Global trends in forest ownership, public income and expenditure on forestry and forestry employment

Abstract

This paper presents results of analyses of data from the 2015 Global Forest Resources Assessment on changes in forest ownership, public income and expenditure on forestry and forestry employment. Forest ownership continued to show less state control and ownership of forests. This was due to private-sector investment and, in some countries, the transfer of public forests to the private-sector (including local communities). This contrasts somewhat with results on public income and expenditure, which indicate that public expenditure on forestry has increased dramatically over the last decade, while income has increased by very little. Global employment in forestry has not changed much over the last two decades and has remained at about 12.7million people, with the majority of these employed in informal activities, particularly in Asia. While production of many if not most forest goods and services has increased, labour productivity has improved at the same time, leading to this result. Comparing the results for groups of countries at different income levels, it appears that higher income countries tend to have a relatively high proportion of private forest ownership, high levels of labour productivity and high levels of public spending (per hectare) on forestry. However, apart from these very general differences in outcomes related to income levels, there does not appear to be strong correlation between these socioeconomic variables and other forest-related variables collected in the FRA.