Roundwood harvest drops in 2020

A total of 56.4 million cubic metres of roundwood was harvested in 2020 from Finnish forests for the forest industries, according to the Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke).

Industrial roundwood removals last remained below 60 million cubic metres in 2015.

In addition to industries, roundwood was also felled for energy production and, to a smaller extent, for domestic use. Roundwood removals totalled 65.2 million cubic metres.

“Industrial roundwood removal decreased by roughly seven million cubic metres, or 11 per cent, from that in the previous year, being three per cent below the average of the previous 10-year period”, said Luke Senior Statistician Tiina Sauvula-Seppälä.

The most of industrial roundwood removals came from non-industrial private forests, totalling 45.6 million cubic. In addition to industries, a small volume of timber was also felled for domestic use by forest owners.

In non-industrial private forests, removals decreased by 14 per cent. Removals from forests owned by forest-industry companies and the state increased by two per cent to 10.8 million cubic metres.

Log removals were 24.3 and pulpwood removals 32.1 million cubic metres, with pulpwood removals being about 15 per cent lower than that in the previous year. Log removals decreased by six per cent.

Total removals decreased by one-tenth. In addition to industries, a total of 8.5 million cubic metres were felled for energy production. Three quarters of this volume were used as fuelwood in small-scale housing and the remaining one quarter as forest chips at heat and power plants.

“Total removals decreased by 11 per cent from the previous year to 65.2 million cubic metres, down by as much as 17 per cent from the 2018 peak year,” said Luke Senior Statistician Jukka Torvelainen.