Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T08:41:10.862Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The global wood market, wood resource productivity and price trends: an examination with special attention to China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 January 2011

JUDITH AJANI
JUDITH AJANI*
Affiliation:
Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia0200
*
*Correspondence: Dr Judith Ajani e-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

Global wood consumption trends are reviewed in the context of framing a coherent forest policy in the era of climate change. Over the period 1980 to 2007, global wood consumption has been essentially stagnant, increasing by only 0.4% per year. In contrast over the same period, global consumption of wood products increased steadily, paper by an average 3.2% per annum and solid wood products (sawn timber and wood panels) by 0.8% per annum. Wood saving explains these significantly different growth trajectories in unprocessed wood and processed wood products. Wood saving strategies include recycling paper (in particular), investing in higher yielding pulp technologies, substituting reconstituted wood panels for sawn timber and plywood and growing high pulp-yielding trees in a plantation regime. China's rapidly growing wood products industry has lifted wood saving to a new high. Consistent with the theory of induced innovation, China has so far avoided triggering a global wood shortage and associated wood price increases through a progression of strategies: successful pre-emptive price negotiations, increased use of recycled paper, adoption of high-yielding pulp technologies, substitution of reconstituted wood panels for sawn timber and tree planting substituting for natural forest supply. If China's current wood saving strategies were emulated worldwide, through increased use of recycled paper in particular, and to a lesser extent, substitution of reconstituted wood panels for sawn timber and plywood, the already low growth in global wood consumption would flatten further and perhaps start to decline. These economic realities in the wood products industry align positively with the interlinked imperatives of biodiversity conservation and carbon storage in natural forests, if wood-saving is converted to forest-saving.

Keywords

Chinaglobal wood and wood products consumptioninduced innovationpaper recyclingresource productivitywood price trendswood products industry
Type
Papers
Information
Environmental Conservation , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , March 2011 , pp. 53 - 63
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group on Biodiversity and Climate Change (2008) Draft findings of the first meeting of the second Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group on Biodiversity and Climate Change, United Nations Environment Programme [www document]. URL http://www.cbd.int/doc/meetings/cc/ahteg-bdcc-01/other/ahteg-bdcc-01-findings-en.pdfGoogle Scholar
Ajani, J. (2007) The Forest Wars. Melbourne, Australia: Melbourne University Press.Google Scholar
Barr, C. & Cossalter, C. (2004) China's development of a plantation-based wood pulp industry: government policies, financial incentives, and investment trends, International Forestry Review 6 (3–4): 267–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beca, Simons, McLennan Magasanik Associates, Fortech & CPM Consultants (1997) Further development of the forest products industry in Western Australia. Report to the Department of Resources Development, Perth, Australia.Google Scholar
Brown, C. (2000) The global outlook for future wood supply from forest plantations. Global Forest Products Outlook Study, Working Paper No: GFPOS/WP/03, Forestry Policy and Planning Division, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome, Italy.Google Scholar
Bull, G.Q. & Nilsonn, S. (2004) An assessment of China's forest resources. International Forestry Review 6 (3–4): 210–220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Butterworth, J. & Zhang, L. (2005) China's Sixth Forest Resource Inventory Report 2005. GAIN Report No. CH5027, USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, USA.Google Scholar
Carle, J. & Holmgren, P. (2008) Wood from planted forests, a global outlook 2005–2030. Forest Products Journal 58 (12): 6–18.Google Scholar
Clark (now Ajani), J. (2001) The global wood market, prices and plantation investment: an examination drawing on the Australian experience. Environmental Conservation 28 (1): 53–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark (now Ajani), J. (2004) Forest policy for sustainable commodity wood production: an examination drawing on the Australian experience, Ecological Economics 50: 219–232.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
FAO (1997) Asia-Pacific Forestry Towards 2010. Working Paper No. APFSOS/WP/25, United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, Rome, Italy.Google Scholar
FAO (2006) Responsible management of planted forests: voluntary guidelines. Planted Forests and Trees Working Paper 37E, United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, Rome, Italy [www document]. URL www.fao.org/docrep/009/j9256e/j9256e00.htmGoogle Scholar
FAO (2007) Global forest resources assessment 2010: specifications of national reporting tables for FRA 2010. Forest Resources Assessment Programme Working Paper 135, United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, Rome, Italy.Google Scholar
FAO (2009) FAOSTAT [www document]. URL http://faostat.fao.org/site/626/default.aspx#ancorGoogle Scholar
Fordaq, (2009) China: new national forest inventory [www document]. URL http://www.fordaq.com/fordaq/news/Sawnwood_Prices_Plywood_21753.htmlGoogle Scholar
Forest Industries Association of Tasmania (1990) The Tasmanian Forest Industries. Submission to the Resource Assessment Commission Forest and Timber Inquiry, attachment. Forest Industries Association of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia.Google Scholar
Goik, C. (1994) Limitations, opportunities and barriers to increased use of recycled fibre in Australian printing and writing papers. In: Guidelines for Commonwealth Purchase of Environmentally Preferred Paper Products: A Position Paper of the Environment Groups of Australia, ed. Combined Environment Groups, Section A, Part B, pp.1–26. Melbourne, Australia: Environment Victoria.Google Scholar
Hawken, P., Lovins, A.B. & Lovins, L.H. (1999) Natural Capitalism: The Next Industrial Revolution. London, UK: Earthscan.Google Scholar
Hayami, Y. & Ruttan, V.W. (1970) Factor prices and technical change in agricultural development: the United States and Japan, 1880–1960. Journal of Political Economy 78: 1115–1141.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hicks, J.R. (1932) The Theory of Wages. London, UK: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Higgens, H.G. (1991) An assessment of the extent to which hardwood and softwood can be interchanged in pulp and paper manufacture. Report. Resource Assessment Commission Forest and Timber Inquiry Consultancy Series, Australian Government Printing Service, Canberra, Australia.Google Scholar
International Monetary Fund (2008) World Economic Outlook Database, October 2008 [www document]. URL http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2008/02/weodata/weorept.aspx?pr.x=45&pr.y=4&sy=1980&ey=2007&scsm=1&ssd=1&sort=country&ds=.&br=1&c=001%2C205&s=NGDPD&grp=1&a=1Google Scholar
Keith, H., Mackey, B.D. & Lindenmayer, D.B. (2009) Re-evaluation of forest biomass carbon stocks and lessons for the world's most carbon dense forests, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 106 (28): 11635–11640 [www document]. URL http://www.pnas.org/content/106/28/11635.shortCrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Keith, H., Mackey, B., Berry, S., Lindenmayer, D. & Gibbons, P. (2010) Estimating carbon carrying capacity in natural forest ecosystems across heterogeneous landscapes: addressing sources of error. Global Change Biology 16 (11): 2971–2989 [www document]. URL http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/123215818/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Macrae, S., Cotterill, P. & Brolin, A. (1999) An integrated approach to high yield high quality eucalypt wood fibre: conventional breeding, biotechnology and clonal forestry. Appita 52: 174–179.Google Scholar
Petry, M. & Zhang, L. (2009) China's Forestry Resource Inventory. GAIN Report No. CH9132, USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, USA.Google Scholar
Ruthven, P. (1995) An endless war of attrition. The Australian Financial Review 25 January 1995: 11.Google Scholar
Sedjo, R.A. & Lyon, K.S. (1990) The Long-Term Adequacy of World Timber Supply. Washington, DC, USA: Resources for the Future.Google Scholar
Sustainability Institute (2003) Commodity systems challenges: moving sustainability into the mainstream of natural resource economics. Sustainability Institute Report, Hartland, Vermont, USA.Google Scholar
von Weizsäcker, E., Lovins, A.B. & Lovins, L.H. (1997) Factor 4: Doubling Wealth–Halving Resource Use. St Leonards, NSW, Australia Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Wang, G., Innes, J.L., Lei, J., Dai, S. & Wu, S.W. (2007) China's forestry reforms. Science 318: 1556–1557.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zue, S., Tomberlin, D. & Buongiorno, J. (1998) Global forest products, consumption, production, trade and prices: global forest products model projections to 2010. Working paper GFPOS/WP/01, Global Forest Products Outlook Study Working Paper Series. Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, Rome, Italy.Google Scholar