AVAILABILITY OF WORLD TIMBER RESOURCES 



137 



regeneration problems or low productivity are 

 identified and withdrawn from cutting. 



Whether allowable cuts can be sustained in the 

 longrun after virgin forests are liquidated also is 

 an ^unanswered question that depends in large 

 part on the level of forest management and 

 protection in the coming decades. 



Utilization Trends 



As an offset to possible constraints on timber 

 harvesting, improvements in utilization may 

 tend to increase availability of timber products. 

 British Columbia, for example, has been particu- 

 lar^ successful in obtaining close utilization of 

 much of the timber harvested, thus providing a 

 basis - for major expansion and sustained production 

 of both lumber and pulp products. 8 



New developments such as installation of 

 chipping headrigs also appear likely to lead to 

 increased production of lumber from eastern 

 Canadian forests that have long been considered 

 suitable and available only for pulpwood. 



Exports to the United States 



Since World War II, the United States has 

 been Canada's principal timber export market. 

 In 1972 nearly 9 billion board feet of Canadian 

 lumber, or more than half of Canada's total 

 lumber production, was shipped to the United 

 States. The 10.4 million tons of pulp, paper, and 

 paperboard exported to the United States in 1971 

 represented about six-tenths of Canada's total 

 production. 



Demands for timber products are growing 

 rapidly in all countries of the world, however, 

 including the major consuming and timber deficit 

 countries of western Europe and Japan. Thus, 

 competition for Canadian timber products could 

 increase significantly in future years. Nonetheless, 

 projections based on available studies and judg- 

 ment point to a substantial increase in Canadian 

 timber product exports to the United States. For 

 example, with relative prices of lumber averaging 

 30 percent above 1970, U.S. imports of softwood 

 lumber have been estimated to rise to 12 billion 

 board feet by 2000. With relative prices of paper 

 and board 10 percent above 1970, U.S. imports of 

 pulpwood, pulp, papei and board — essentially 

 all from Canada — are projected to rise to 2.2 

 billion cubic feet, roundwood equivalent, by 2000. 



POTENTIAL SUPPLIES OF TROPICAL WOODS 



Tropical hardwood forests are important to the 

 United States as sources of hardwood plywood, 

 veneer, lumber, and logs, and as potential sources 

 of pulp products. In the past about 70 percent of 

 world timber trade in these hardwood timber 

 products has originated in southeast Asia, with 



lesser amounts from Africa and from Canada and 

 Latin America. This is in sharp contrast to the 

 distribution of tropical timber resources. 



Tropical forests are extensive and have a large 

 capacity for timber growing but there are serious 

 questions as to the ability of these forests to 

 continue to supply high-quality timber products to 

 world markets. 9 



Much of the tropical forest area is relatively 

 inaccessible and development of timber resources 

 is slow and expensive. Utilization of timber is 

 also complicated by the great numbers of species 

 of widely different characteristics. In just one 

 Amazon type, for example, 50 percent of the 

 volume was found to be in 35 species, with the 

 other 50 percent in more than 100 additional 

 species. Such problems of heterogeneity are less 

 severe in Africa and least in southeast Asia but 

 occur in all regions. 



Determining the characteristics of the many dif- 

 ferent tropical hardwood species, and developing 

 markets for them, are formidable tasks that have 

 not yet been accomplished. 



The problems of tropical forests are further 

 complicated by the continuing search for agricul- 

 tural land to accommodate rapidly expanding 

 populations. In the Far East an estimated 21 

 million acres of tropical forest are reported to be 

 cleared annually. In the Philippines, it was found 

 that land clearing was destroying three times as 

 much wood as was being logged for timber 

 products. 10 Similar expansion of agriculture is 

 occurring in forest areas in Africa and Latin 

 America. Studies in Indonesia also indicate that 

 after allowances for agricultural development and 

 reservations for watersheds, only 24 percent of the 

 total forest area was considered suitable for 

 permanent forest production. 11 



Much of the tropical forest, moreover, consists 

 of low-quality stands with limited utility for 

 timber production, and much land logged or 

 cleared for agriculture reverts to such stands. It is 

 possible that many presently commercial species 

 will disappear in this process, and some ecologists 

 are in fact describing the natural tropical rain 

 forest as a nonrenewable resource. 



8 British Columbia Forest Service. Annual report, 1969. 

 Victoria, B.C. 1970. 



9 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United 

 Nations Wood: World trends and prospects. Unasylva, 

 Vol. 20(1-2), nos. 80-81, 136 p. 1966. 



Timber trends and prospects in Africa. 90 p. 



Rome. 1967. 



Latin American timber trends and prospects. 



117 p. New York. 1963. . 



Timbei trends and prospects in the Asia-racinc 



Region. 224 p. Geneva. 1961. _ 



10 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United 

 Nations Wood: World trends and prospects. Unasylva, 

 Vol. 20(1-2), nos. 80-81, 136 p. 1966 



" Payne, Burnett H., and David Nordwall. A review of 

 certain 'aspects of the forestry program and organization in 

 Indonesia, USD A Foreign Econ. Dev. Serv and Forest 

 Serv. cooperating with U.S. Agency for Int. Dev. 1971. 



