Environmental Activism and the Global Forest Sector

The Kyoto Protocol makes provisions for carbon sinks from forest management to be taken into account as a contribution towards fulfilling a country's emission reduction target. Additional emission allowances are allocated for these forest carbon sinks. If Switzerland uses this extra contingent of allowances to the full it would then only have to reduce emissions by 4.5% instead of the actual target of 8%. Emission allowances from carbon sinks can be traded on the emissions trading market and be claimed by forest owners. An assessment of the income that could be anticipated was carried out in four forestry companies: with the CO2 price set at 10 CHF per ton it was seen that a potential revenue of between 6 and 71 CHF per hectare and year could be realised. However, the legal basis for allocating emission allowances from carbon sinks to forest owners has yet to be created. In view of the fact that the two chambers of Parliament refused the introduction of the Forests Act Revision Bill, it is not clear if and in what form this will be done. For the period after 2012, the rules will be renegotiated at the international level and it is expected that the carbon stored in harvested wood products will be taken into account. Accordingly, wood removed from the forest would no longer be automatically counted as a CO2 source in the emission balance.

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Waldpolitischer Jahresrückblick 2014

Schweizerische Zeitschrift fur Forstwesen ◽

10.3188/szf.2015.0238 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 166 (4) ◽

pp. 238-245

Author(s):

Willi Zimmermann ◽

Kathrin Steinmann ◽

Eva Lieberherr

Keyword(s):

Public Administration ◽

Spatial Planning ◽

Forest Policy ◽

Federal Court ◽

Annual Review ◽

Forest Sector ◽

Court Decisions ◽

The Public ◽

Forest Law ◽

Council Of State

Annual review of Swiss forest policy 2014 Swiss forest policy in 2014 was marked by the passage of the Federal Council's message and draft of an amendment of the Forest Law, which was also treated by the Council of State's Commission for Environment, Spatial Planning and Energy and by the Council of State itself. This revision affects more than 20 articles of the current Forest Law. Despite these numerous alterations, the revision has not caused major debates. The forest-relevant parliamentary interventions decreased drastically in 2014, but since the beginning of 2015 a countertrend is notable. The forest budget remained practically the same as in previous years. The number of federal court decisions in relation to the forest sector has stayed small. Yet there are increasingly significant cantonal court decisions in this domain. In terms of broader forest policy, the public administration has mainly undertaken new standpoints regarding spatial planning and energy policies.

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Features of the Harvesting and Logging Equipment Market in Russia

Lesnoy Zhurnal (Forestry Journal) ◽

10.37482/0536-1036-2020-6-132-147 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 132-147

Author(s):

M.A. Piskunov ◽

Keyword(s):

Information Technologies ◽

Import Substitution ◽

Road Construction ◽

Forest Sector ◽

Specific Information ◽

Service Network ◽

Russian Market ◽

The Road ◽

Foreign Companies ◽

Transnational Companies

Russian forest sector forms an attractive market for harvesting and logging equipment, however the position of Russian manufacturers is extremely weak. A brief overview of the current state of the market is presented with reference to the open sources. Its features are mentioned as compared to the road construction and agricultural machinery sectors. Three transnational companies dominate the Russian market of harvesting and logging equipment: John Deere, Ponsse and Komatsu. Most of the purchased equipment falls on machines for cut-tolength technology, such as harvester and forwarder. The market volume of new machines is estimated at 330–420 forwarders, 165–300 harvesters, about 30–40 feller bunchers and the same number of skidders. There were two waves in the consolidation of the position of foreign companies in Russia. The first was connected with the delivery of equipment and the development of foreign brands in Russia against the background of still high-profile positions of Russian manufacturers in the market. The second is the takeover of enterprises having a service network and reputation by diversified transnational corporations. The main strategies of the leading companies in the current situation are the export of equipment to Russia and the development of a service network. Companies do not turn to another level associated with the opening of production sites or joint ventures for the production of harvesting and logging machines. The Russian market is characterized by the absence of a strong Russian manufacturer of harvesting and logging machines, which is ready to significantly influence or actively participate in the processes of import substitution. The position of such a manufacturer is gradually occupied by the Belarusian Amkodor Holding. The purchase of new harvesting and logging machines can afford major timber companies. The main production sites of harvesting and logging machines are located in Finland, Sweden, USA, and Canada. In order to support forestry machine engineering, in addition to economic measures of stimulation approved in other sectors, it is proposed: to organize the work of scientific forest engineering centers on the base of public-private partnership with the financial support from the major vertically-integrated timber corporate groups; to stimulate the development of Russian sector-specific information technologies for harvesting and logging; to initiate the partnership with companies from the People’s Republic of China to launch the design and production of new-generation harvesting and logging machines.

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Can the Global Forest Sector Survive 111C Warming?

SSRN Electronic Journal ◽

10.2139/ssrn.3035217 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Alice Favero ◽

Robert O. Mendelsohn ◽

Brent Sohngen

Keyword(s):

Forest Sector

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