Total roundwood removals and drain by region, 2018

• In 2018, a total of 78.2 million cubic metres of roundwood was harvested from Finnish forests, being eight per cent more than in the previous year and more than ever before. Compared with the average of the preceding ten-year period, the amount increased by nearly a quarter, by approximately 15 million cubic metres.
• Of the total roundwood removals, 69.2 million cubic metres, or 89 per cent, consisted of logs and pulpwood. Of these, 68.9 million cubic metres were felled for the forest industries and to the export market and 0.3 million cubic metres for household consumption by forest owners.
• The remainder, 8.9 million cubic metres, consisted of energywood, i.e. stemwood to be used as fuelwood in residential housing or as wood chips in heat and power plants. In addition, 2.3 million cubic metres of logging residues and stumps were also harvested from forests for burning.
• Regionally, the total roundwood felling volume increased by at least ten per cent in Northern Savonia, North Karelia, Ostrobothnia, Central and Northern Ostrobothnia and Kainuu.
• Luke estimated in the autumn of 2018 that the maximum sustainable stemwood felling potential of Finnish forests during the period from 2015 to 2024 is 84 million cubic metres of roundwood per annum. According to total roundwood removal statistics, 93 per cent of this potential was used in 2018. Between 2015 and 2018, the corresponding average figure was 86 per cent.
• The level of removals varies from one year and region to the next. The 2018 felling volumes and the average felling volumes in 2015–2018 exceeded the sustainable felling potential, in terms of wood production, in Tavastia Proper and Päijänne Tavastia, Kymenlaakso, South Karelia and Southern Savonia. In addition, the level of 90 per cent was exceeded in six regions in 2018 and in three regions between 2015 and 2018.
• In Northern Finland in Finland’s three northernmost regions, two-thirds of the felling potential were covered between 2015 and 2018 and three quarters in 2018. In Southern Finland, the level was 91 per cent on average between 2015–2018 and up to 98 per cent in 2018.
• Last year, the roundwood drain reached a new record, nearly 94 million cubic metres. The total drain comprises roundwood removals, as well as stemwood of logging residues left in forests plus naturally died stemwood. However, the volume of standing trees increased by approximately 107 million cubic metres on the basis of the National Forest Inventory. This means that the total volume of growing stock increased by roughly 13 million cubic metres.
  
  

Press release here