Austria

Austria is a predominantly alpine Central European country with an area size of 83,871 km² and a forest cover of 47.6%. Austria is situated in the Central European climatic zone (moderate, humid), however, the eastern part and the eastern foothills of the Alps are more continental Pannonian climate (hot, dry). According to the Austrian Forest Inventory 2007/ 2009 the forest cover has a total area of 3.92 million ha. The main tree species is Norway Spruce (Picea abies L. K.) with a total share of 61.2% (growing stock in productive forests). The share of broadleaved trees has increased in recent years, within these beech and hardwoods such as maple, ash or hornbeam play a major role.

The forest ownership is 53% small private forests (<200 ha), 32% private estates (>200 ha) and 15% federal forests. At present, Austria's forest resource is underutilized because of economic, social and technical reasons. The current annual harvest is around 18-20 million m³, while the total increment is estimated at 31 million m³ per year. The mean stand volume is around 300 m³/ha in commercial forests whereas the mean annual increment is 9 m³/ha. The forestry sector’s contribution to gross domestic product growth was about 2.1% in 2003 according to the most recent calculations (€ 4.8 billions). Therefore, 0.4% was accounted for by forest management, 0.9% by wood processing and 0.8% by paper and cardboard production and processing.

Some two-thirds of all Austrian citizens live in rural regions, and forests as a major renewable resource play an important role in this context. From a nature conservation point of view slightly more than one million hectares of forest are identified as protected forests in accordance with nature conservation law and in natural forest reserves.

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