EFO-LCI: A New Life Cycle Inventory Database of Forestry Operations in Europe

Life cycle assessment (LCA) has become a common methodology to analyze environmental impacts of forestry systems. Although LCA has been widely applied to forestry since the 90s, the LCAs are still often based on generic Life Cycle Inventory (LCI). With the purpose of improving LCA practices in the forestry sector, we developed a European Life Cycle Inventory of Forestry Operations (EFO-LCI) and analyzed the available information to check if within the European forestry sector national differences really exist. We classified the European forests on the basis of "Forest Units" (combinations of tree species and silvicultural practices). For each Forest Unit, we constructed the LCI of their forest management practices on the basis of a questionnaire filled out by national silvicultural experts. We analyzed the data reported to evaluate how they vary over Europe and how they affect LCA results and made freely available the inventory data collected for future use. The study shows important variability in rotation length, type of regeneration, amount and assortments of wood products harvested, and machinery used due to the differences in management practices. The existing variability on these activities sensibly affect LCA results of forestry practices and raw wood production. Although it is practically unfeasible to collect site-specific data for all the LCAs involving forest-based products, the use of less generic LCI data of forestry practice is desirable to improve the reliability of the studies. With the release of EFO-LCI we made a step toward the construction of regionalized LCI for the European forestry sector

Management of State Forests in Estonia with Comparison to Finland

The main goal of the study is to compare the management of Estonian public forests and the factors influencing the management with the Finnish public forests. The concept public forests refers here only to the forests managed by the state forest organizations--'RMK' in Estonia and 'Metsahallitus' in Finland. When analysing the management of state forests, all the goals set for the organisations have to be considered. In Finland, the goal setting has been more precise and complex than in Estonia, where the mission of RMK is formulated as the efficient ad sustainable forest management. In both countries the public owner's interests are reflected in the State Budget--financial provision to the Budget is very important driving force of the activity in both organisations. The indicators discussed in the study are supply of roundwood and financial performance of the forest management

Promoting Reforestation in Estonia

Reforestation of clear-cut areas has been considered one of the most critical topics of forest management in Estonia during the last 15 years. Experts have given alarming assessments especially about the situation in private forests. In the paper the use of different tools, implemented by forest authorities for the sake of reforestation has been analyzed. The results of National Forest Inventory and inventories made by the Centre Forest Protection and Silviculture have been used to describe the preliminary results in the forest. The intervention of government into forest management confined to legislation during the 1990ies but since the end of the century, financial instruments have also been used. It has been planned by the Ministry of Environment to implement a guarantee fund related to forest regeneration. Costs and benefits of creating such a guarantee fund were analyzed. Preliminary calculations indicated that long-term revenues and short-term costs were almost equal when taking into account all private forests. Authors suggest to link guarantee payments with financial incentives

EFO-LCI: A New Life Cycle Inventory Database of Forestry Operations in Europe

Life cycle assessment (LCA) has become a common methodology to analyze environmental impacts of forestry systems. Although LCA has been widely applied to forestry since the 90s, the LCAs are still often based on generic Life Cycle Inventory (LCI). With the purpose of improving LCA practices in the forestry sector, we developed a European Life Cycle Inventory of Forestry Operations (EFO-LCI) and analyzed the available information to check if within the European forestry sector national differences really exist. We classified the European forests on the basis of "Forest Units" (combinations of tree species and silvicultural practices). For each Forest Unit, we constructed the LCI of their forest management practices on the basis of a questionnaire filled out by national silvicultural experts. We analyzed the data reported to evaluate how they vary over Europe and how they affect LCA results and made freely available the inventory data collected for future use. The study shows important variability in rotation length, type of regeneration, amount and assortments of wood products harvested, and machinery used due to the differences in management practices. The existing variability on these activities sensibly affect LCA results of forestry practices and raw wood production. Although it is practically unfeasible to collect site-specific data for all the LCAs involving forest-based products, the use of less generic LCI data of forestry practice is desirable to improve the reliability of the studies. With the release of EFO-LCI we made a step toward the construction of regionalized LCI for the European forestry sector.status: publishe