by ECE/FAO STAFF
Material assembled for the recently published study on European Timber Trends and Prospects
ANY discussion of the possibility of obtaining substantial supplies of sawn softwood from the U.S.S.R. in the near future must be based on the fact that, in sharp contrast to those of the United States and Canada, its economy is centrally controlled. In managing the softwood resources of the country, the Soviet authorities may be presumed to have two ends in view, consistent with the conservation of the forests themselves: to obtain as much wood as possible to meet their own domestic requirements and to export up to the point where the goods which they can buy with the foreign exchange secured no longer justify the costs involved in supplying the timber. In any assessment of export prospects, it is accordingly necessary to examine the size of the total resources available, and to judge how far the claims of the domestic and the export markets conflict with one another.
The total forest area of the U.S.S.R. is very large. According to the latest statistics available, it is approximately 700 million hectares, compared with 250 million hectares in the United States and 145 million hectares in Europe. Moreover, 80 percent of these forests consist of conifers capable of yielding softwoods of the greatest importance for the world's timber market; and the potential softwood resources of the U.S.S.R. are roughly double those of the rest of the world put together. The distribution of these forests, however, is unfavorable. Most of them are- situated in the sparsely settled northern areas, where land communications are inadequate, whereas the densely populated and industrialized areas of the south and west are relatively bare.
One result of this unfavorable distribution is that the average rate of growth is very low, the annual gross increment being estimated only at about 1.1 cubic meters per hectare. According to the Deputy Minister of Forestry of the U.S.S.R.¹, 55 percent of the trees in full-grown forests of the U.S.S.R. are over 120 years old and are ripe for cutting or over-ripe, while only 14 percent are less than 40 years old². Thus, since much of the Soviet forest area is not being logged at present, a considerable proportion of the timber wealth of the country is deteriorating in quality or being lost as the older trees die, decay, are damaged by insects, or burn in forest fires. The average growth per hectare is also low because, over huge tracts of the less accessible forest, areas the trees are thinly spread.
¹ "Individual Results of the Post-war Five-year Plan and Forestry Tasks for 1951", by V. Y. Koldanov, Deputy Minister of Forestry of the U.S.S.R., Timber Economy, MOSCOW, 1951.² This is in marked contrast to the rest of Europe, where, though age-classification data are scanty, it is generally believed that the percentage of over-ripe trees is negligible, while trees under 40 years old account for between 40 and 50 percent of the total growing stock.
The naturally unfavorable geographical distribution of the forest area has been made still worse by the heavy depletion which has gone on for over a century in the easily accessible forest areas of central and southern Russia.³ The Soviet State has introduced laws designed to enforce a forest management consistent with the principle of sustained yield, which have had the effect of reducing annual fellings in these areas. Because of forest depletion and because of climatic conditions in the less accessible forest areas, the Soviet timber industry is faced with the fact that the timber which it requires in steadily increasing quantities has to be brought over ever-greater distances under the most difficult transport conditions.
³ Khrouschov, the Wood Demon, in Tchehov's play of that name (better known in its later version as Uncle Vanya) is made to say:" Cut forests when it is a matter of urgency, you may, but it is time to stop destroying them. Every Russian forest is cracking under the axe; millions of trees are perishing; the abodes of birds and beasts are being ravaged; rivers are becoming shallow and drying up; wonderful landscapes are disappearing without leaving a trace. "(Act 1, Scene VII). And later", To fell a thousand trees, to destroy them for the sake of two or three roubles, for women´s rags, whims, luxury... to destroy them, so that posterity should curse our savagery." (Act III, Scene XII). The Wood Demon was written in 1889.
In the inter-war period, nevertheless, total fellings rose steadily from 350 million m.² in the 'twenties to about 500 millions just before World War II. After the war, in spite of the acquisition of territory which included considerable economically important forest areas, the U.S.S.R. found it difficult to raise production to the level required to meet rising domestic needs. The end of the war saw the Soviet timber industry in a serious plight. A shortage of labor added to the problems caused by excessive wear and tear during the war and the considerable loss of manufacturing capacity which had been sustained. It was reported that Hitler's armies demolished lumbering establishments with an annual production of 64 million my, as well as a large number of woodworking factories, plywood factories, match factories and pulp and paper mills. The industry also lost half its tractors, trucks and narrow-gauge locomotives.
Progress since the war
Since the end of the war, however, the industry has made great strides. Tremendous efforts were made to restore its productive capacity; and, in order to alleviate the labor shortage, great emphasis was laid on increased mechanization at every stage from extraction to processing. By 1948 the annual roundwood cut had been restored to the prewar level; and, in 1950, it is reported to have reached 600 million my, of which 280 millions were industrial wood. As elsewhere in Europe, the proportion of the total cut turned to industrial account has steadily risen. The proportion of fuelwood - 65 percent in the 'twenties-had fallen to 53 percent in 1950. Nevertheless, in spite of these successes, the Soviet timber industry has failed to match the tremendous demands made upon it by Russia's needs for reconstruction and industrialization. Almost alone among the major sectors of the Soviet economy, it has narrowly failed, year after year, to fulfil its plan.
The industry's difficulties in meeting the demands made upon it may well continue. The Soviet Union's domestic needs for sawn softwood are certain to grow4 Since the war, the restoration and development of both heavy and light industry have met with considerable successes; and more emphasis may be laid in future on raising the housing standards of the people because, though the worst ravages of the war have been repaired, these are still low in comparison with western European standards. Such a program is likely to make even greater demands on the Soviet timber industry than those it has had to face in the recent past, in spite of the fact that, in the U.S.S.R. as elsewhere in Europe, there is a strong movement away from wood for constructional uses.
4 The fifth Five-Year Plan, published in August 1952, aims at a 56 percent increase in the haulage of marketable timber by 1955 as compared with 1950. The following extract from the Plan is of particular interest:" 12. To eliminate the lag in the timber industry compared with the growing demands of the national economy. To increase production of sawn timber and develop production of details for industry and building. To realize, on a broad scale, rebasing of timber production in densely wooded districts, especially in the districts of the North, the Urals, West Siberia and in the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic, restricting lumbering in thinly wooded regions of the country. To reduce seasonal work in lumbering and for this purpose to build mechanized enterprises, ensuring for them a permanent working personnel. To ensure continued complex mechanization of lumbering. To improve organization of production and utilization of equipment ensuring higher labor productivity in lumbering. To increase, during the five years, the commissioning of powerful sawmills in new lumber districts approximately eightfold compared with the number commissioned in the previous five years.
" To ensure all-round development of paper, cellulose, furniture, plywood, wood-chemical and hydrolysis industries. To increase output of furniture not less than three times. "
Against this background of domestic scarcity, what chance has Europe of obtaining from the Soviet Union the million standards or so of sawn softwood (about 8 million m.³ roundwood equivalent) which it may need for instance in 1960 if it is to satisfy both its own requirements and maintain its exports to its own traditional markets overseas? They can hardly come from those areas around Archangel or with ready access to the Baltic Sea, from which supplies have been received in the past. These have been heavily overcut; and, since their communications with the chief deficit areas of the Soviet Union are reasonably good, their output is increasingly directed towards meeting domestic requirements. Nor is sawn softwood likely to be exported from Black Sea ports. If, therefore, supplies are to be received on any considerable scale, they must come either from Siberia or from the remoter areas of European Russia which open on the Barents Sea. Much of the virgin forest there will be worth exploiting only if export markets can be found, because the cost of moving the timber overland to inland centers of consumption would be prohibitive. Soviet plans for opening up these forests are therefore of particular interest to Europe.
Development prospects
As early as 1931, the Soviet Planning Bureau had before it memoranda and plans for the opening up of Siberian forests to the world market through the Arctic sea-route. Wobly5, for example, commented in his plan that the great northern sea-route might be the basis for solving the coming world timber crisis and the world timber problem. At that time, Wobly's proposals were sharply criticized; he was accused of being less concerned with the interests of the U.S.S.R. than with supplying the timber requirements of the capitalist world. Nevertheless, in recent years, great efforts have been made both to develop timber production in this area and to make the Arctic sea-route a reality. The route is now serviced by 130 polar radio stations, a score of scientific stations and a fleet of icebreakers. While these are partly concerned with maintaining direct sea communications between Archangel in the west and Vladivostok in the east, they also contribute towards a solution of the problem of clearing timber from the basins of the Ob and the Yenisei if and when that problem needs to be faced. Exports from these districts, and indeed from the whole forest area east of Archangel, raise, however, serious problems. Considerable development of such ports as Mezen, Naryan-Mar and Igarka, the "Archangel of Siberia", will be required. Since both floating operations and navigation are limited to a very short season of about three months, correspondingly greater port facilities and shipping resources are needed to clear the timber.
5 Wobly: Problemy severa (Gosplan), p. 33, Moscow,
Many western observers are sceptical of suggestions that the Soviet Union may again be able to export large quantities of sawn softwood in the near future, for they see no possibility that these can be spared from domestic needs. The discussion above suggests that they have overlooked the fact that domestic and export supplies could come from quite different areas. While it is probably correct that exports from the traditional exporting areas of the Soviet Union are unlikely in future, supplies from Siberia and the northeast of European Russia might be possible on a considerable scale if the technical problems of extraction and shipment can be solved; In the early postwar years there was no possibility of making the necessary labor or equipment available; they were needed for areas better situated for supplying the domestic market. Even now, their employment in these outlying regions will involve considerable expense; and, as a result, the cost of the timber must be expected to be high. But the European price of sawn timber is more likely to rise than to fall over the next decade.
High prices by themselves, however, will not induce the Soviet authorities to undertake the large investment involved in opening up these forest areas unless they can feel confident of spending the proceeds on goods which they want to buy. Recently, increasing tension between East and West, accompanied by restrictions on the type of goods which western European countries were prepared to export to the U.S.S.R., has robbed the trade of much of its attraction.
Nevertheless, there were some encouraging signs in 1952. Early in the year, the chairman of the Soviet timber export agency Exportles indicated that the U.S.S.R. was already in a position to export timber to Europe and elsewhere. And, in fact, Soviet sawnwood was on offer on the European market in the spring; but as prices were by then already racing downwards these offers failed to elicit any enthusiastic response. At the same time, statements by the Soviet delegation to the Economic Commission for Europe, and at the Economic Conference held in Moscow, indicated that the U.S.S.R. was prepared to import, in addition to engineering products, large quantities of consumer goods from western Europe. Such a policy would fit in well with the desire of several western European countries to find additional markets for their exports, notably of textiles. At the same time, their continuing shortage of dollars increasingly directs their attention to non-dollar sources for their raw material supplies.
Future export possibilities
There can be no doubting the fact that every European importing country is intensely interested in the possibility of resumed large-scale shipments from the U.S.S.R. The reason is not far to seek. From the beginning of this century until the outbreak of World War II, Europe's timber balance has been closely related to the amounts entering Europe from the U.S.S.R. including, in the inter-war period, exports from the Baltic States. In 1913, Europe's net imports of sawn softwood amounted to over 1.5 million standards; Russia's exports to Europe in this year were 1.3 million standards. With the cessation of Russian exports after the war, Europe's net imports fell almost to zero. From the mid-twenties, when large-scale shipments were resumed, Europe's softwood balance moved in parallel. After World War II, Europe was again cut off from Soviet supplies; net imports sank and, by 1950, though short of softwood for its own essential needs, it had become a net exporter.
Fundamentally, then, the answer to the question whether the Soviet Union will export large quantities of sawn softwood to Europe must depend on two factors, one technical and one politico-commercial. The technical problem, which may be seriously tackled only if the political problem is solved, is to raise export availabilities and port facilities in the Soviet far north to a level at which exports on the required scale become practicable. Its solution lies wholly in the hands of the Soviet Union. The technical achievements reported in recent years from the U.S.S.R. in construction, industry and communications suggest that it is capable of solving this problem, too, if it considers it worth its while. The politico-commercial problem is to convince the U.S.S.R. that it is. Purely commercially, the prospect is that the price of sawn timber will, in itself, seem to be attractive in the next decade. Politically, the present tension between East and West must be relaxed until it is possible for the Soviet Union to choose freely how it will spend the proceeds of its timber sales on the goods which it considers most necessary for its peaceful economic development. Wise counsels will be needed in both camps if such relaxation of tension is to be achieved. If it can be, however, there seems to be no reason why the U.S.S.R. should not in the future play as decisive a role in the European softwood market as it has been accustomed to do in the past.
Appendix
|
Forested area in USSR |
Milions of ha. | ||
|
Forested land |
628.3 | ||
|
Open areas |
114.3 | ||
|
Total forest land |
742.6 | ||
|
VOLUME OF STANDING TIMBER | |||
|
Category |
Miliards of m3 |
% |
Ha. Covered % |
|
Mature and over-ripe forests |
52.5 |
90 |
55 |
|
Maturing forests |
|
15 |
|
|
Saplings |
3.3* |
5 |
14 |
|
TOTAL |
58.7 |
100 |
100 |
|
*Includes quantities of unexploited forested | |||
|
Source: V. Ya. Kaldanov, "Some Results of the Post-war Five Year | |||
|
Plan in the Field of Forestry,,, | |||
|
Lesnoye Khozyaistvo, No.1 (28), January 1951. | |||
