ABSTRACT
The scenario results concerning wood consumption for Central Europe and Scandinavia have been widened to encompass a wood balance for all of Western Europe (except Turkey and the former Yugoslavia). The wood balance is carried out for the year 1989, the most recent year for which complete statistics are available. Wood consumption is based on the production of final products in the region in 1989. To achieve this production in 1989, wood was imported to the region, but in reality wood was also exported from the region at the same time. In the actual wood balance, we have made a self-sufficiency calculation for the region, which means that the production of final products is assumed to be supplied entirely with wood from the region. Country-specific conversion factors for wood consumption have been employed for each forest product. These factors are from the mid-1980s (UN, 1986) and must be regarded as high estimates of wood consumption. In Figure 7.1 , the wood balance is presented. The figure may require some clarification. Let us study the bar labeled “Production” in 1989 as a basis for this clarification. The wood consumption, expressed in million cubic meters solid over bark (s.o.b.), is presented for two major product aggregations (paper and board production and production of all other forest products). The required wood supply for the paper and board produced in Western Europe in 1989 was 116.3 million cubic meters s.o.b. The corresponding figure for the production of all other products was 228.4 million cubic meters s.o.b. In the production of wood for industrial manufacturing we get harvesting losses of 23.4 million cubic meters s.o.b. In total, wood consumption would be 368.1 million cubic meters s.o.b. It should be pointed out that at the 1989 production level in Western Europe, raw material (wood and fibers) was both imported to and exported from the region. In the wood balance calculation we have made the assumption that the wood and fibers required for the actual production of industrial products in 1989 were produced domestically.
