Economy Minister sets task of solving problem of raw materials shortage for woodworking
At the end of last week, Minister of Economy, Environment, and Agriculture Oleksiy Sobolev held a major meeting on the development of the forestry and wood-processing industries, setting a task to increase timber harvesting while fulfilling key environmental obligations.
"The problem we need to solve is the shortage of raw materials for Ukrainian wood-processing enterprises. The main reason is excessive overregulation," he was quoted as saying in a press release on the website of the state enterprise Forests of Ukraine.
"These include outdated sanitary regulations, factors related to the inefficiency of a series of environmental procedures, and often unjustified restrictions on economic activities in forests. Forests are a strategic resource – a resource that can be regularly renewed. They should generate added value and play an important role in the country’s economic development," the minister added.
Viktor Smal, Head of the State Forest Resources Agency of Ukraine, told Interfax-Ukraine that timber harvesting in the country amounted to 15.9 million cubic meters in 2022, 15.7 million cubic meters in 2023, 14.9 million cubic meters in 2024, and is forecasted to be in the range of 14–15 million cubic meters this year, while the annual increment is about 35 million cubic meters.
"Unfortunately, the volume of resources available to the wood-processing industry has decreased… About 20% of forest resources are inaccessible due to hostilities: 1 million hectares are under occupation, 0.5 million hectares are mined, 100,000 hectares are in permanent combat zones, and roughly the same area comprises the locations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, where economic activity is also not conducted," explained the head of the agency.
He recalled that before the war, during Ukraine’s independence, there was one peak year when timber harvesting reached 20 million cubic meters, but on average, the pre-war median was closer to 17-18 million cubic meters. Smal clarified that this figure also included in-house processing by forestry enterprises, which amounted to about 2.5 million cubic meters per year, but this practice was abandoned as unprofitable and inefficient during the reform of the forestry sector and the creation of the state enterprise Forests of Ukraine, so that processing would be handled by private businesses.
Thus, according to the head of the State Forest Resources Agency, there has not been a critical drop in timber harvesting volumes even during the war, but demand has increased, as the moratorium on the export of roundwood from Ukraine expanded the number of enterprises that increased their production capacity.
"And they are now ready for larger volumes despite the reduction in available resources," Smal described his view of the situation.
At the same time, he emphasized that there are several ways to increase timber harvesting volumes.
For comparison, the head of the State Forest Resources Agency also cited Poland and Germany, where forest areas are comparable to those in Ukraine, but in Poland the annual increment is 40 million cubic meters, of which 37-38 million cubic meters are harvested, while in Germany the increment is nearly 100 million cubic meters with almost the same harvest.
According to him, the transition from 2027 to new forest management methods, closer to natural processes – using selective and restorative logging instead of clear-cutting – will allow the average growth per hectare to triple, reaching 12 cubic meters per year.
The second factor, Smal noted, is the radical difference in protected areas between Ukraine and Europe, where the nature reserve system is largely flexible, achieved through so-called multifunctional forests.
Smal also cited another way to increase harvesting: reducing overregulation of EIA — Environmental Impact Assessments.
In his view, under the current logic of environmental impact assessments, even farmers would theoretically need to obtain one before, for example, harvesting wheat, which he described as nonsensical.
Another scenario for increasing timber harvesting, he said, involves changing the regulatory framework and adjusting the age of forest maturity toward greater flexibility.