Forest ProductRenewable
Industrial RoundwoodSoftwood LumberHardwood LumberWood-Based PanelsPlywoodOriented Strand Board
What is it?
The wood that is still a tree. Every board, panel and sheet of paper on the site starts here, and unlike an ore body it is growing while you measure it.
Why does it matter?
A mineral reserve only shrinks. A forest grows, which means the supply question for wood is not how much is left but how fast it is being added compared with how fast it is being cut. Countries that cut less than their annual growth can do so indefinitely; the figures on this page are what that judgement is made from.
Deeper written sections for this material have not been published yet. Everything below is drawn straight from the source datasets and is complete.
Read the numbers correctly.
Forest area is reported in 1,000 hectares and carbon stock in living biomass in million tonnes of carbon. Neither is a volume of sawable wood: a hectare of boreal scrub and a hectare of planted loblolly pine both count as one hectare, and only part of any tree becomes lumber.
Standing timber is bought as stumpage - the right to cut, priced per thousand board feet or per tonne at the stump, with the buyer paying to fell and haul it. It is the only material on this site that is sold where it grew.
