Investigating the Balance between Timber Harvest and Productivity of Global Coniferous Forests under Global Change

A widely used assumption in forestry is that thedemand for timber will exceed the maximum levelavailable from forests on a sustainable basis. In thisstudy, measurements of extracted timber and modeledforest productivity were used to investigate therelationship between harvested timber and naturalforest productivity for current conditions, and underglobal change scenario. The analysis was confined toconiferous forests and countries that have coniferousforests within their territories. Annual roundwoodproduction from the database of Food and AgricultureOrganization was used as an approximation of annualtimber harvest for each country. Annual stem primaryproductivity of coniferous forests was estimated usingthe BIOME-BGC model. Based on the current rates,annual timber extraction was extrapolated for eachcountry for the next 80 years. Then, on a countrybasis, the timber harvest was related to the modeledforest stem productivity, assuming that the area ofconiferous forest would stay unchanged for the next 80years.The results of this study suggest that globalconiferous forests currently produce more wood thanpeople consume, but that this gap will narrow in thefuture. The results also suggest that wood extractionmay reach forest regrowth by the middle of the nextcentury, even though most coniferous forests arelocated in high latitudes and may have an acceleratedstem growth associated with the joint effect ofclimate change and elevated carbon dioxideconcentration in the atmosphere.