“We have five years behind us in which we have massively felt climate change. We are not getting any orderly forest management because we are only chasing damaged wood,” said co-chairman Rudolf Freidhager of the Austrian Federal Forests on Thursday evening in an online conversation . The amount of damaged wood from the country’s largest forest owner (850,000 hectares, around ten percent of the state area) remains at a very high level of around 1.1 million solid cubic meters, which still accounts for 59 percent of the annual wood harvest of 1.8 million solid cubic meters. In 2020 it was 81 percent and in 2019 79 percent damaged wood.
The unusually dry and cool spring took its toll on the forest. Despite a regionally rather wet summer with many heavy rain events, the average annual precipitation in Austria was ten percent below the long-term average. This made the forest vulnerable to bark beetles and other damage.
The wood sales price (round wood from the forest road) was higher for the federal forests in the past year than in 2020, at an average of 67 euros. “But that’s miles away from good,” said Freidhager, referring to the real beneficiaries of the wood glut in Europe, the sawmill and timber industry. This year, due to the current rise in sawn timber prices, the Federal Forests are expecting a further increase in the price of wood “by an average of a few euros” per cubic metre.
CFO Georg Schöppl put the additional costs of climate change in 2021 at 31.5 million euros for his company. These include beetle prevention and reduced income from damaged wood, damage to the forest infrastructure of over five million euros. The damage caused by heavy rain events and flooding in the summer on forest roads, bridges and slope protection was mainly on ÖBf areas in the Upper Austrian Salzkammergut, in the Salzburg region and in Upper Styria.
EU forest strategy not effective
The board of directors criticized various EU strategies to combat climate change because he believes that the forest should not be seen as a climate savior by setting ten percent of the area unused, as the EU stipulates, but by active and natural use. The ÖBF already has nine percent of the area under nature protection, but they fear that as a state forest they will have to make a higher contribution to the EU strategy than private forest owners. Schöppl: “The wood that we don’t use would have to be replaced with fossil raw materials”. In addition, the protective forest function of the forests is very important for the people living here, especially in the Alpine region. This must be managed.
The forest (as one of the four business areas) turned a profit again in 2021 after a year of losses. How high this or how high the fruitfulness will be that the ÖBF has to deliver to the state budget will be published in May when the balance sheet is presented. “Significantly more than 2020,” it said anyway. The federal forests paid one for 2020 Dividend of three million euros and a usufruct fee of 4.5 million euros to the state.
Source: Nachrichten
