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\.,TONTINUED growth in demand for pulp, paper, lumber and wood-based panels is expected to increase demand for industrial roundwood on a global basis, from 1.6 billion cu. meters in 1995, to approximately 2.9 billion cu. meters by 2030. This represents an annual increase of l.7l%o, well above the increase in wood supply over the same period.

The world's available timber supply is expected to increase by less than 0.5Vo per year over the same forecast period, as a result of the continued loss of productive forestland to alternative uses such as agriculture, urban development and ecosystem preservation. Nearly all of the projected increase in supply can be attributed to fast-growing plantations (including pine forests in the U.S. South), which are expected to account for as much as 40Vo of available global supply in2030, up substantially from only 16%o today.

Wood fiber from plantations will become increasingly important as a fiber source to the forest industry in the future. By 2030, plantation fiber from short/medium (S/IvI) rotation plantations will account for 387o of the total probable supply, compared to only lTVo today. (Short rotations are 15 years or less; medium rotation between l5 and 50 years rotation age.)

There are currently an estimated 37 million hectares of S/lvI fiber plantations in the world. On a volume basis, conifer plantations account for about 60Vo of the total supply from