“About 28.9 percent falls under protected areas, 28 percent is marked as inoperable because of geographical and environment conditions, and the remaining includes the road and river buffer, scrub and areas above 4000 metres,” said D B Dhital.

The joint director said that 53.32 percent of Bhutan’s forest cover consisted of broadleaved forest where a majority of species was not economical for timber extraction.

Most timber extraction was therefore done from the conifer forests (fir, mixed conifer, blue pine, and chirpine) that made 41.17 percent of the forest cover. Conifer and broadleaved mixed vegetation made up another 5.27 percent.

Besides the environmental, economic and social constraints in the timber production, the forest types and the quality of forests also hindered timber production according to the joint director.

“With the whole country having become a construction site the demand for timber is increasing each year,” said director general of department of forest, Dasho Dawa Tshering. “We have to understand that we do not have a huge logging capacity as is often perceived.”

The demand for fuel wood was still very high, about 505,000 cubic metres annually. While there was a potential to produce enough to meet the demand for the moment, about 127,741 cubic metres was produced annually.

Rural timber consumed the second highest after fuelwood. At present about 94,000 cubic metres was supplied annually but the demand was about 152,000 cubic metres while the potential to produce rural timber was about 136,000 cubic metres.

Rural timber, or government subsidised timber, to benefit the rural population has attracted controversy over the years.

The system, which is unique to Bhutan, was being manipulated to the benefit of sub-urban and even urban constructions, according to forest officials. “Even the affluent are acquiring it today,” one forest official told Kuensel. “In this sector timber can be extracted from outside the forest management units.”

The volume of commercial timber produced by Forestry Developmental Corporation Limited from FMUs (forest management units) had increased from 35,595 cubic metre in 1996 to 65,538 metre cubic in 2002. The demand from FMUs in Zhemgang, Mongar, and Phuentsholing was much higher.

According to Dhital the demand and supply in this regard had as of now, maintained a balance, but it would definitely increase in years to come.

The volume exported and consumed internally remained almost same till 1998 but from the following year export had dropped drastically while internal consumption shot up indicating that there was more timber available for internal consumption. The drop in the export volume is attributed to the timber pricing and marketing policy 1999 according to D B Dhital’s presentation.

While forestland was still at 72.4 percent, including the scrub/shrubs at 8.13 percent, the forest cover was 64.35 percent according to 1995 data compiled by the Land Use Planning Project, Ministry of Agriculture. It was based on the satellite image taken in 1989.

According to the 1995 data, about 1000 acres of forestland and about 100,000 trees were lost annually. These figures forest officials believe would have changed today.

The looming concern therefore is that despite everything, the demand for forest land and forest resources was increasing every year.