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The objective of the presented study is to analyze the competitiveness of the German forest industry sector against the background of the international timber markets. The analysis is conducted based on global bilateral trade data in monetary terms. Timber commodities are grouped according to twelve commodity classes; each class is clearly attributed to one of the three processing levels raw wood, semi-finished and finished wood products. After an introductory description of the structure and development of the global timber market, two result-oriented competitiveness indicators have been applied: the revealed comparative advantage (RCA), which indicates whether a country is specialized in a specific sector-the RCA analysis has been conducted by means of the two consecutive indices Balassa index (BI) and Aquino index (AI)-and in addition the constant market share (CMS) analysis, which disaggregates the overall export growth of a country into four different effects: (1) the world growth effect, (2) the commodity-composition effect, (3) the market-distribution effect and (4) a residual, which usually is interpreted as the competitiveness effect. Depending on the chosen indicator, results are given for 21 and 25 leading countries (RCA and CMS, respectively). The highest BI values are shown by Russia for raw wood (10.4), by Finland for semi finished wood products (11.3) and by Poland for finished wood products (4.7). The AI shows that countries which are specialized in timber commodity exports mostly are significant timber importers, as well. This is an indication of their integration in an intra-industry trade. Germany only has a BI value somewhat greater than 1 for finished wood products. This can be seen as an indication of merely an average competitiveness position in global timber markets. The CMS analysis delivers two key results: most of the leading timber exporters in absolute terms show only low export growth rates and vice versa. Furthermore, a strong positive relationship can be identified between a country's timber export growth rate and its competitiveness effect. Most of the Eastern European and many Asian and Latin American countries show this pattern, as they have high growth rates and high positive competitiveness effects. Germany's export growth can be attributed much more to the overall world growth in timber markets than to its forest industry capacity. Hence, a stagnation of world growth would have crucial effects on the German forest industry sector.

BackgroundForests occur across diverse biomes, each of which shows a specific composition of plant communities associated with the particular climate regimes. Predicted future climate change will have impacts on the vulnerability and productivity of forests; in some regions higher temperatures will extend the growing season and thus improve forest productivity, while changed annual precipitation patterns may show disadvantageous effects in areas, where water availability is restricted. While adaptation of forests to predicted future climate scenarios has been intensively studied, less attention was paid to mitigation strategies such as the introduction of tree species well adapted to changing environmental conditions.ResultsWe simulated the development of managed forest ecosystems in Germany for the time period between 2000 and 2100 under different forest management regimes and climate change scenarios. The management regimes reflect different rotation periods, harvesting intensities and species selection for reforestations. The climate change scenarios were taken from the IPCC's Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES). We used the scenarios A1B (rapid and successful economic development) and B1 (high level of environmental and social consciousness combined with a globally coherent approach to a more sustainable development). Our results indicate that the effects of different climate change scenarios on the future productivity and species composition of German forests are minor compared to the effects of forest management.ConclusionsThe inherent natural adaptive capacity of forest ecosystems to changing environmental conditions is limited by the long life time of trees. Planting of adapted species and forest management will reduce the impact of predicted future climate change on forests.

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