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2022 brought an above-average amount of wood from Austria’s forests

2022 brought an above-average amount of wood from Austria’s forests
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Image: APA/ROBERT JAEGER

The driving force behind the increase this year were the higher prices and only in the federal states of Styria, Carinthia and Tyrol the quantities of damaged wood, writes Agriculture Minister Norbert Totschnig (ÖVP) in a press release. Sawmills paid 12.2 percent more for spruce wood than in 2021. Industrial wood and firewood became even more expensive.

Of the 19.36 million cubic meters harvested without bark, 7.26 million were damaged wood (37 percent). Although that was slightly more than in 2021, it was significantly less than in the major damaged wood years 2018 to 2020. Almost half of the damaged wood is due to the bark beetle, a third to storms.

In 2022, logging was five percent above the average for the past five years and eight percent above the average for the past ten years. Around 60 percent of all logging came from the 140,000 or so “small forest owners” with less than 200 hectares, around 30 percent from 1,600 large forest owners and a good 10 percent from the federal forests, which are by far the largest forest owners in the republic. 84 percent were softwoods. Two thirds of the deciduous trees were used as firewood – but only 28 percent of the total wood harvest (5.4 million cubic meters harvested).

The forested areas and the stock of wood have been growing for decades, Totschnig recalls. In view of the drought, storm and bark beetles, the construction is over “resistant and stable forests” important for forest management. “For this reason, all measures to make the forest climate-friendly have the highest priority”.

Source: Nachrichten

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