CUT TREES TO SAVE ENVIRONMENT? Europe is losing its wood markets!

"Consumers and politicians often do not realize that using wood does not necessarily damage the environment, but can actually promote forest conservation. In fact, to support all the benefits of forests, they must be properly maintained, and that maintenance has a cost. Overall in Europe, only by maintaining and developing the timber trade can forest management costs be covered, "according to Ed Pepke, Forest Products Marketing Specialist from the Timber Section, Trade Division, United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UN/ECE). The loss of market share during the past years has caused alarm among Europe's wood producers. Although in the long term, continued growth in wood utilization is predicted by the forthcoming "European Timber Trends Study," as well as harvest levels remaining well below growth increases, there has been a reduction in production and consumption over the last years.

Europe's forest removals, all categories combined, diminished 10% in 1990, from 366 million m3 to 323 million m3 in 1993. While 1994 showed a 6% increase from the low 1993 level, the predictions by the ECE Timber Committee for 1995 were an increase of only 2.5% and another increase of 0.5% in 1996 (restoration of the 1990 level). This reduction was not only limited to Europe, the United States showed the same trends.

This reduction in forest removals is due partly to an 18% drop in demand in Europe for sawnwood from 1990 to 1993, and a 4.6% drop in the United States over the same period. While part of the decreased consumption can be attributed to the economic crisis in many countries, with its direct effects on the construction sector which consumes the most sawnwood, there are also structural changes.

One of the first is cultural. A "wood culture" predominates in some societies, for example in Scandinavia and North America. An inhabitant of the United States consumes on average 0.5 m3 of wood per year, while a Swede consumes 0.45, a German 0.2, and a person in Singapore consumes 0.05 m3/year.

Current legislation in some countries discourages wood consumption. This is particularly the case in the construction sector where wood is being substituted by PVC (plastic), steel and aluminum for standards of security and/or energy conservation which are contested by the timber trade. These norms had negative effects on the wood market in recent years.

In 1975, 70% of window frames in France were wooden, but by 1995 this figure had fallen to less than 30%; the rest of the market had changed to PVC, 40%, aluminum, 20% and other materials, 10%. The trend is the same in other European countries (click graph).

A more striking example is substitution of wood in the exterior door market. In the 1983, 83% of the United Kingdom's exterior doors were made of wood, but a dozen years later in 1995, wood had lost over 20% of the market to plastic and metal (click graph). Forecasts for the year 2000 show continued loss such that wood will be used in only half of the UK's exterior doors.

The alienation of consumers is largely due to a lack of information on the positive environmental qualities of using wood in construction, especially its benefits in terms of health and fire. In fact, it is widely unknown that a wooden structure will withstand a fire better than a similar steel building. Life cycle analyses have shown wood to be environmentally advantageous to other construction materials because of its renewability and recyclability.

At a meeting last month by the UN/ECE Timber Committee held in Jönköping, Sweden, on "Wood - an environmentally friendly material", 70 delegates representing 16 countries, including 8 countries in transition, recommended measures to promote wood and avoid loss of market share. Information on wood's benefits should not be only disseminated to professionals in the trade, but also to builders, engineers, architects, legislators, teachers and students. In the last case, it is necessary to reintroduce wood engineering techniques and architectural practices into university curricula and to disseminate existing programmes for teachers at all levels.

The first recommendation is that consumers must be better informed of the advantages of wood use from the point of view of the environment, cost and quality, as well as that it is a safe construction material in terms of health and fire. To do this, a coordinated international effort by the timber industry and governments was called for to educate the public on these points.

Certain countries in transition indicated that domestic wood use was declining but to reverse this trend they need an "information infrastructure" of, for example, forest products trade associations.

The primary target of this information campaign should be legislators because it is important that they understand that environmental protection and conservation are compatible with wood utilization.