As the EU promotes renewable energy with clear targets for 2020 and the wood markets show increasing demand of raw material, the present political discussions are focusing on availability and mobilization of wood in Europe. On the other hand, policies are being developed to halt the loss of biodiversity by 2010 and beyond. Protecting biological and landscape diversity has resulted in various protection regimes across Europe, which affect the economic exploitation of forests. But to what extent do currently protected forests limit the potential wood supply?
A recent study carried out at the European Forest Institute - "Impacts of biological and landscape diversity protection on the wood supply in Europe" - provides an estimate of the felling restrictions imposed by biodiversity and landscape protection in European forests that are currently protected and the wood volume affected. It was found that out of a total forest area of 166.3 million ha in Europe, about 5.1-11.9 million ha is protected for biodiversity and an additional 17.3 million ha is protected for landscape diversity. As a result, 11 to 30 million m3 of wood could not be felled anymore due to biodiversity protection and nearly 38 million m3 of wood due to landscape diversity protection. The total of 68 million m3 is approximately the same as the volume of roundwood production (overbark) in Germany and Italy combined in 2005. These areas and volumes are likely to increase due to current and new schemes to protect forests, said authors Pieter Verkerk, Giuliana Zanchi and Marcus Lindner.
In addition to those constraints, there are areas covered by other mandatory protection and protective schemes, management guidelines or forest legislation which limit the availability of wood even further.
Several studies aimed to quantify the impacts of conservation on forest owners and industry. Economic impact seems to be limited because the reduced harvest volumes are compensated by increased timber prices. The biggest impact is seen in the forest industries that rely on roundwood as a raw material.
"Forest biomass has become increasingly important for bio-energy production. Though there is a potential to substantially increase wood removals across European countries, limitations on wood supply set by biodiversity and landscape protection may conflict with these developments in the long run."
The report serves as a source of information in discussing whether to protect European forests for biodiversity or to harvest more wood for producing bio-energy.
The study was funded by the Confederation of European Paper Industries and by the European Commission as part of the EXIOPOL project.
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