Timber Exploitation in the Swiss Forest (NFI)

One of the main functions of the Swiss forest is to provide timber for use. More than 700 forestry businesses and companies and thousands of private operations manage the forest for the purpose of maintaining its functions and producing timber. Switzerland’s forestry and timber industry as a whole generates over 100,000 jobs.

Timber is a versatile and widely used raw material in Switzerland. Its applications range from building material to heating fuel, or it may simply be used as the basis for a “Brötle” – a traditional Swiss-style barbecue. Switzerland consumes 11 million m³ of timber per year, and it is theoretically capable of producing approximately 7-8 million m³ domestically on a sustainable basis. As things currently stand, however, only around 4.5 million m³ of timber is actually harvested, which corresponds to a rough value of CHF 380 million. The difference between what is grown and could be harvested sustainably each year and what is actually harvested is primarily attributable to the accessibility of the forest and the harvesting costs associated with this. If the price of timber is low, it is no longer worth harvesting in areas with difficult terrain.

There are noticeable differences in the way the Swiss forest is used from region to region. In flat areas it is relatively easy to carry out forestry work using ground-based processes (forwarders, tractors, horses) and timber can therefore be harvested cost-effectively. In mountainous places, however, it is often necessary to resort to more complex methods involving equipment such as cable cranes or even helicopters (with the timber transported to a specific point to be collected from there). As well as expensive machinery, this usually also requires a lot more manual labour, which pushes the costs up dramatically. The point at which timber production becomes unviable therefore shifts depending on the accessibility of the land as timber prices fluctuate. This is also reflected in when the last interventions were made in different sections of forest. In some places, particularly those where the terrain makes accessibility extremely difficult, it will often have been a long time since any forestry work was carried out.