The country’s forest sector had been looking to raise the growth rate from 87 million m3 to 100 million m3 just a year or two ago, but this had been a long-term target.
Now the 10th National Forest Inventory shows growth has already reached 97 million m3.
The Finnish Forest Institute has attributed the growth to that fact that pine and broadleaved forests in southern Finland are mainly young and are therefore growing rapidly. Forests in the north are older with 20% being more than 120 years old.
Finnish forests grow by an average of 1 million m3 per day during the summer.
The inventory shows the total volume of wood in Finnish forests to be 2.18 billion m3, half of which is pine, less than a third spruce and 16% birch. Pine volume has grown 10% since the previous inventory and broadleaves by 7%, while spruce is down by 6%.
Sustainable felling until 2014 can now be up to 66 million m3, some 10 million m3 more than 2001-2005 average felling. The sustainable felling estimate for 2015-2034 is 70 million m3.
