Consumption of roundwood drops by 5% in 2020

A total of 69 million cubic metres of roundwood was removed from Finnish forests in 2020, of which 85 per cent consisted of logs and pulpwood, and 15 per cent was energywood, according to the Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke).

The total felling volume decreased from the previous year by 5 per cent, said Luke in a press release on Monday.

A total of 58.3 million cubic metres of logs and pulpwood was harvested for industrial use and exports. This volume was 5 million cubic metres lower than in the previous year.

“The felling volume in 2020 corresponded to the average level of felling in the preceding ten-year period. The last time industrial roundwood removals were below 60 million cubic metres was in 2015”, said Tiina Sauvula-Seppälä, senior statistician at Luke.

The volume of industrial roundwood removals from private forests decreased from the previous year by 10 per cent, remaining at 47.3 million cubic metres. However, roundwood removals by forest industry companies and the state from their own forests grew by 5 per cent to 11.1 million cubic metres.

“Felling volumes of logs decreased by 4 per cent from the previous year, and those of pulpwood by 11 per cent. In total, nearly 25 million cubic metres of logs and 34 million cubic metres of pulpwood were harvested”, Sauvula-Seppälä said.

Of the different wood assortments, the felling volumes of birch logs and birch pulpwood decreased relatively the most, by 13 per cent. The felling of spruce logs reduced by 4 per cent and the felling of pine logs by 3 per cent. For pine and spruce pulpwood, the reduction was 10 per cent.

Of the wood species, pine was harvested most for industrial use, nearly 27 million cubic metres. The harvested volume of spruce was 4 million cubic metres lower. Less than 10 million cubic metres of birch were felled.