A forest product is any material derived from forestry for direct consumption or commercial use, such as lumber, paper, or fodder for livestock. Wood, by far the dominant product of forests, is used for many purposes, such as wood fuel (e.g. in form of firewood or charcoal) or the finished structural materials used for the construction of buildings, or as a raw material, in the form of wood pulp, that is used in the production of paper. All other non-wood products derived from forest resources, comprising a broad variety of other forest products, are collectively described as non-timber forest products (NTFP). [1] [2] [3] Non-timber forest products are viewed to have fewer negative effects on forest ecosystem when providing income sources for local community. [4]
Globally, about 1,150,000,000 ha (2.8×109 acres) of forest is managed primarily for the production of wood and non-wood forest products. In addition, 749,000,000 ha (1.85×109 acres) is designated for multiple use, which often includes production. [5]
Worldwide, the area of forest designated primarily for production has been relatively stable since 1990, but the area of multiple-use forest has decreased by about 71,000,000 ha (180,000,000 acres). [5]
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations publishes an annual yearbook of forest products. The FAO Yearbook of Forest Products [6] is a compilation of statistical data on basic forest products for all countries and territories of the world. It contains series of annual data on the volume of production and the volume and value of trade in forest products. It includes tables showing direction of trade and average unit values of trade for certain products. Statistical information in the yearbook is based primarily on data provided to the FAO Forestry Department by the countries through questionnaires or official publications. In the absence of official data, FAO makes an estimate based on the best information available. FAO also publishes an annual survey of pulp and paper production capacities around the world. [7] The survey presents statistics on pulp and paper capacity and production by country and by grade. The statistics are based on information submitted by correspondents worldwide, most of them pulp and paper associations, and represents 85% of the world production of paper and paperboard.
Based on these demands, the forest products can be further explored. Pulp and paper industry has high volume demand for the wood materials including both softwood and hardwood. Wood industry can consume large volume and varieties of wood products including logs, lumbers, furniture, and other products.
Producers of forest products are heavily depending on the forest types and ownership (see Forest). As woods are the dominant product of the forest product, the processes of producing wood products are important. [8] The general processes for commercial land can include seedling production, site preparation, planting, applying fertilizers and herbicides, thinning (pre-commercial or commercial), and logging. [9] The processes may vary due to different species and spatial locations. [10] Products category may include logs, lumbers, residues, etc. For non-timber forest products, the processes can have a large variety. [11]
In 2015, the United Nations set 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) as global goals from 2015 to 2030. As renewable resources on earth, forest products can assist in several SDGs in this agenda.
As forest products can provide a large variety of foods (e.g. nuts, fruits, sugar), hunger issue can be addressed by properly managing the forest.
Forests not only sequester carbon dioxide and provide oxygen but also play an essential role in our ecosystem. Forests are crucial to avoid soil erosion, control pollutants, balance the eco-system, and so on. [12]
Forest products, including wood chips and forest residues, can be converted to bioethanol, biodfuel, biogas, and other bioenergy sources (see also Bioenergy). [13] Common conversion technologies can contain fermentation, pyrolysis, gasification, and other technologies. [14] These renewable energy sources can be a substitute for traditional fossil fuels.
FAO, which supported the classification of wood pellets in 2012 and has tracked them ever since, has found production jumping nearly 150 percent to 44 million tonnes by 2021: it largely ascribes this expansion to rising demand driven by the European Commission’s bioenergy targets. [15]
Forest products can work towards reducing global warming trends when sourced in sustainably managed forests. One core idea is that forest products themselves are storage for carbon dioxide. First, as mentioned above, bioenergy can replace fossil energy and reduce the greenhouse gas emissions although its combustion initially produces more GHG than fossil fuels per unit of produced energy: it takes several decades or even centuries for new trees to re-absorb the carbon emitted by burning their predecessors. Second, timbers from forest can be sustainable construction materials. Rather than concrete that is hard for degradation and recycled, structural timbers can be recycled for re-use or for biodegradation.
Many forest management policies have been implemented that impact forest product economics, including forest access restrictions, harvesting fees, and harvest limits. Deforestation, global warming and other environmental concerns have increasingly affected the availability and sustainability of forest products, as well as the economies of regions dependent upon forestry around the world. In recent years, the idea of sustainable forestry, which aims to preserve crop yields without causing irreversible damage to ecosystem health, has changed the relationship between environmentalists and the forest products industry. Stakeholders in the forest products industry include government departments, commercial enterprises, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), policy-makers and analysts, private and international organizations.
This article incorporates text from a free content work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0( license statement/permission ). Text taken from Global Forest Resources Assessment 2020 Key findings , FAO, FAO.
Forestry is the science and craft of creating, managing, planting, using, conserving and repairing forests and woodlands for associated resources for human and environmental benefits. Forestry is practiced in plantations and natural stands. The science of forestry has elements that belong to the biological, physical, social, political and managerial sciences. Forest management plays an essential role in the creation and modification of habitats and affects ecosystem services provisioning.
Logging is the process of cutting, processing, and moving trees to a location for transport. It may include skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks or skeleton cars. In forestry, the term logging is sometimes used narrowly to describe the logistics of moving wood from the stump to somewhere outside the forest, usually a sawmill or a lumber yard. In common usage, however, the term may cover a range of forestry or silviculture activities.
Pulp is a fibrous lignocellulosic material prepared by chemically, semi-chemically or mechanically producing cellulosic fibers from wood, fiber crops, waste paper, or rags. Mixed with water and other chemicals or plant-based additives, pulp is the major raw material used in papermaking and the industrial production of other paper products.
Illegal logging is the harvest, transportation, purchase, or sale of timber in violation of laws. The harvesting procedure itself may be illegal, including using corrupt means to gain access to forests; extraction without permission, or from a protected area; the cutting down of protected species; or the extraction of timber in excess of agreed limits. Illegal logging is a driving force for a number of environmental issues such as deforestation, soil erosion and biodiversity loss which can drive larger-scale environmental crises such as climate change and other forms of environmental degradation.
Pulpwood can be defined as timber that is ground and processed into a fibrous pulp. It is a versatile natural resource commonly used for paper-making but also made into low-grade wood and used for chips, energy, pellets, and engineered products.
Wood fuel is a fuel such as firewood, charcoal, chips, sheets, pellets, and sawdust. The particular form used depends upon factors such as source, quantity, quality and application. In many areas, wood is the most easily available form of fuel, requiring no tools in the case of picking up dead wood, or few tools, although as in any industry, specialized tools, such as skidders and hydraulic wood splitters, have been developed to mechanize production. Sawmill waste and construction industry by-products also include various forms of lumber tailings.
Bioenergy is a type of renewable energy that is derived from plants and animal waste. The biomass that is used as input materials consists of recently living organisms, mainly plants. Thus, fossil fuels are not regarded as biomass under this definition. Types of biomass commonly used for bioenergy include wood, food crops such as corn, energy crops and waste from forests, yards, or farms.
Certified wood and paper products come from responsibly managed forests – as defined by a particular standard. With third-party forest certification, an independent standards setting organization (SSO) develops standards for good forest management, and independent auditing companies issue certificates to forest operations that comply with those standards.
Articles on forestry topics include:.
The Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) is the national research laboratory of the United States Forest Service, which is part of USDA. Since its opening in 1910, the FPL has provided scientific research on wood, wood products and their commercial uses in partnership with academia, industry, tribal, state, local and other government agencies. The laboratory is headquartered in Madison, Wisconsin. The focus of the Forest Products Laboratory is to promote healthy forests and forest-based economies through the efficient, sustainable use of the Nation's wood resources.
Non-timber forest products (NTFPs) are useful foods, substances, materials and/or commodities obtained from forests other than timber. Harvest ranges from wild collection to farming. They typically include game animals, fur-bearers, nuts, seeds, berries, mushrooms, oils, sap, foliage, pollarding, medicinal plants, peat, mast, fuelwood, fish, insects, spices, and forage. Overlapping concepts include non-wood forest products (NWFPs), wild forest products, minor forest produce, special, minor, alternative and secondary forest products – for further distinctions see the definition section below
Forest management is a branch of forestry concerned with overall administrative, legal, economic, and social aspects, as well as scientific and technical aspects, such as silviculture, protection, and forest regulation. This includes management for timber, aesthetics, recreation, urban values, water, wildlife, inland and nearshore fisheries, wood products, plant genetic resources, and other forest resource values. Management objectives can be for conservation, utilisation, or a mixture of the two. Techniques include timber extraction, planting and replanting of different species, building and maintenance of roads and pathways through forests, and preventing fire.
In the context of energy production, biomass is matter from recently living organisms which is used for bioenergy production. Examples include wood, wood residues, energy crops, agricultural residues including straw, and organic waste from industry and households. Wood and wood residues is the largest biomass energy source today. Wood can be used as a fuel directly or processed into pellet fuel or other forms of fuels. Other plants can also be used as fuel, for instance maize, switchgrass, miscanthus and bamboo. The main waste feedstocks are wood waste, agricultural waste, municipal solid waste, and manufacturing waste. Upgrading raw biomass to higher grade fuels can be achieved by different methods, broadly classified as thermal, chemical, or biochemical.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and guide to forestry:
The Russian forestry industry is a set of Russian industries related to wood harvesting and processing. As one of the oldest sectors in the country's economy, Russia's timber industry continues to bring in about $20 billion per year. Russia has more than a fifth of the world's forests, making it the largest forest country in the world. According to data for 2015, the total forest area has exceeded 885 million hectares, representing 45% of the total area of the country. The stock of wood in the area was 82 billion cubic meters. However in 2023 academics complained that not enough information had been published.
Tree-free paper, also known as no tree paper, offers an alternative to traditional wood-pulp paper due to its unique raw material composition. This type of paper is considered more eco-friendly especially when evaluating its entire life cycle.
Wood-free paper is paper created exclusively from chemical pulp rather than mechanical pulp. Chemical pulp is normally made from pulpwood, but is not considered wood as most of the lignin is removed and separated from the cellulose fibers during processing, whereas mechanical pulp retains most of its wood components and can therefore still be described as wood. Wood-free paper is not as susceptible to yellowing as paper containing mechanical pulp. Wood-free paper offers several environmental and economic benefits, including reduced deforestation, decreased energy consumption, and improved waste management. The term Wood-free paper can be rather misleading or confusing for someone unfamiliar with the papermaking process because paper is normally made from wood pulp derived from trees and shrubs. However, wood free paper does not mean that the paper in question is not made from wood pulp but it means that the lignin in the wood fiber has been removed by a chemical process.
Lumber and wood products, including timber for framing, plywood, and woodworking, are created in the wood industry from the trunks and branches of trees through several processes, commencing with the selection of appropriate logging sites and concluding with the milling and treatment processes of the harvested material. In order to determine which logging sites and milling sites are responsibly producing environmental, social and economic benefits, they must be certified under the Forests For All Forever (FCS) Certification that ensures these qualities.
The wood industry or timber industry is the industry concerned with forestry, logging, timber trade, and the production of primary forest products and wood products and secondary products like wood pulp for the pulp and paper industry. Some of the largest producers are also among the biggest owners of forest. The wood industry has historically been and continues to be an important sector in many economies.
A tree plantation, forest plantation, plantation forest, timber plantation or tree farm is a forest planted for high volume production of wood, usually by planting one type of tree as a monoculture forest. The term tree farm also is used to refer to tree nurseries and Christmas tree farms.