According to preliminary data of the Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), a total of 63 million cubic metres of roundwood was harvested in 2019 from Finnish forests for the forest industries. When the nine million cubic metres harvested for energy production are taken into account, the total amount of roundwood felled was 72 million cubic metres. That was more than six million cubic metres less than in the previous year.
The preliminary statistics of Luke show that in the amount of industrial wood felled in 2019 was 62.8 million cubic metres, of which 25.8 million cubic metres were logs and 36.9 million cubic metres was pulpwood. Just over 80 per cent of this volume came from non-industrial private forest.
“The volume of wood felled decreased from the record year of 2018 by nine per cent, or by 6.1 million cubic metres. The volume of logs harvested decreased by 12 per cent and that of pulpwood by seven per cent,” says Tiina Sauvula-Seppälä, senior statistician at Luke.
The volume of roundwood felled decreased by eight per cent
The total volume of roundwood felled from forests was 71.8 million cubic metres. In addition to the industrial roundwood harvested for the forest industries, the figure includes a small amount harvested for household consumption by forest owners. The figure also includes almost nine million cubic metres of roundwood harvested for energy production, i.e. for fuelwood in residential housing as well as roundwood felled for wood chips used in heat and power plants.
“The total volume of roundwood felled decreased from the previous year by 6.4 million cubic metres, or by eight per cent. That was a big decrease, but in practice, it meant returning to the level preceding the record year of 2018,” says Jukka Torvelainen, senior statistician at Luke.
Nine tenths of the felling potential in use
The forest inventory and planning team of Luke estimated in February 2020 that the sustained yield of our forests is during the current ten-year period of 2016–2025 on average 80.5 million cubic metres of roundwood per year.
“Of this estimated potential, 97 per cent was utilised in the whole country during the record harvest year of 2018. According to preliminary data, that share decreased to 89 per cent in 2019 and on average 91 per cent between 2016–2019. However, the volume of harvesting has varied s lot from one region to the next,” Torvelainen says.
The total volume of tree stocks increased by more than 20 million cubic metres
The total drain includes roundwood removals as well as logging residues left in forests plus naturally died stemwood. In 2019, 15 million cubic metres of such wood was left in the forests, which means that the total drain was 87 million cubic metres. That was seven million cubic metres less than in the year before.
“On the basis of the National Forest Inventory, our forests have almost 2,500 million cubic metres of roundwood, and 108 million cubic metres of new roundwood grows every year. Last year, the total drain was approximately 80 per cent of the growth, which means that the total volume of tree stocks increased by 21 million cubic metres,” Torvelainen continues.
The harvesting and drain figures shown here are preliminary. The final regional statistics for 2019 will be published in June.