International Trade In Wood Products Research Articles

Nations’ water footprints and virtual water trade of wood products

Several studies addressed the water footprint (WF) of countries and virtual water (VW) trade in agricultural and industrial products, but freshwater use associated with wood products has received little attention. Yet, international trade in wood products has been growing, and forestry competes with other forest ecosystem services over limited freshwater resources. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to assess nations’ WFs of consumption of wood products, the sustainability of these WFs, and the VW flows associated with international trade in wood products. We account nations’ WFs of and VW trade in wood products with a Multi-regional Input-Output model (MRIO-forest) that tracks wood flows along global supply chains (production, processing, trade, and final uses) for the period 1997-2017 and assess the sustainability of the green and blue WF of wood products in 2017. The WF of wood production increased from 8.37 × 1011 m3/y in 1997 to 9.87 × 1011 m3/y in 2017. About 38% (3.76 × 1011 m3/y) of this WF relates to wood products for export (in 2017), which means that VW trade associated with wood products ranks in between agricultural and industrial products in absolute volumes. About 10% (9.9 × 1010 m³/y) of the green WF and 11% (3.4 × 109 m³/y) of the blue WF of wood products in 2017 are unsustainable, meaning that they are located in areas where the total green/blue WF exceeds the maximum sustainable green/blue WF. The unsustainable green WF occurs mainly in Germany, Indonesia, the Czech Republic and the UK, and mainly relates to coniferous sawnwood, paper and paperboard other than newsprint, fibreboard and non-coniferous sawnwood. The unsustainable blue WF, which is much smaller, occurs in the USA, Russia. Nigeria, Canada and India, and mainly relates to fuelwood, paper and paperboard other than newsprint, sawnwood and fibreboard. This study increases our understanding of how forest evaporation flows link to the final consumption of wood products and contributes to the wider debate on the allocation of freshwater resources in the global economy.

Boosting the EU forest-based bioeconomy: Market, climate, and employment impacts

This study adds to the scientific literature dealing with the climate change mitigation implications of wood substitution. Its main scientific contribution rests with the modelling approach. By fully integrating forest resource and wood-product markets modelling in quantitative scenario analysis, we account for international trade in wood products as well as impacts on EU forests and forest-based sector employment of an increased EU uptake of wood-based construction and/or biochemicals and biofuels. Our results confirm the crucial role of the sawmilling industry in the forest-based bioeconomy. Thus, boosting wood-based construction in the EU would be most effective in increasing EU production and employment—in logging and solid wood-products manufacturing, but also in sectors using sawmilling byproducts as feedstock. Vertical integration in wood-based biorefineries should thus be advantageous. The positive EU climate-change mitigation effects of increased carbon storage in harvested wood products (HWP) and material substitution from increased wood construction are more than offset by reduced net forests carbon sinks by 2030, due to increased EU harvests. Further, increased EU imports, resulting in lower consumption of sawnwood outside the EU, would reduce extra-EU long-life HWP carbon storage and substitution of GHG-intensive materials, highlighting the need for concerted international climate change mitigation.

The Restricting Effects of Forest Certification on the International Trade of Wood Products

ABSTRACTForest certification has increased the cost of companies which has affected the international trade of wood products. This paper examines forest certification costs of companies, and based on this, uses partial equilibrium to analyze its trade restriction effects, and uses space price gradient field model to check whether it is a substitution for tariff barriers. Our conclusion shows that forest certification has restricted the trade of wood products due to its high certified cost, and clarifies that in the case of tariff reduction, trade of wood products are hindered by different levels and different costs of forest certification. This paper implies that efforts should be made to increase the amount of certified forests worldwide. It is necessary to lower the certified cost and important that government policy measures to support certification should include consideration of who bears the cost, support for aggregation of smallholder growers and improved communication in timber supply chains.

The impact of application of FSC Chain of Custody certification on global wood products trade

FSC Chain of Custody (CoC) certification effectively proves that the timber being used originates from sustainably managed forests, and a large number of wood products have been FSC CoC certified. This paper examines the impacts of the application of FSC CoC certification on the international trade of wood products. The analysis is conducted using the Heckscher–Ohlin–Vanek model, where the number of FSC CoC certificates is used to describe the level of application, and is included as an explanatory variable for national net export of wood products. The results show that the application has had significant and positive impacts on the net export of sawnwood, particleboard, plywood, wood furniture and fibreboard, while it has had significant and negative impacts on the net export of roundwood. The present findings imply that more sawnwood, particleboard, plywood, wood furniture and fibreboard in the global market have been FSC CoC certified than roundwood and veneer sheet in meeting the demand for legal products. Therefore, it is necessary to encourage more companies to apply FSC CoC certification to roundwood and veneer sheet.

Phytosanitary measures to reduce the movement of forest pests with the international trade of wood products

International trade in wood products brings the risk of the movement of tree pests, which can cause devastating ecosystem and economic damage. International phytosanitary guidelines have been created to help countries that import wood products develop import requirements to minimize pest movement. Requirements may include specific phytosanitary measures, including treatments such as heat, fumigation, chemical, or systems approaches that combine phytosanitary measures. This paper provides an overview of phytosanitary measures for the international trade of wood commodities and the regulatory framework in which they are applied.

Linking national wood consumption with global biodiversity and ecosystem service losses

Identifying the global hotspots of forestry driven species, ecosystem services losses and informing the consuming nations of their environmental footprint domestically and abroad is essential to design demand side interventions and induce sustainable production methods. Here we first use countryside species area relationship model to project species extinctions of four vertebrate taxa (mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles) due to forest land use in 174 countries. We combine the projected extinctions with a global database on the monetary value of ecosystem services provided by different biomes and with bilateral trade data of wood products to calculate species extinctions and ecosystem services losses inflicted by national wood consumption and international wood trade. Results show that globally a total of 485 species are projected to go extinct due to current forest land use. About 32% of this projected loss can be attributed to land use devoted for export production. However, under the counterfactual scenario with the same consumption levels but no international trade of wood products, an additional 334 species are projected to go extinct. Globally, we find that losses of ecosystem services worth $1.5trillion/year are embodied in the timber trade. Compared to high-income nations, tropical countries such as Philippines, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka, Gambia and Bolivia presented the highest net ecosystem services losses (>3000US$/ha/year) that could not be compensated through current land rents, indicating underpriced exports. Small tropical countries also gained much lower rents per species extinction suffered. These results can help internalize these costs into the global trade through financial compensation mechanisms such as REDD+ or through price premiums on wood sourced from these countries. Overall the results can provide valuable insights for devising national strategies to meet several of the global Aichi 2020 biodiversity targets and can also be useful for life cycle assessment and product labelling schemes.

Productivity, resource endowment and trade performance of the wood product sector

Abstract This paper analyzes the determinants of international trade of wood products, considering three main groups: woodworking products, pulp and paper and wooden furniture. We extend the Heckscher-Ohlin-Vanek (HOV) framework in order to take into account the forest resource endowment as well as industrial performance factors. Empirical tests are based on data on European countries between 1995 and 2007. The HOV hypothesis is partially confirmed in that the forest resource endowment is a significant determinant for explaining differences in net trade of two products (pulp and paper and furniture) but not for woodworking products. In addition, empirical tests also show the limits of the HOV model for explaining international trade of wood products. Indeed, factors reflecting industrial performance of wood sectors, including total factor productivity and average labor cost, have a significant role in determining differences in net trade of wood products.

Molecular characterization of Portuguese populations of the pinewood nematodeBursaphelenchus xylophilususing cytochromeband cellulase genes

Bursaphelenchus xylophilus is the causal agent of pine wilt disease and a worldwide pest with high economic impact. Since its first diagnosis in Portugal in 1999, it has been subjected to quarantine measures with impact on forest health and ecosystem stability, significantly affecting international trade of wood products. The disease was detected in the north and centre of continental Portugal and, since 2008, the whole country has been considered an affected area. Recently, it was detected in Madeira Island. In order to avoid new outbreaks, it has become of major importance to understand the patterns of spread, introduction points and to characterize the new populations from continental Portugal and Madeira Island. Mitochondrial cytochrome b (cytb) and parasitic cellulase gene sequences were used to evaluate the genetic relationships among isolates that could indicate possible origins of the new outbreaks. Portuguese isolates were compared with isolates from USA, China, Japan and South Korea, in order to investigate possible infection pathways and disease spread patterns in Portugal. Phylogenetic trees based on both genes show that Portuguese isolates group with Asian isolates. Isolates from USA are in a separate position in both gene trees. However, the phylogenetic tree based on the cellulase gene sequences shows higher differentiation among Portuguese isolates than that of cytb. These results agree with those previously obtained using inter-simple sequence repeats (ISSR). This was the first study to use cytb and cellulase genes to characterize pinewood nematode (PWN) populations. This study suggests that cellulase is a better marker than cytb to study genetic diversity in B. xylophilus.

The Asian furniture industry: the reality behind the statistics

A reliable series of statistics is the basis for any analysis within the forest industry sector. A dependable set of statistics is equally important for short-term developmental measures as well as long-term forecasting of the forest industry. The fact that international trade in wood products is increasingly interdependent on trading partners suggests that trade analysis can no longer rely on established national statistics, but need to be framed within the context of worldwide statistics. This article reflects the distortion in trade data, when analysis is simply based on national statistics, without any reference to the international trade statistics. Such trade data are often the source of inappropriate trade and industrial policies that explain the slow growth of the value-added wood products manufacturing sectors throughout Southeast Asia.

International trade in wood products : Its role in the land use change and forestry carbon cycle

Accounting harvested wood products and their trade as an integral part of thecarbon cycle of a managed forest is achallenging task. Nevertheless, an appropriate way is especially needed nowthat harvested wood products may be includedin Article 3.4 of the Kyoto Protocol. The adoption of a method for accountingfor these flows in the IPCC guidelines mayhave implications for the trade of wood products and thus on global forestmanagement.Four methods of accounting for wood products in an international perspective areanalyzed in the present study. The aimis to obtain insight in the technical and policy implications of the proposedmethods. These methods include the presentdefault IPCC method and three alternatives: flow consumption, flow production,and stock change. All fourmethodologies are applied to the 1990 data of Gabon, Sweden, and TheNetherlands.The impact of accounting for wood products using alternative methods has –in some cases – a large impact on the carbonbalance of the Land Use Change and Forestry (LUCF) sector. In the case of TheNetherlands, it was found that theLUCF carbon balance could be `converted' from a sink into a source dependingon the method chosen. However,the LUCF sector is very small compared to the total national carbon balancein The Netherlands. In Sweden, a countrywhere the forest sector plays an important role, the alternative wood productmethods influence the total nationalcarbon balance by 34%. In Gabon, a country with conversion forestry,the impact of alternative wood productmethods hardly influences the LUCF carbon balance because the emissions fromdeforestation are very large.The accounting method may have a large impact on the way countries regardtheir trade in wood products. It may bepossible for countries to buy a sink through the wood products trade, byimporting products faster than they decomposedomestically. In the case of Gabon with its conversion forestry (the changefrom forest into other types of land use, like agriculture,it was foundthat under the flow consumption method,this country can partly export the carbon sources resulting fromnonsustainable forest management. Nor is this lattermethod consistent with the energy chapter of the IPCC guidelines. The stockchange method seems to be a suitablemethod, combining precise accounting and simplicity. This method is also anincentive for the use of wood in long-lifeproducts and bioenergy, and for sustainable forest management.

International Trade in Wood Products: Recent Developments and Implications for Australian Forest Policy

SUMMARY Past trends and recent developments in trade in wood products are reviewed for the three major consuming regions of the world and future problems for international trade in wood products are examined. Trends and developments in the South-East Asian Region are also outlined. Future prospects for Australia seem to involve increasing competition in export and domestic markets, and considerable uncertainty regarding future trends in consumption, especially of paper products. These problems suggest the need for a wider system of consultation than that presently used in NAFTA; greater flexibility in forest service sales of stumpage or logs, and in their pricing; and more market research by industry and forest services.