Laurențiu CIORNEI
Centrul de Studii și Cercetări de Biodiversitate Agrosilvică „Acad. David Davidescu”
DOI: https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.10397326
SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4808189
Abstract
The importance of artificial (planted) forests in the world forestry economy has begun to be increasingly recognized, especially when trade price comparisons are made by economists and politicians. On the other side of the barricade are environmentalists, especially conservationists, whose ligniculture smells of plastic. However, as always, the truth is caught in the middle. Forests that grow from plantations, but not from seed-plus trees, are not the most durable and do not produce the most valuable wood, but they provide at least 80 percent of the beneficial ecological effects that a virgin or quasi-virgin forest body offers. Based on the estimated data for 2019, the application of the Global Forest Products Model (GFPM) shows that the existence of planted forests would have reduced the average price of firewood by 37%, roundwood by 24% and average prices for timber, panels, pulp and paper between 14% and 4%, depending on the degree of processing of these by-products. At the same time, the existence of planted forests led to an increase in global consumption, in 2019, by 1% for paper and cardboard, and by 14% for industrial roundwood, while reducing production in certain regions where the exploitation and development of the forest economy was strictly related to the wood material provided by the natural forests (virgin and quasi-virgin). Also, the gains in consumer welfare outweighed the losses of producers, with a net profit for general economic welfare of $ 10,000 per hectare of forest.
Keywords:
forests, wood, plantations, economy, wood industry, industries, models, GFPM