Information on data

Data collections

The data come from 2 different questionnaires:

• joint forest sector questionnaire (JFSQ) 
• European forest accounts (EFA). 

Joint forest sector questionnaire

The JFSQ provides statistics on the production and trade in wood and wood products and gives information for supply balances of wood products.  

The main types of forest products included are:

• roundwood
• fuelwood
• pulpwood
• wood pellets
• sawn wood
• wood-based panels
• pulp
• paper
• paperboard
• secondary wood and paper products

The JFSQ is part of a global effort for which Eurostat is responsible for data collection in EU and EFTA countries. Eurostat partners with international organisations in the Intersecretariat Working Group (IWG) on forest sector statistics with the aim of avoiding the duplication of work for data collected with the JFSQ.

The IWG brings together Eurostat, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), and the International Tropical Timber Organisation (ITTO). The European Commission's Directorates-General for Agriculture and Rural Development, for Enterprise and Industry, and for the Environment are also involved.

The data are exchanged among the partners. The EU and EFTA data are also published by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO). 

European forest accounts questionnaire

The EFA provides statistics on the:

• area and value of wooded land 
• quantity and value of timber
• economic activities of forestry and logging
• employment in the sector
   

The EFA are a part of the Eurostat environmental satellite accounts initiative, which began in the late 1990s and in 2006 was merged with the former economic accounts for forestry. The resulting questionaire was named ‘Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting for Forests' (IEEAF) and was used up to 2015. IEEAF was then reviewed, adapted to new data needs, and re-named into European forest accounts. 

Project on natural capital accounting

There is currently no official data collection that provides quantitative information about environmental or ecological functions of forests. That is to say, the ecosystem services that forests give to society, other than the supply of timber and fuelwood. 

However, Eurostat is developing the so-called ecosystem accounts. These are an environmental account which measures services that nature provides to the economy and society. Such services are related to the extent and condition of different ecosystem types:

• Ecosystem extent refers to the size of ecosystems in an area. Ecosystem extent accounts cover terrestrial (including freshwater) and marine ecosystems in the national territory. 
• Ecosystem condition refers to the quality of an ecosystem measured in terms of its abiotic, biotic, and landscape characteristics, by ecosystem types.

Ecosystem services are the contributions of ecosystems to the benefits ecosystems provides to that are used in economic and other human activities. They include 

• Provisioning
• regulating and maintenance
• cultural services. 

Ecosystem services accounts record the actual supply and use of ecosystem services provided by the ecosystems in the national territory.

Further information