site.btaForest Growth in EU Outpaces Harvesting

For forests to grow healthily, the amount of wood harvested or removed in a given year should be lower than the forest's natural growth rate (net annual increment). The difference between these 2 variables can serve as a proxy for sustainably harvested wood, Eurostat said on its website on Friday.

In 2023, 23 of the EU countries with available data recorded a net annual increment higher than wood removals. Forest growth after harvest was the highest in Romania (39.9 million cubic meters), followed by Sweden (26.4 million) and Poland (26.3 million). In Bulgaria, it was 8 million cubic meters. Only in Estonia did removals exceed the increments (11.6 million vs 9.1 million cubic meters), resulting in a decrease of available timber of 2.5 million cubic meters.  

Sustainable harvesting is crucial in forestry management, as it focuses on intentionally harvested wood while excluding unforeseen catastrophic losses. This approach provides a clearer picture of the forestry industry's ecological footprint.