989. The average production of lumber from 1980 to 1990 has been about 23000 m ³ per year.

Table 2. Production of sawn wood

Year	Production (000 m 3
1979	12
1980	17
1981	25
1982	23
1983	25
1984	16
1985	25
1986	27
1987	25
1988	25
1989	25

1.1.2. Wood based panels:

This includes veneer sheets, ply wood, particleboard and fibreboard. The total domestic production is estimated at 12,000 m ³ with an average import of 1000 m ³ per annum. This includes local production of plywood, particleboard and fibreboard for which particleboard production takes the highest share in the production system.

1.1.3. Production of veneer sheets:

This product is both imported and produced locally. It includes mainly volume of veneer sheets produced for the production of plywood. There is a decline in the production rate of this product from 156,000 cubic meters in 1986 to 82,000 cubic meters in 1996. They are mainly produced from non-conifers. In Ethiopia, only sliced veneer mainly for decorative purposes and rotary peeled veneer for the production of plywood are produced. There is no plant for the processing of sawn veneer.

Table 3. Trends of annual production and sales of sliced veneer

Table 4. Production of plywood:

There are two plywood plants in Ethiopia with an average annual production of 3000 cubic meters.

Table 5. Production of particle board:

Table 6. Production of fibre board:

1.1.4. Wood pulp:

It is not produced in Ethiopia. It is an import wood product. Of the different pulp products imported, chemical wood pulp has the highest share compared to other pulp products. The different woodpulp types imported include chemical wood pulp, bleached sulphite pulp and bleached and unbleached sulphate pulp. There are also additional products such as,

Mech anical Wood pulp

Semi-chemical wood pulp

Recovered paper

News print

Printing and writing paper

Household and sanitary paper which are imported.

1.1.5. Pulp and paper

Ethiopia does not produce its own pulp, but only paper. There are two paper-producing factories. The paper mill uses imported pulp and waste paper as its raw material. The mill produces some 9500 metric tons per annum of different qualities of finished paper. All pulp used for the process is imported at an annual cost of about US 8 million dollars.

The trend in the production of paper is as shown in the table below:

Table 7. Trends of annual production of paper

Year	Production in metric tons
1985	9756
1986	11,829
1987	11825
1988	10002
1989	10101
1990	8299
1995	7300
1996	6860
1997	9181
1998	9437
1999	7421

1.1.6. Forest Products Trade:

Data on the export of forest products is scarce. The value of exports of forest products is very small compared to total imports. Forest products import amount to one percent of the country’s total imports. Forest products which are imported are, sawn wood, wood based panels, wood pulp products, printing and writing papers and news print. The list of forest products imported and their value is compiled and attached.

1.1.7. Production of poles and posts

Pole and posts are produced mainly from Eucalyptus species. The production of transmission poles in the country, which is documented, ranges from 24,000 cubic meters to 42,000 cubic meters from 1979 to 1989. The production of poles and posts for fencing and construction purposes ranges from 22,000 to 80,000 cubic meters for the same years.