|
Uruguay Forestry
In the 1980s, estimates of Uruguay's natural forest
ranged
from 4,000 to 6,000 square kilometers of mostly small
trees of
limited or no industrial use; planted forest estimates
ranged
from 120,000 hectares to 137,000 hectares of pine and
eucalyptus.
There were an additional 70,000 hectares of palm, poplar,
salix
(a genus of shrubs and trees), and other species. Sawmills
were
inefficient and small, with a capacity of fewer than
thirty cubic
meters a day. Of the 220,000 cubic meters of sawn wood
consumed
per year, Uruguay imported about 66,000. Following the
recovery
of the construction industry from a recession in 1987,
demand for
sawn wood was increasing at a rate of about 2.5 percent
per year
in the late 1980s. Domestic use of firewood was important,
increasing from about 1.4 million cubic meters in the
mid-1970s
to 2.8 million cubic meters in the mid-1980s. Firewood
demand was
growing at 5 percent a year in the late 1980s. A number of
local
industries converted to firewood from fuel oil for energy
needs,
resulting in significant savings.
Data as of December 1990
|
