FAO/ECE STAFF
A summary of a new appraisal, 1950-75
ONE outcome of FAO'S first study on European timber trends and prospects was to disprove the widely held belief that there was a long-term downward trend in Europe's wood consumption. That such a belief should exist was not really sun pricing. As Table 1 shows, in the period from 1913 to 1950 Europe's total consumption of wood and wood products, which had admittedly been severely distorted by two continental wars, had not shown any consistent tendency to rise or fall. Even consumption of industrial wood and its products had risen by less than 22 percent. However, as the earlier study took pains to emphasize, the tempo of growth of Europe's wood requirements was by 1950 rapidly accelerating. At that time it was estimated that in the 10 years to 1960 consumption of industrial wood would rise by up to 30 percent. In the event the rise amounted to 38 percent - and in absolute terms to an increase in the volume of wood used annually of about 65 million cubic meters; twice as much as the increase between 1913 and 1950. Use of roundwood for fuel continued to fall but not by much, and total consumption of wood rose between 1950 and 1960 by 17 percent to 340 million cubic meters - well above the level at which it had stayed over most of the preceding half century.
TABLE 1. - ESTIMATED APPARENT CONSUMPTION OF WOOD AND WOOD PRODUCTS IN EUROPE: 1913-1976
(Million cubic meters of roundwood requirementsa)
|
|
1913 |
1925/29 |
1935/38 |
1950 |
1960 |
1975 |
|
Industrial wood |
138 |
153 |
173 |
169 |
233 |
340 |
|
Fuelwood |
136 |
144 |
129 |
118 |
107 |
90 |
|
TOTAL |
274 |
297 |
302 |
287 |
340 |
430 |
NOTE: Figures prior to 1950 taken from European timber statistics 1913-1950, UN/FAO, Geneva 1963.
a Solid measure without bark.
In the course of the present study, it has been seen quite clearly that far from there being another temporary upward fluctuation in consumption, there has in fact been a fundamental change in the rate of growth in Europe's wood needs. This stemmed from an equally basic shift in the way in which wood is being used.
While wood continued to be used in the main in sawn or round form, the steady trend toward a more economical use of these forms of wood and of the substitution of wood by such nonwood materials as concrete and metal, all but offset the rise in the volume of work for which wood could be used. The rapid growth in the consumption of wood pulp and wood-based panel products had little effect on the total as long as they accounted for only a minor part of the total use of wood.
TABLE 2. - TOTAL USE OF INDUSTRIAL WOOD IN EUROPE IN 1950 AND 1960, AND ESTIMATES FOR, 1875, BY GROUPS OF PRODUCTS
(Wood raw material equivalent volumes in million cubic meters)
|
|
Quantity |
Percent |
||||||
|
1950 |
1960 |
1975 |
1950 |
1960 |
1975 |
|||
|
|
|
Higher |
Lower |
|
|
Higher |
Lower |
|
|
Sawnwood |
98.3 |
126.9 |
148 |
140 |
57 |
52 |
41 |
42 |
|
Woodpulp |
33.2 |
64.6 |
150 |
135 |
19 |
26 |
41 |
42 |
|
Wood-based panel products |
5.8 |
15.9 |
43 |
37 |
3 |
6.1 |
12 |
11 |
|
Other industrial round wood a |
36.5 |
38.1 |
24 |
24 |
21 |
14.1 |
6 |
7 |
|
TOTAL EQUIVALENT VOLUME OF WOOD RAW MATERIAL |
174 |
245 |
365 |
336 |
100 |
98 |
100 |
100 |
|
TOTAL ROUNDWOOD REQUIREMENTSb |
169 |
233 |
340 |
313 |
97 |
95 |
93 |
93 |
a Used in unprocessed form (pitprops, poles, posts, etc.).
b Arrived at by deducting industrial wood residues from the total wood raw material.
The steady upsurge in consumption over the past decade reflects growing share of all Europe's industrial wood use which is now consumed in the forms of wood pulp products and wood-base panel products. As is shown in Table 2, these two groups of products, which in 1950 made up only a little more than one fifth of all industrial roundwood used, accounted for one third by 1960 - due, it should be noted, not only to the fast growth in their consumption but also to the relatively slow growth in the demand for sawnwood and the stagnation in demand for wood for use in the round.
These past trends are expected to continue and even to accelerate. The estimates of requirements in 1975 shown in Table 2 are associated with two alternative rates of growth in Europe's gross national product (GNP) between 1960 and 1975,1 and it will be seen that the shift in the pattern of use would not be materially altered by the rate of growth. It is estimated that at the higher level of requirements in 1975 (associated with an approximate doubling of Europe's gross national product) more than half of all the industrial wood consumed in Europe will be used in the form of wood pulp products and wood-based panel products - and consumption of these products will have much more than doubled. Requirements of sawnwood on the other hand are in aggregate expected to do little more than keep pace with growth in population (and at the lower level of requirements would fall short of this rate of growth), while requirements of wood to be used in the round will fall fast.
1The higher level of growth assumes that Europe's gross national product would grow by 104 percent (at constant values) between 1980 and 1975. The-lower level assumes that the growth in the countries with market economies (i.e., all those except eastern Europe and Yugoslavia) would in aggregate amount to 63 percent over. the period (compared with 87 percent at the higher level) which would give Europe as e. whole a gross product in 1975 about to percent less than aimed at the higher level of growth in economic activity.
With the shift to its use in the form of wood pulp products and wood-based panel products, the increase in Europe's total use of wood more and more reflects the rapid growth in the consumption of these products. It has been estimated that between 1960 and 1975 a doubling of Europe's gross national- product would be accompanied by a rise in total requirements of industrial roundwood of about 45 percent. If this comes about, Europe's wood consumption will have doubled over the quarter century covered by this study: a remarkable contrast to the modest growth over the earlier part of the century.
Even at the lower level of economic growth the quantities required would rise by more than 80 percent over the 26 years. Moreover, it must be stressed that these two alternative estimates by no means exhaust the range of requirements that may emerge by 1975. None of the parameters of economic activity, population, price, technological change, etc., can be projected with certainty. The values assumed in this study are those which at the time of writing appear most likely to develop by that year. However, any or all may in the event be higher or lower than assumed, which would affect wood requirements accordingly. The presenting of alternative estimates in this study is in recognition of this element of uncertainty, and also serves to illustrate the effect of variations in the most important parameter - the growth in economic activity. But, it should be borne in mind that Europe's rate of economic growth may still be even faster than the higher level of growth assumed here, or slower than the lower level.
For that matter, a given level of economic activity, population, etc., may also give rise to a larger or smaller volume of wood requirements than has been assessed here. In other words it must be accepted that there is a certain margin of uncertainty attaching to the forward estimates of the relationship between wood use and the basic parameters. The case of the requirement of wood products for new housing illustrates this. It has been estimated in the study that Europe's housing requirements would require about 5.8 million new dwellings to be built in 1975; but that the investment and physical resources that can be expected to be available at the higher level of economic activity assumed for that year are likely to restrict the number actually built to 4.1 million. It is clear, however, that with actual house building continuing to fall short of requirements by such a margin the social, political and economic pressures which also have a significant bearing on the level of house building could well bring about a substantial increase in this number, even within the framework of this particular level of economic activity. An additional 500,000 new dwellings, say, in 1975, if spread between the different regions of Europe in the same proportion as the 4.1 million anticipated already, would require about an additional 2.5 million cubic meters of sawnwood and perhaps an extra 500,000 cubic meters of wood-based panel products.
The point to note here is that there is the possibility, on a number of counts, that Europe's requirements in 1975 could be higher, or lower, than either of the alternative estimates presented in this study. However, there is every reason to expect the general pattern of requirements to be very much as it has been set out here, and by and large any changes should not alter the general orders of magnitude - and such changes will not affect the basic fact that growth in requirements between 1960 and 1975 will be very large indeed.
The magnitude and momentum of this growth in total wood requirements tends to conceal certain less favorable developments within the total. Probably the most important of these is the extent to which sawnwood losing ground. It is of course inevitable, and often desirable, that solid wood should in many instances be replaced by forms of reconstituted wood - which are more uniform in their properties and in which many of the requirements of shape, size, texture and finish can, in effect, be " built-in " during the processing stage - or by alternative nonwood materials; but the extent to which sawnwood is being replaced is often greater than can be accounted for by the superior qualities or more competitive cost of the materials which replace it. There remain many uses for which wood in sawn form remains technically and economically the most suitable material. There is an important sawmilling industry in Europe and a very large volume of sawlog-sized timber in Europe's forests, and in the context of Europe's forest and wood-using economy as a whole, it is clearly a matter of concern to ensure that sawnwood retains and where possible improves its position in those markets.
Much of the difficulty arises because the structure of the sawmilling industry, which consists in the main of a large number of small units, puts it at a disadvantage by comparison with its bigger and structurally more concentrated competitors; also the nature of the sawmilling process does not lend itself as readily to cost-saving development through mechanization and automation. Nevertheless, as this study has shown, there remains considerable scope for improvement, in particular through co-operation within the sawmilling industry to improve the level of research, product development and marketing; and co-operation with the other wood using industries to co-ordinate felling and logging, to ensure the optimum allocation of the roundwood supplies, and the better utilization of sawmill residues.
The need to rationalize the over-all pattern and structure of wood use, and of the wood-using industries, is likely to become more urgent in the coming period - as difficulties in obtaining supplies will heighten the competition -for raw- material between the different industries. Attention has been drawn here to the particular problems of the sawmilling industry - these being more acute at the time of writing than those of the other industries - but we will return to the general issues involved after discussing supply prospects.
Before turning to consider the supply situation there is one- further- point that should be noted about the rise in Europe's wood requirements. Despite the massive growth in the total volume of industrial wood required in Europe, this' growth is not as fast as that of Europe's gross national product, so that" in aggregate wood is still losing ground in the economy. Moreover, as is shown in Table 3, even consumption of wood pulp products and wood panel products, which' are both growing faster than gross national products, are expected to do so by smaller margins-in the period 1960-1975 than in 19501960). In other words, in terms of the general level of economic activity, the growth in requirements of even these products is beginning to fall off.
TABLE 3. - CHANGES IN GROSS NATIONAL PRODUCT AND IN CONSUMPTION OF INDUSTRIAL WOOD,a BY PRODUCTS, BETWEEN 1950 AND 1975
|
|
1960, as percent of 1950 |
1975, as percent of 1960b |
|
Sawnwood |
122 |
117 |
|
Wood pulp products |
200 |
241 |
|
Wood-based panel products |
315 |
296 |
|
Unprocessed roundwood |
104 |
62 |
|
TOTAL INDUSTRIAL WOOD c |
138 |
146 |
|
Gross national product |
166 |
204 |
aChanges calculated on the basis of product volumes. bHigher level of requirements. cMeasured as roundwood requirement (i.e., after allowing for use of residues).
However, though this needs to be kept in mind, it is hardly a matter of great concern when the absolute volume of wood required is growing by such massive amounts - and when this already gives rise to problems on the supply side.
Prior to the 1950s, Europe had been largely self sufficient as regards wood. During the preceding 50 years its net exports and net imports have been of no more than marginal importance, and Europe's forests have produced virtually all the volumes of wood required - with the obvious exception of special sizes and species not available in Europe. But, as has been noted, requirements rose very slowly: so that when the concurrent decline in the use of wood for fuel is taken into account, total removals of roundwood in Europe, like total requirements, rose very little over the first half of the century. The question thus arises: to what extent can Europe's forests now be expected to support a progressively rising output in line with the growth in requirements?
There are, in fact, strict limitations to what can be expected - limitations imposed by the fact that, in general,- Europe's forests are often confined to poor soils, and to regions with inclement climates and locations difficult of access, and are frequently remote from centers of consumption. However, it is equally clear that, even within these limits, current to forest management practices are not always directed toward harvesting the maximum amount of wood the forest could yield. Generally speaking management practices have in the past been oriented toward achieving a large reserve of standing timber, supporting a sustained, even, annual yield of large-sized logs. Meanwhile, not only have requirements changed from a very slow rise to a rapid growth,- but the pattern has altered. The requirement now is to e growing extent no longer for size and quality but for quantity. Not only can much of the requirements of the wood pulp and wood-based panel industries be met by small-sized wood, but there is generally no longer a premium on the largest sizes of sawlogs.
There is already a growing appreciation that the changing situation must be met by updating forest management practices. Allowable cut should be raised to allow full use of the available increment, and as much of the caution in setting allowable cut stems from not knowing what the increment and age distribution are, these should be determined more accurately.
Rotations should be shortened to the length which will produce logs appropriate to current and future needs, and more intensive thinning could make available for use much of the small-sized wood which is now lost by being suppressed during the course of the natural maturing of the forest.
These, of course, are not new concepts; as has been noted, they have met with growing acceptance - though not yet with such a wide application in practice. Nevertheless, between 1950 and 1960 Europe's annual recorded removals rose from 292 to 318 million cubic meters a year. As fuelwood removals fell those of roundwood for industrial purposes rose rather more sharply - from 173 to 212 million cubic meters. As the actual improvement in the average annual net growth of Europe's forests can be estimated to have been no more than 20 million cubic meters over the decade, the remaining rise in removals reflects either an improved harvesting of what is available, or overcutting, that is, cutting in excess of net growth. It can be accepted that in aggregate Europe's forests are not being overcut - though individual areas and species probably are. The fact that there was a real improvement in the intensity of utilization can be seen in the rise in the share of broadleaved species and small-sized roundwood in removals between 1950 and 1960.
Further improvements of this nature are anticipated in the roundwood removals expected for 1975 under the forest policies and plans being followed in Europe at the time of writing. Total removals are expected to rise from 318 million cubic meters in 1960 to about 360 million cubic meters in 1975 - with about 270 million cubic meters of this to be used for industrial purposes. According to available information this increase will again be achieved by taking most of the increase from broadleaved species and from small-sized wood.
TABLE 4. - EUROPEAN ROUNDWOOD REMOVALS 1913-1960, AND ANTICIPATED REMOVALS FOR 1975
(Million cubic meters without bark)
|
|
1913 |
1925/29 |
1935/38 |
1950 |
1960 |
1975 |
|
Industrial wood |
116 |
151 |
163 |
173 |
212 |
270 |
|
Fuelwood |
137 |
144 |
129 |
118 |
107 |
90 |
|
TOTAL ROUND WOOD REMOVALS |
261 |
301 |
297 |
291 |
319 |
360 |
NOTE: Figures prior to 1960 taken from European timber statistics: 1913-1950 UN/FAO, Geneva 1963. The sum of industrial wood and fuel-wood does not for the years prior to 1960 add to total roundwood removals because the former are domestic supply and the latter are fellings.
As is shown in Table 4, the increases in output anticipated for 1975 under present policies and plans would lift total removals well above any level achieved over the preceding 60 years.
Even so, the increase does not match the growth in requirements, falling short at the lower level of assumed economic growth by 20 million cubic meters a year by 1975, while at the higher level of growth the shortfall would be as much as 50 million cubic meters - in addition, that is, to the deficit of 15 to 20 million cubic meters which already existed in 1960. This is shown, broken down by use and by size of wood required, in Table 5.
TABLE 5 - CONSUMPTION OF WOOD PRODUCTS AND OUTPUT OF INDUSTRIAL ROUNDWOOD IN EUROPE FROM 1049-55 AND 1959-61 AND ESTIMATES FOR 1975
(Million cubic meters of roundwooda)
|
|
1950 |
1960 |
1975 |
||||
|
Apparent consumption |
Recorded removals |
Apparent consumption |
Recorded removals |
Requirementsd |
Prospective removal |
||
|
L |
H |
||||||
|
Sawlogs and veneer logsb |
102.5 |
100 |
135.9 |
117 |
156 |
167 |
140 |
|
Pulpwoodc |
29.6-66.1 |
|
58.6-96.7 |
|
133-157 |
149-173 |
|
|
Pitprops |
13.6-66.1 |
73 |
14.1-96.7 |
95 |
8-157 |
8-173 |
130 |
|
Other industrial wood |
22.9-66.1 |
|
24.0-96.7 |
95 |
16-157 |
16-173 |
130 |
|
TOTAL INDUSTRIAL ROUNDWOOD |
169 |
173 |
233 |
212 |
313 |
340 |
270 |
|
of which: |
|||||||
|
Coniferous |
|
141 |
|
165 |
|
|
184 |
|
Broadleaved |
|
32 |
|
47 |
|
|
86 |
aConsumption and future requirements expressed in terms of roundwood requirements, i.e., after deducting wood residues used as raw materials. bIncludes logs for sleepers. cIncludes roundwood for Particle board and fibreboard. dAlternatives show lower (L) and higher (H) levels of economic growth.
However, the level of removals shown in Table 4 by no means represents a full utilization of the annual growth of Europe's forests. Even the forest as it exists today could yield, through an intensification of forest management on the lines indicated in this study, up to an additional 40 million cubic meters of wood a year.
But there are definite limits to how much can be made available in practice. Chief among these limitations is cost. Most forest operations are labor-intensive, so that the steady rise in the real value of wages bears heavily on the cost of growing and harvesting wood. Moreover, forest labor is becoming harder to get. Forest work has traditionally provided out-of-season employment to agricultural workers, but with the exodus from rural areas this labor force is disappearing. Also forest work is physically hard and thus uncongenial to many, so that young workers are not attracted to it. To maintain-a forest labor force in the future is going to require a material improvement in working and living conditions and the cost of labor in forestry will therefore rise further than just through the rise in wages.
This can be partly offset by mechanization, improving methods of work and the training of forest workers. But effective use of machinery requires a concentration of work, and the full benefit of mechanization is only to be had on level land, and in even-aged stands with few silvicultural limitations. Economic pressures are thus likely to make the harvesting of mountain forests, the working of selection forests, and such labor-intensive, scattered work as thinning, relatively more difficult. On these grounds there is a danger that even the degree of intensification of management anticipated in present forest policies and plans - notably in eastern Europe, where much of the additional volumes of removals is expected to come from thinnings and small-sized stem and branch wood - will be curtailed by rising costs. As has been discussed earlier, this is already happening in some parts of Europe.
However, there are considerable forest areas which are uneconomic for timber production very largely because they are designed primarily, or at least partly, to serve protective, amenity or other noncrop purposes. This being so, there must be a strong case for managing (with appropriate accounting) much of the natural forest area primarily for its nontimber values; timber would then be considered a joint product, with revenues from this serving to offset, wholly or partially, the cost of management for other purposes. It can be foreseen that only in this fashion can the cost of producing timber from much of the more mountainous and less accessible forests in Europe be kept low enough to compete with the output from more easily-worked and accessible plantation-forests, and with imported wood and wood products.
2All parts of the world outside Europe. Thus, the term overseas here includes the U.S.S.R.
Supplies from overseas will undoubtedly play a more important role in the future; not only because in general larger volumes of wood and wood products will be needed, but also because, while the growing shortage of indigenous supplies is tending to force European wood prices up, the general lowering of Europe's tariff barriers is having the concurrent effect of making imports more competitive.
It is clear that this will also limit the extent to which the volume present in the forest is made available in practice; in fact, unless means are found to make wood available from Europe's forests at a competitive price, the industries in Europe which use wood and wood products will undoubtedly turn increasingly to overseas sources for their supplies.
The problem facing Europe is then not so much a physical shortage of wood - as we have seen earlier in the study, if the cost did not matter Europe's forests could provide the whole of the volume required in 1975 - as the problem of what proportion of its requirements could best come from domestic production and what best from overseas; and what are the implications attaching to each course. What changes in the pattern of supply would be desirable? What action is required to bring these changes about and by whom ? And what will this cost?
If Europe can produce most of the bulk required, it is equally clear that there are certain categories of wood that cannot be supplied in Europe - notably, of course, tropical hardwoods which either in sawn or veneer form have properties which cannot be matched by European hardwoods. There are also other species which are superior to comparable European woods. For example, though there is an ample volume of broadleaved timber of sawlog size in Europe, much of it is inferior to the cheaper utility tropical hardwoods, such as ramin, or to some North American hardwoods. Equally, North America's coniferous forests can produce lengths and sizes of sawn softwood which could not be found in Europe.
Then there are those products which can be made more economically in the wood-rich countries which are the source of their raw material. There are good reasons to expect the production of both quality hardwood plywood and veneer, and of the mass-produced paper and paperboard grades based essentially on wood pulp, to become concentrated near their source of material: imports would then make up a much greater part of Europe's supplies of these products than in the past. Indeed if prices are to be kept in check and the volumes required are to be forthcoming, this is to be encouraged, as the raw materials would in any event have to be imported. To produce such products--ii] Europe is to run the risk that the raw material supply will not be maintained (as all countries endeavor to build up industries use their available raw materials) and to add unnecessarily to the costs of production. The "creaming" of the forests of west Africa to sustain an export trade in high quality veneer logs of a limited range of species is a much more costly and inefficient way of drawing on these forests than to use them as a base for a balanced range of forest industries designed for integral utilization, located in that region. Quite apart from this, the shipping of wood products rather than logs reduces the freight costs. Similarly the extra stages of drying, shipping and "reslushing" wood pulp can add 10 to 15 percent to the final cost of papers with a high wood-fiber content.
The earlier pattern of supply developed around a series of tariffs which generally encouraged the import of roundwood rather than wood products - in particular, those products which are produced domestically in the main importing countries. A freer flow of plywood and veneer, and of paper and paperboard, would require a change in tariff structures to remove this discrimination. But how is this likely to affect existing industries in Europe?
That they will be affected cannot be disputed. But these effects should not be exaggerated. In the first place, only a part of each product range is concerned - in the product groups referred to earlier, quality veneers and plywoods and certain mass-produced papers and paperboards high in wood-fiber content. The European industry may be expected to continue to produce utility plywoods for which some domestic supplies of birch, aspen, poplar and pine and also beech of modest sizes, can serve well. The same applies to papers based on a wide range of raw materials some of which, and notably wastepaper, are to be found near the main centers of consumption. And both industries in fact, have some flexibility; for example, it requires relatively minor modifications to certain types of paper mills to enable them to make different categories of paper - moreover, this would often mean upgrading the mill to make shorter runs of more expensive grades.
Again, even were a free flow of trade in forest products assured, this would not mean that cost of production (plus freight, and taking into account quality differences) would always be decisive. There will always be some important incentives- toward local production. One is the flexibility offered in response to changes in consumer demand. An example of this is quality veneer and plywood, the demand for which depends heavily on current fashion in such industries as furniture. Even for a commodity like newsprint, large consumers are prepared to pay a premium for the control over supplies which local- production offers, and for the economies in stockholding they can thereby realize.
Considerations such as these suggest that, while existing forest industries in Europe will certainly not remain unaffected, the changes are likely to be less drastic than is often supposed. On the other hand, the pattern of the new forest industries which will be established in Europe in the course of the next decade or so is likely to be very different from the pattern of those existing in 1960. Or, to put the matter another way the basic question is not one of imports replacing European production, but rather of how, to what extent, and in what form, imports will supplement European production.
Moreover, this is not just a question of the shift in the over-all balance between production in Europe and supplies from overseas but also of how the pattern of production within Europe might change and of the implications of any such change upon trade within Europe. Table 6 shows both past consumption and prospective requirements and also European supplies, by regions. As is shown in the table, the structure and nature of the growth in requirements will greatly increase the import-dependence of the EEC and the United Kingdom, and this will further narrow intra-European trade to a flow from northern Europe into these two regions. With the anticipated shift in the pulp product sector toward concentrating the production of certain grades of paper and paperboard in the pulp-producing countries, a greater part of the exports from northern Europe can be expected to be in the form of paper and paperboard rather than of wood pulp. The first stage in such a change is already to be seen. Within the EFTA group of countries the relevant tariffs have recently been halved, and by 1966 they should have disappeared altogether. This will open a number of markets - notably the United Kingdom - to free entry of paper and paperboard from northern Europe, and already the United Kingdom paper industry is adjusting to this change.
NOTE: 1975 figures show only the upper level of estimated requirements.
aArrived at by deducting use of industrial wood residues from total wood raw material.
This trend toward upgrading the nature and value of their exports can be expected to be accentuated as a result of the raw material shortages the northern European countries expect to encounter before 1975. As they reach the limit of the capacity of the existing areas of forest, further increases in wood raw material will have to come either from the improvement in the yield of the forest - which, as has been seen, will be very slow - or by transferring wood from one use to another more profitable use.
There is still considerable scope nearly everywhere in Europe for transferring fuelwood to industrial use. As is shown in Table 1, it is estimated that in 1975 90 million cubic meters of roundwood will still be used for fuel. This is based on the present rather slow decline in this use, but it is clear that a growth in industrial demand for this type of wood would sharply step up the rate at which it was diverted to industrial use. Where, as in northern Europe, coniferous wood is still used as fuel, this shift will certainly take place. There will also inevitably be competition between the industries that use wood for such supplies as are available. In this connection, the wood pulp and wood. based panel products industries are in one respect in a stronger position than the sawmilling industry: the cost of wood raw material makes up a smaller share of the total cost of production and a rise in roundwood prices can thus be more easily absorbed. Furthermore, the gross value of output per cubic meter of wood raw material is much greater in the pulp and paper and wood-based panel products industries than in the sawmilling industry. At the national level it may well appear desirable, in the context of the economy as a whole, to divert some roundwood from sawmilling to wood pulp products and wood-based panel products. This has in fact already happened to a certain extent. A further shift is planned in the countries of eastern Europe, as part of their effort to rationalize and improve the way in which their available wood resource is used, and will be accompanied by rigorous economies in the uses of sawnwood, and it is likely that some additional transfer will also take place in the countries of western Europe where the large export-oriented pulp and paper industries are of great importance.
While Europe's production of pulp and paper could thus be improved, and is likely to be so, this carries with it a necessarily lower supply of sawlogs, and so of sawnwood. However, Europe's annual requirements of sawnwood are rising at such a modest rate (they would be not more than 12 to 13 million cubic meters greater in 1975 than in 1960), that even the whole of this rise could apparently be met without much difficulty by suppliers from outside Europe. As there are also prospects for meeting a considerable part of this rise from . European production - particularly if forest management is revised, for example, by shortening rotations, to make fuller use of existing reserves the sawlog/ sawnwood supply prospects appear to be relatively promising and this may well- encourage the deliberate diversion of some part of Europe's coniferous wood resources from sawnwood to the other products. Apart from the better return from the latter, it is cheaper to import the sawnwood that can- be made from a cubic meter of roundwood than the equivalent volume of pulp, paper, particle board or fibreboard.
To sum up, it is to be expected that Europe will, in future, come to draw upon overseas supplies from other parts of the world to a growing extent: the increase in domestic supplies will be subject to economic limitations, and supplies from overseas will not only help to fill the gap but, provided tariffs are altered-to encourage trade in those products which are more cheaply made elsewhere, this will help to keep down prices of wood products in general in Europe. Production programs within Europe - both forestry policies directed toward improving output of roundwood and industry developments affecting production of wood products - will therefore need to take account of the changing situation. In Table 7 an attempt has been made to pull together the various trends and developments expected, to show the likely balance in 1975 in quantitative terms. For most items two figures are shown - on one side representing the higher and lower ends of the range of expected requirements, and on the other side reflecting the alternative supply situations.
It must again be stressed that these estimates do not, and could not, encompass the full range of possible requirements or supplies that may develop by 1975. However, this is not very important. If Europe's economy grows at a rate which exceeds even the higher level of growth assumed in this study, it merely means that the higher level of requirements, and the problems of meeting these requirements, would have to be met even before 1975. Conversely, if economic growth were even slower than the lower rate assumed, the associated level of requirements would not be reached until some years after 1975. The point to note is that sooner or later Europe will require these quantities of wood. Moreover, there iv little reason to doubt that the pattern of requirements and the problems associated with meeting them will be as envisaged in this study - irrespective of the actual year in which they emerge in practice. From Table 7 and the preceding discussion, the salient features of that situation may be seen to be as follows:
1. Even with a slow rate of growth in the economy, Europe's wood requirements are expected to rise considerably faster than the removals from Europe's forests to be expected under present forest policies and plans, and possible within the present framework of the economics of growing and harvesting wood.
2. Irrespective of the actual level of requirements that may develop in practice, the quantitatively largest imbalance is likely to be in wood for pulping, but qualitatively the most important will be in high-grade logs for quality veneers and plywood - and high-grade sawnwood.
3. The extent to which additional volumes can and will be forthcoming, either from European removals or from overseas supplies, is likely to depend upon:(a) the success achieved in lowering logging and processing costs in Europe;
(b) revision of tariffs to permit the import of products which are produced more cheaply in the wood regions of the world.4. The outcome of these developments is expected to be as follows:
(a) Europe will be able to produce as much medium and low-grade hardwood as is required but will not have enough coniferous wood of any category nor enough quality wood of either species group.
(b) On one side this will encourage (i) the use of sawn hardwood in place of sawn softwood; (ii) the maximum use of short-fiber pulp from broadleaved wood; and (iii) the maximum use of broadleaved wood for fibreboard and particle board. On the other side the relatively modest rise in requirements of sawn softwood, and the value of the industries based on long-fiber pulp is expected to encourage a continued transfer of some part of the sawlog-sized coniferous wood to the pulp industries.
(c) This being the case, Europe is expected to look to other parts of the world for an increasing share of its needs for (i) quality veneers, plywood and sawnwood, from tropical hardwood species; (ii) sawn softwood; and (iii) long-fiber wood pulp and those pulp products, such as kraft liner and newsprint, which have a high wood-fiber content.
TABLE 7. - TENTATIVE BALANCE BETWEEN AVAILABILITY AND REQUIREMENTS OF INDUSTRIAL WOOD IN EUROPE IN 1975
(Roundwood requirements a in million cubic meters)
|
Category |
Requirements |
Removals |
Net Imports from outside Europe |
|||||
|
1959/61 |
1975 |
1959/61 |
1975 |
Comments |
1959/61 |
1975 b |
Comments |
|
|
Sawlogs |
127 |
140-148 |
117 |
140 |
Most of the in crease to be in hardwood saw-logs - little additional coniferous volume or veneer logs |
9.3 |
9-11 |
Mainly sawn softwood |
|
Veneer logs |
9 |
16-19 |
117 |
140 |
|
9.5 |
16-18 |
Imported as wood pulp and paper |
|
Pulpwood |
56 |
121-135 |
60 |
|
40-45 million m3 of the increase to be hardwood - some coniferous increase to be diversion from sawlogs |
1.3 |
14-18 |
|
|
Wood for particle boards and fibre- boards |
3 |
12-14 |
60 |
130 |
|
- |
- |
|
|
Other industrial wood |
38 |
24 |
35 |
130 |
|
0.6 |
- |
|
|
TOTAL INDUSTRIAL WOOD |
233 |
313 - 340 |
212 |
270 |
|
20 |
39-47 |
|
aAll products are expressed in terms of their roundwood requirement. The range in "requirements" is tied to the alternative rates of growth of GNP.
bThe balance has been
But what of the period beyond 1975? It has frequently been pointed out in this study that the basing of the forward estimates upon the year 1975 is no more than a convenient tool of analysis. That year has been chosen as being both sufficiently far into the future to permit an examination of the broader sweep of developments and still close enough to be able to develop estimates based essentially on past experience with some confidence that this will still be relevant to the period concerned. Otherwise the year 1975 has no particular significance, and the measures designed to bring about a satisfactory balance in that year should equally be formulated within the framework of the changes needed to ensure supplies over the long term. It must therefore be considered how the conclusions reached in the study measure up to this yardstick.
By 1975, the rate of growth in requirements will be slowing down, in terms of the growth in economic activity. Nevertheless, they will start from such a high level that during the last quarter of the century the growth in requirements, in absolute quantities, will again be enormous. A simple extension of the trends to 1975 brought out in this study to the year 2000, at the higher level of economic growth, suggests that the expected increase in annual requirements of roundwood between 1950 and 1975 by about 170 million cubic meters could well be repeated, if not surpassed, in the following 25 years. If this comes about, by the end of that period Europe's total annual requirements of wood and wood products would amount to about 500 million cubic meters, the greater part of which would be required in the form of wood pulp or wood-based panel products.
There is serious reason to doubt whether the supply pattern which can be expected to develop in the period to 1975 will suffice for the longer period to the end of the century and beyond.
Within Europe a continued growth in output of roundwood is still possible by making better use of the existing forest resources and most of the additional volume that could be made available in the period to 1975 would come from that source. This cannot continue indefinitely; there must be a physical limit to how much more of this hitherto untapped reserve still remains, and an economic limit, which becomes more restrictive as the physical limit is approached, to how much of this can be made available in practice. Though there will undoubtedly still be some further improvements in yield - for example, through more efficient logging practices - any increases in output of roundwood of a magnitude sufficient to meet a major part of the requirements likely to arise, must come from an increase in the net growth of the forest.
Within the existing forest area this increase can only come about by slow degrees - at the time of writing the improvement amounts to perhaps 0.5 percent per year (in absolute terms about 1.5 million cubic meters a year). There is little reason to expect this rate of improvement to rise more than marginally. Any substantial increase in the growth of wood will have to come from new planting - either a further extension of the forest area or new plantations outside the forest.
Moreover, to be effective in meeting the growth in requirements such an effort would have to be on a very large scale, and would need to be much more intensive than traditional forest management. Land of the quality necessary for such a development would, in fact, be available on the scale required. It has been estimated that by 1975 up to 6.5 million hectares of agricultural land will have become surplus to Europe's needs for agricultural crops, and though other demands on the land such as urban development will be growing fast, it can be expected that a large part of this area could be made available for growing trees. Not only is this land likely to be available, but there will be strong pressures to put it under trees. In the framework of land-use and socioeconomic planning, to do so would be to put otherwise idle land to good use; it could at the same time provide additional employment and income for the agricultural labor force, and thus assist in stabilizing the rural population. In the narrower context of how best to produce wood, this would be much more productive land than the existing forest area - land of a quality which under the right species and treatment could, if it were all put under trees, eventually yield up to 80 million cubic meters of wood per year. Plantation forests of quick-growing species on high-yielding land which are also easy to work and accessible thus offer the most favorable prospects of producing low-cost industrial wood in Europe.
But the cost of developing tree-growing in Europe on this scale would be very heavy - and even with quick-growing species would involve those difficulties in financing which are inherent in the long production period necessary for wood. Moreover, even if the whole of the 6.5 million hectares were to be available - which is not likely - the additional output of wood would still fall short of requirements. The greater part of the extra production would not become available until near the end of the century; and, as has been noted above, requirements are likely to have risen to about 500 million cubic meters a year by that time. The question that remains to be asked, therefore, is not only what additional resources should be devoted to the growing of wood in Europe, but also how much and what additional supplies of wood could and should be obtained from other parts of the world?
However, the domestic requirements of Europe's main overseas suppliers are also rising fast - as indeed are the requirements of the other importing regions in the world. For example, a recently published study has estimated that, by the end of the century, requirements in the United States could well have risen to a level substantially in excess of the actual or expected capacity of the present area of forests in that country to produce wood; and that the pressures on the land arising from the needs of a fast-growing population will effectively limit the extent to which the area under trees could be expanded to keep pace with this growth in requirements.3 The United States could therefore well become a wood deficit area, which would also limit the extent to which Canada could expand its exports of wood to the rest of the world. Less is known about the production and export potential of the U.S.S.R. but certainly domestic requirements are rising fast, and will continue to do so. Similar considerations apply to the main producers of tropical hardwoods.
3LANDSBERG, H. H., L. L. FISCHMAN and J. L. FISHER. Resources in America's future. Johns Hopkins Press for Resources for the Future, Inc., 1963.
It follows that it is not reasonable to expect the regions of the world which now supply Europe with most of its imports of wood and wood products to be able to continue indefinitely to match her growing requirements. They will undoubtedly continue to be major sources of supply - supplies which could well continue to grow - but her requirements are going to be of such a magnitude that Europe should be seeking to broaden the base of supply to meet them.
In this connection attention has been drawn in the study to encourage development and potential in parts of Africa, Latin America and Asia where both the necessary land and the appropriate combinations of climate and situation are available to support considerable forest industries, operating on raw materials grown at a cost lower than is possible in Europe. Of course, these regions will also encounter the difficulties that will arise anywhere in putting into effect developments on this scale. Indeed, with their relative lack of infrastructure, an industrial base or expertise, many of the difficulties will be more severe than they would be in mounting a similar effort in Europe.
Nevertheless, it is surely logical to look to these regions as a potential source of supply for at least some part of the flow of wood products that will be necessary to satisfy Europe's rising requirements. Indeed, the case for such a solution rests not only on the cold arithmetic of trends in regional requirements and the resources available to meet them, but also on a series of wider and more far-reaching considerations.
Within the framework of the United Nations Development Decade world attention is now focused on the problems of achieving self-sustained growth in those countries which are still at an early stage of development. In recent years understanding of the intimate and fundamental relationship between trade and development has immeasurably deepened. The hard lesson of the 1950s was that aid, however massive, coupled with industrialization aimed primarily at import substitution, is not enough to generate self-sustained growth. Unless and until developing countries can broaden and diversify their exports, including a range of processed goods and industrial products, their greatest efforts are likely to be nullified by the built-in tendency toward deteriorating terms of trade. For this reason, the attention of the developed Member Nations of the United Nations which in lending their support to the Development Decade have accepted responsibility for helping first to check and then to reverse the widening gap between rich and poor nations, should clearly be directed toward examining to what extent their markets could be opened to processed goods from the less advanced countries.
It is no part of the purpose of this study to explore these wider questions which are scheduled for profound examination at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development planned for 1964. Yet it is pertinent I to mention them here, if only to make clear that the way in which Europe eventually solves the problem of its rising wood requirements will have an impact reaching far beyond Europe's borders. For this reason, the ultimate decisions in relation to forest and forest industry policy in Europe are not decisions which engage the responsibility of European foresters, timber traders and forest industry entrepreneurs alone.
If it were decided that, as a matter of deliberate policy, Europe should look toward some of the presently less advanced countries for a substantial and growing part of its wood product requirements, then it should also be considered how these supplies can be elicited. Effective forest industries, turning out quality products for export at reasonable cost, do not come into existence automatically, nor do they spring up overnight. Still less is it possible to bring into existence quickly the sound management of forests, natural or artificial, which is indispensable for assuring the raw material base for forest industries. Assured markets, investment capital equipment, know-how, training facilities: these are the tools the developing countries need if they are to make a timely response to Europe's needs.
In summing up, attention is drawn to the fact that the long-term growth in Europe's requirement does point to the need for a fundamental shift in the supply pattern, involving either a large-scale extension of plantation forests in Europe, or a growth in imports on a scale which would require major developments in those parts of the world better placed (in terms of land availability, etc.) to grow trees, or to supply wood products from existing forest resources. Given the magnitude of Europe's expected requirements there would seem to be need for development in both directions, the relative share of each being determined by the cost of production in Europe, the trade and aid policies of European countries toward the developing countries, etc. The point to note here is that with the length of time needed to establish and grow plantations even of fast growing species, and to build up the industries to process the wood, they must be initiated before 1975 if they are to make a significant contribution to supplies before the end of the century.
If the choice between the alternatives is eventually a political one, it must nevertheless be a choice based on a sound and full appraisal of the factors involved. In preparing this study it has been very clear that the data upon which such appraisals and decisions should be based are largely lacking or are inadequate for these purposes. Some of the more obvious of these inadequacies are well known and considerable efforts have been, and are being, devoted to improving, for example, national statistics of production and trade in wood and wood products, and of the extent, structure and rate of growth of each country's forest resources.
Nevertheless, there is still some way to go before these can be considered adequate.
As important, in a period when rapidly mounting requirements are exerting new pressures on the supply situation, is the almost total lack of data to show how and why requirements and supply change in the manner they do. On the demand side there is a clear need for more end-use data - a better knowledge of where wood is used - and for more information about the factors that affect its use and the way in which they do so. In particular, there is need to know how changes in price affect the demand for wood and wood products.
On the supply side the most urgent need is for the collection of the data relevant to cost estimates, so that production costs may be established. And as forest production comes to be viewed in the wider contexts of socio-economic and land-use planning, and indeed of its place in national, regional and interregional economies, this comes to encompass the quantitative assessment of the full range of the forest values, and not just its timber production function.
The first study on European timber trends and prospects concluded by stating the need for Europe to adopt the changes in forest policy designed to raise output from year to year to match rising consumption. In the decade that has passed since that study appeared, European foresters, forest industries and governments have on the whole responded to this need. The period that is now ahead presents a challenge of greater magnitude and on a wider scale. To meet it will require setting the question of the demand for and supply of wood in a broader context than just forest policy, and will require a much better knowledge of how and why wood is used and supplied. To ensure that the correct decisions are taken in meeting this challenge the authorities and industries concerned will need to direct their efforts to the fundamental research that will be required in order to acquire this knowledge.
