Forest use
Forest use means making use of forest resources. This includes timber harvesting, collecting berries, mushrooms and other non-wood forest products, gathering plants or plant parts for the pharmaceutical industry, harvesting Christmas trees, extracting mineral resources and many other activities. Foresters enable people to benefit from forest resources while ensuring their long-term sustainability.
The volume of timber harvested is defined in the forest management plan, which is prepared for each forest district for a 10-year period. The plan ensures that timber harvesting does not exceed the productive capacity of the forest and, at the same time, supports a systematic increase in the amount of timber remaining in forests, known as growing stock. In other words, foresters manage forests in a way that safeguards their sustainability and natural capacity for regeneration.
The level of timber harvesting is determined by the prescribed cut set out in each forest management plan. This is the amount of timber that may be harvested in specific stands and across a specific area over the 10-year period covered by the plan. Because the prescribed cut is lower than timber increment over the same period, the volume of growing stock continues to increase. In Poland, approximately 70% of the annual increment is harvested. Polish forests are estimated to contain more than 2.7 billion cubic metres of timber.
Harvested timber comes from:
- final felling — removing mature stands, primarily in order to regenerate and restructure forest stands;
- tending cuts, including cleaning and thinning — removing trees considered undesirable or harmful to the remaining trees and valuable elements of the stand;
- unplanned cuts — carried out as a consequence of natural disasters in forests.
The State Forests are increasingly mechanising forestry operations. More and more machines, such as harvesters and forwarders, are used in forests. They improve the ergonomics and efficiency of harvesting operations. These machines are owned either by units of the State Forests or by forestry service companies carrying out tasks commissioned by the State Forests.
Forest resources also include mushrooms, which are very popular among visitors. More than 1,000 edible species grow in Polish forests.
Forests also provide bilberries, lingonberries, blackberries, raspberries, rose hips, hawthorn berries, rowanberries, cranberries, elderberries, hazelnuts and many other products. It is worth remembering that everyone may collect these forest products free of charge and without quantity limits for personal use, provided this is done without damaging the mycelium, plants or other elements of the natural environment.
For many people, forests are also associated with Christmas trees. Every year, more than 80,000 Christmas trees from the State Forests reach Polish homes for the festive season. They come from specially managed Christmas tree plantations or from tending cuts carried out in spruce stands. In addition to spruce, pine Christmas trees are becoming increasingly popular. They are obtained during tending cuts in plantations and young stands.
