Notes
4.4 Impact of Planted Forests
The global distribution of the age classes of planted forests for protection was close to ‘normal’, that is an even spread of areas between age classes – at least up to the age of 50 years.
Ownership
From the limited survey carried out, most (70%) planted forests with protective function were publicly owned in 2005, with the balance in corporate ownership.
Both in China and to a much smaller extent in Europe, there has been a trend towards smallholder ownership, although less pronounced than with planted forests for production.
Most publicly owned planted forests for protection are located in East Asia, with large areas in China and Japan, and in Europe, where the bulk is in the Russian Federation and to a lesser extent in countries such as Poland.
Many publicly owned protective forests are in the semi-natural category, refl ecting reservation by the state of existing natural forest for protection pur- poses but with reliance on planting to ensure satisfactory re-stocking and continuance of cover. However, in Russia many forest plantations are allo- cated to protective functions, as is also the case in other countries for corpo- rately owned planted forests, indicating that corporate owners set aside parts of their plantation estate for protection purposes such as riparian zones, buff- ers next to enclaves of native woodland etc., perhaps stimulated by forest certifi cation pressures.
End uses of protective forest
The limited survey results indicate that, not surprisingly, the protective end use is dominant, namely, protection of soil, water and biological diversity – including the harvesting of non-wood forest products on a small scale. Such forests also commonly fulfi l amenity and recreation functions, which for some countries, such as Japan and Poland, are the dominant purpose.
It is recognized, of course, that many planted forests with a protective func- tion are truly ‘multi-purpose’ and the constraint of classifying by end use is arti- fi cial to the point of being misleading. Nevertheless, the picture emerging shows a planted forest resource with many facets and providing many products and services – wood and non-wood – where some purposes are more important than others and hence their raison d’être.
Distinguishing between planted forests as a component of semi-natural for-
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ests and those traditionally labelled forest plantations has revealed better the extent and impact of plantation silviculture as a contribution to forest management and practice globally.
Policy making and planning, as well as the allocation of funds for protection
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(fi re, pests and disease), research and maintenance, will need to take into account the increase in planted forests in general and the trend towards for- est plantations.
Data on growth rates, rotations and end uses suggest that planted forests
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contribute massively to industrial wood and fi bre supply, which, in the past, may have been underestimated. But just how large the contribution might be is the subject of Chapter 4.
Distinguishing between functions of planted forest – production and pro-
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tection – reveals the substantial investment in environmental protection to obtain services from forest cover (the usually benign woodland infl uences) to conserve soil, water and wildlife, to protect slopes and provide shelter, and to give enjoyment for recreation and amenity at local and landscape level.
The impact of the production planted forests may be nearly as great on
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environmental protection as protective planted forests may provide in economic and social benefi t terms to, especially, rural people. Achievement of these multiple objectives will depend on management that considers all economic, social and environmental aspects.
The impact of large volumes of certain species and size classes, which have
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within the past 25 years been widely established for productive purposes, on markets in the near future must be considered by planners – and technolo- gists who may, for example, have to develop ways of utilizing large quanti- ties of small-dimension logs.
The impact on wood supply as well as on the provision of environmental
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services of the migration into private ownership of planted forests, including to smallholders, is a critical shift raising some uncertainties about continuity of supply which may need addressing through policy-related measures.
Finally, it is recognized that data are incomplete. Some countries with known
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major planted forests resources have not adequately contributed to these data, and some geographical regions such as the dry subtropics are poorly represented. Further research will refi ne these conclusions.
4.4.1 The future fi bre basket
The above list indicates many striking impacts that the new planted forests data point to. Perhaps, most striking of all is the past underestimation of the role planted forests played in the supply of forest products. In one generation a sea change has occurred. The optimism about ‘man-made’ forest and the specula- tion concerning planting programmes 40 years ago at the Symposium on Man- made Forests and their Industrial Importance (FAO, 1967) have, it can be argued, not only been realized but exceeded (Fig. 4.4).
While the wider defi nition of planted forest explains part of the acceleration in area terms (Fig. 4.4) – or rather paints a truer picture of the contribution they actually play – there is no doubt that planted forests are on the point of exceed- ing the production coming from natural forest formations (primary, modifi ed, and semi-natural forest with assisted natural regeneration in Table 3.2).
The evidence is straightforward. Table 4.5 indicates that around 175 million ha of planted forest (the 145 million ha in Table 4.5 is believed to represent 80%
of planted forests for production) have defi ned production objectives. Using a very conservative MAI of 5 m3/ha/year [the same fi gure hypothesized in FAO (1967)] for all these planted forests wherever they are, their potential annual yield is still 875 million m3, or already equal to half current world consumption of industrial forest products. Bearing in mind that: (i) many planted forests for protection will also yield some worthwhile produce; and that (ii) extensive forest plantations in the tropics, subtropics and several southern hemisphere countries far exceed an average MAI of 5 m3/ha/year, it is reasonable to argue that planted forests already supply in the region of 1 billion m3/year of wood.
This very rough and ready but remarkable estimate of yield from planted forests brings a paradigm shift. Just 7% of the world’s forest – the planted forest component – can potentially produce two-thirds of global industrial roundwood.
With the investment in genetic tree improvement, strategies to focus planting on best-adapted sites and other silvicultural advances, a further lift in productivity per hectare is guaranteed. Overall fi bre supply from planted forest will increase and eliminate any lingering spectre of wood shortage globally, if not always locally. Planted forests are fast becoming the world’s fi bre basket and will complete the domestication of forest production and so reach what agriculture achieved centuries ago.
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005
Years
Area (million ha)
Fig. 4.4. Estimated areas of planted forests (’000 ha), 1965–2005. Note: the early data are both incomplete and suffer from changing defi nitions.
The signifi cance of this emerging evidence is far too important to leave as crude generalizations. Consequently a detailed study was undertaken to attempt to reach global and regional forecasts of output of industrial forest products from all countries with signifi cant planted forest resources: this is the subject of the next chapter (Chapter 5). The far-reaching implications concerning the carbon cycle, bioenergy, and all the related social, institutional, ecological and environmental issues, are examined in Chapters 6–8.
Note
1 For defi nition of ‘assisted’ see Endnote 2, Chapter 3 and Table 3.2.
© FAO 2009. Planted Forests: Uses, Impacts and
Sustainability (ed. J. Evans) 47