02 October 2017

The European Forest Week, 9-13 October 2017 Warsaw, Poland

The fourth European Forest Week will take place 9-13 October 2017. It will be held in conjunction with Las2017 (‘las’ means ‘forest’ in Polish), the Joint Session of the UNECE Committee of Forests and the Forest Industry (COFFI) and the FAO European Forestry Commission (EFC). European Forest Week will take place in Warsaw, where Las2017 will be hosted by the Government of Poland.

The first European Forest Week was celebrated in 2008 and ever since has provided a unique opportunity for participants to increase the forest sector’s visibility and to influence pan-European and global discussions related to forests. Interested stakeholders are encouraged to contribute and organize national and local celebrations. In Russia the area covered by forests is 760 million hectares, which is capable of supplying a wood stock of around 82 billion m3.
Russia possesses 26% of the earth’s forests. The area has been divided based on purpose and condition:
• Subject to forest protection: 23.2%
• Used for forestry production: 50.0%
• Subject to forest reserve: 20.0%
This means that in every region in Russia, land areas are identified and issued with a code, with the aim of looking ahead and being able to rely on a naturally renewable raw material. Russia is rich in timber for any application and is one of the most important countries in the world for the volume of timber and timber products exported. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) declared 2011 the “International Year of Forests”, and countries with high concentrations of forests will host conferences and debates, also releasing statistics.
The FAO commissioned Prof. Andrey Filipchuk, Director of the All-Russian Research Institute of Forestry and Mechanization (VNIILM) of Pushkino (Region of Moscow) to carry out a study on the status, maintenance and planning for forests, which was presented at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland on March 21 last.
The FAO has issued extracts from Filipchuk’s important study, which will be reported here in the form of information, maps and references. Plywood producers achieved excellent result in 2015, with production volumes nearing pre-crisis levels of 2.5 million m3, while production capacity is around 3 million m3.  For more information contact Mrs Theresa Loeffler:

FAO European Forestry Commission (EFC)
Headquarters:  Viale delle Terme di Caracalla
I-00153 Rome / Italy
Ph. +39 06 57051
E-mail：theresa.loeffler@unece.org