HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE NEEDED TO MANAGE A FOREST IN EUROPE AND IN ROMANIA?

The total forest area in Europe accounts for 215 million hectares. In Europe, forest management is done both by private-owned and state-owned enterprises, companies, agencies or other structures. The European State Forest Association (EUSTAFOR) represents a forum of 33 national forest administrators (NFAs) originating from 22 countries, that are managing 30 million hectares of state-owned forests. The main aim of this study was to compare the data provided by EUSTAFOR for the NFAs regarding the managed forest areas. Secondly, the share of managed forest area per employee was assessed for each of the 23 members for which the information was available on the official website. The NFA that is managing the highest forest area is Metsähallitus (Finland), with more than 9 million hectares. As regards the average annual harvested wood quantity, the NFA from Poland, namely LASY PAŃSTWOWE, is the leader, with more than 37 million cubic meters. Based on these results, it seems that the highest share of managed forests per one employee was recorded in the countries situated in the northern part of Europe, namely Norway, Finland and Sweden. ROMSILVA, together with the NFAs from Germany and England ranked on the last positions as regards the share of the managed forest area by one employee. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]