Timber Value
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Increase economic value of forest products
Data collection in progress
Iberian Highlands
Spain
Problem: Many forests in the landscape are harvested for low-value products such as biomass (to generate electricity). This has negative impacts on biodiversity due to the short logging cycle, and also provides reduced benefits to local communities, because of the low value of the timber produced.
Action: The project will work with forest managers and decision makers to increase the length of the harvesting cycle and reduce logging events, which will improve carbon storage and sequestration by the forest. The project will also work with market-side actors to develop new, higher value markets for timber trees, increasing both the price paid for the timber and also its lifetime (e.g. increasing the proportion of timber used in construction rather than biomass).
Indicator: This indicator will measure the value of timber produced in the region, which is hoped to increase within the project timeframe.
Methods
Surveys of all the timber tenders made available in the Iberian Highlands landscape (across the Cuenca, Guadalajara, and Teruel regions) will be used to assess the value of timber harvested. Tenders are made when the owners of an area of forest (usually the local municipality or regional government) ask for bids to be submitted to carry out timber cutting on areas of forest that are ready for harvest. Rewilding Spain will track the timber tenders annually to monitor the trends of timber value over the lifespan of the project.
The price of carbon credits generated through rewilding activities will also be monitored, to demonstrate the value of forests through their capacity for carbon storage.
Results
The baseline survey of timber tenders and prices covers the years 2016-2022, the seven years before the Iberian Highlands project began. Three different pine species, Pinus pinaster, Pinus nigra and Pinus sylvestris, were included in the analysis. Results are shown in Figure 1, with prices ranging from €10.76/m3 for Pinus pinaster in Cuenca province to €26.55/m3 for Pinus sylvestris in Teruel province.
Note that the prices provided refer to the minimum price published with the tender, rather than the price that the tender was sold for.
As of 2022, there was no market for carbon credits created in the rewilding area, so the value of such carbon credits was €0.
Figure 1: Mean annual minimum price of timber published with tenders for 2016 – 2022. Error bars show standard deviation.
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