According to Eurostat's data on forests in Europe released in 2023, survey results show that there was more forest growth than timber was harvested across all of the European Union. As such, total forest growing volumes increased in almost all the EU member countries because of more annual forest growth than timber removals.

The data has been compiled by comparing net annual forest increment (the amount of wood that has grown due to tree growth) with the total volume of timber that has been removed as a result of harvesting operations. In nearly every member country of the EU, annual forest growth exceeded the level of timber harvested.

Romania has the largest difference between growth and timber removal volumes nationally. Romania’s forests added 54.8 million cubic metres of wood while only 16.9 million cubic metres of timber were removed. Sweden’s forests have a difference of 26.4 million cubic metres, and Poland has similar figures, with a significant difference of 26.3 million cubic metres.

Germany’s annual growth volume was 96.6 million cubic meters, while Germany had 72.7 million cubic metres removed through timber harvesting operations. In France, the country’s forests added 73.9 million cubic metres while timber removals were at 50 million cubic metres. Finally, Finland has an 18-year-old net annual growth total of 93.5 million cubic metres compared to Finland’s total volume of timber removals of 72.7 million cubic metres.

In Estonia, timber removals outpaced annual forest growth, which, according to the Estonian Office of Statistics, means there were 11.6 million cubic meters of timber taken out of the forest (the total growth for Estonia was 9.1 million cubic meters). Therefore, for Estonia, there was a net decline of about 2.5 million cubic meters of forest stock.

For Greece, Italy, and Spain, there was no Eurostat data to report.

According to Eurostat, the timber harvested was made up of timber that has been purposely harvested; however, timber lost due to storms, fire, pests, and disease is not included in the harvesting figures. Therefore, the data will allow comparisons of planned timber harvesting activities to actual timber growing per year.

Monitoring forest resources is important due to their contributions to timber production, as many species have based their extinction on their habitat, and the importance of the carbon that forests store. Therefore, the difference between stocking and growing is often used to monitor for changes in forest stock over time.

As part of the International Day of Forests, the published forest growth and harvesting levels illustrate the differences in annual forest growth and harvesting levels across EU Member States for the year 2023.

Based on the reports for all EU member states in the year 2023, the majority of the EU member states experienced continued growth of their annual forests, and there were differences between the EU member states in annual forest growth.