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Abstract:
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"Natural conditions and ecosystem aspects, individual and group-specific interests, and economic and technological possibilities determine the variety and intensity of uses respectively the non-use of forests and the frame of forest management. Divergent political demands arise with regard to forests as resources of considerable economic value, as landscape and environment, and as a representation of natural processes and wilderness. Development opportunities of the forestry and wood processing sector are largely influenced by population growth, economic development and liberalization of trade, measures of energy and environmental policies, and structural changes in agriculture. Value added of the various stages of production processes, integrated technologies and marketing systems directed to regional and global markets, and the potential of the large forest regions of the northern hemisphere are major factors of sectoral and inter-sectoral competition. Forestry in Central European countries is based on sustained wood production with long production cycles and management objectives which are determined by natural site conditions, potentials of native species and the silvicultural structure of existing forest stands. This type of multifunctional forestry is a model for a socially and politically accepted form of forest utilization which may serve as example in other regions. Forestry practiced in accordance with silviculture close to nature corresponds to a large extent to the principle of sustainable development in as much, as it leaves, more than other utilization practices, opportunities and options which allow to adapt to social changes and to the needs and demands which result from them."
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