Fellings and use of roundwood

On average of the years 1995-2020 the official felling statistics account for only about 80 percent of the actual fellings. In absolute terms, this means that on average about 13.6 million m³ per year were not reported. The results of our calculation approach are similar to results of the National Forest Inventory. The difference between the results of the National Forest Inventory and our calculations is about 2.5% or 1.9 million m³ per year (2003 – 2012). However, it can be seen that the fellings according to the official felling statistics is approaching the calculated fellings in the last three years, but is still lower.

Changes in stock of roundwood in the forest are an important factor for the calculation of the fellings. Unfortunately, no data from statistics or literature is available on this topic. The close correlation between the changes in stocks (of felled roundwood) in forests and changes in stocks (of felled roundwood) in the wood based industry serves as the basis for the estimation for the past few years (2016-2021). It is possible that the correlation does not apply for the years beginning in 2018 with high calamities. For these years, it is possible that other amounts have been stored in the forest. However, there is no indication of high storage activities in the literature. It is known that a huge amount of wood is damaged, but there are also indications that large quantities of damaged wood have not been processed or felled. A higher storage of roundwood in the forest would cause an increase of the fellings in our calculations. A lower storage of roundwood in the forest would cause a decrease of fellings in our calaculations.