Introduction
This chapter contains information about world forestry, presenting global figures by region alongside data for the UK and the EU. Topics covered include woodland area, carbon stocks, wood removals, production and apparent consumption of wood products and international trade in forest products.
The data are produced by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). All of the statistics presented in this chapter have been previously released by the FAO. Further information on revisions, data sources and methodology used to compile the figures is provided in Chapter 10: Sources and Methodology.
Data for the European Union (EU) relate to all 27 current EU members, excluding the UK, for all the years shown. Data for Europe cover 26 of the EU members (excluding Cyprus), Russia and a number of other European countries, including Norway, Switzerland, Serbia and Ukraine. Cyprus is included in the EU total, but is part of FAO’s Asia region and is thus not included in the Europe total.
These figures are outside the scope of Accredited Official Statistics. For further information see Chapter 10: Sources and Methodology.
Key findings
The main findings are:
- At around 13% forest cover in 2020, the UK is one of the least densely forested countries in Europe. This compares with 46% for Europe as a whole and 31% worldwide.
- The global forest area reduced by around 4.7 million hectares (0.1%) per year between 2010 and 2020.
- Carbon stocks in forest living biomass have increased in Europe, North & Central America and Asia between 1990 and 2020 but have shown an overall decrease at a global level over this period.
- A total of 3.9 billion cubic metres underbark of wood was removed from global forests in 2023, of which around one half (50%) was used as woodfuel and the remainder as industrial roundwood (for use by wood processors).
- Global production of wood products in 2023 totalled 445 million cubic metres of sawnwood, 381 million cubic metres of wood-based panels and 401 million tonnes of paper and paperboard.
- Europe consumed 26% of all sawnwood, 22% of the world’s wood-based panels and 20% of all paper and paperboard in 2023.
- The UK was the second largest net importer (imports less exports) of forest products in 2023, with net imports of US $8.0 billion. The largest net importer was China, with net imports of US $29.2 billion.
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