Perspektiven der Holznutzung

For a number of reasons forestry in Germany is experiencing a severe crisis. At the same time and especially in the future, forests and wood utilization are playing and will continue to play a key role in reducing rising CO₂ contents in the Earth's atmosphere. Furthermore, the worldwide demand for wood and wood products is constantly on the increase. Unfortunately, forestry in Germany has been unable to turn the increasing use of wood to account. On the contrary, certain grades of timber are hard to sell or fetch too low a price. Against this background, greater awareness of the benefits involved in wood utilization is essential in forestry and the wood-working industries, in products-line thinking from the raw material to the finished product, including its re-use and further use as well as its re-utilization and further utilization. The ecologic advantages of the system "Forestry and Wood Utilization" must be brought to the attention of the general public and politicians through the means of qualified eco-balancing. Economically, cost reductions, increased marketing expenditure and product innovations are required. The catalogue of challenges reaches from more possibilities to utilize wood from thinnings, measures to increase the value of good-quality timber, inter alia by machine grading, investigations on the effects of silvicultural methods on the wood quality of the most diverse tree species to energy and CO₂-related policies, with special consideration of wood which would permit an extension of wood and biomass utilization to energy purposes, as well as a considerably better example to be set by public authorities in making use of wood, especially in construction.