Forest accounts

Forest accounts record and present data on forest resources and economic activity in the forestry and logging industry in a way that is fully compatible with the data reported under the National Accounts. Forest accounts provide complementary information and use concepts adapted to the particular nature of forests and of the forestry and logging industry.

Indicators of area of wooded land
Balance components: opening area at the beginning of the reference year; afforestation and other increases; deforestation and other decreases; statistical reclassification (+/-); balancing item (+/-); closing area at the end of the reference year.
Types of wooded land: forest (forest available for wood supply, forest not available for wood supply); other wooded land (of which available for wood supply); other land with tree cover available for wood supply.

Timber on wooded land (million euros)
Balance components: opening stock at the beginning of the reference year; net increment; removals; irretrievable losses; revaluation (+/-); statistical reclassification (+/-); balancing item (+/-); closing stock at the end of the reference year.
Types of wooded land: forest (forest available for wood supply, forest not available for wood supply); other wooded land (of which available for wood supply); other land with tree cover available for wood supply.

Timber on wooded land (thousand m³)
Balance components: opening stock at the beginning of the reference year; net increment; removals; statistical reclassification (+/-); balancing item (+/-); closing stock at the end of the reference year.
Types of wooded land: forest (forest available for wood supply, forest not available for wood supply); other wooded land (of which available for wood supply); other land with tree cover available for wood supply.

Indicators of forestry and logging economic accounts: total output (at basic prices) (live forest tree plants and tree seeds, forest trees, wood in the rough (logs, fuel wood, pulpwood), non-wood products, services characteristic of the forestry and logging activity, other products); total intermediate consumption (forest trees, live forest tree plants and forest tree seeds used to produce timber, energy and lubricants, the sum of services characteristic of the forestry and logging activity, other goods and services used as inputs); gross value added (consumption of fixed capital, other taxes on production, other subsidies on production, compensation of employees, net operating surplus and mixed income); gross fixed capital formation (excluding deductible VAT); changes in inventories (changes in work-in-progress on cultivated biological assets, other changes in inventories); capital transfers; total labour input (in 1000 harmonized AWU).

Estonian Classification of Economic Activities (EMTAK) based on NACE Rev. 2;
Classification of Products and Services;
Combined Nomenclature (CN);
ESA 2010 Classification of Transactions and Other Flows

Economic variables cover the forestry and logging activity (NACE A.02).

Afforestation and other increases – increases in area resulting from afforestation or changes in land use
Average stumpage price – the difference between the roadside price and the harvesting cost, taking into account price differences arising from tree species and assortments
Balance item – an accounting entry in an asset account representing a component of change in an asset stock or area, such as opening stock, net annual increment, removals, revaluation or closing stock
Balancing item – a residual accounting item representing the difference between opening and closing stock after accounting for all recorded changes during the accounting period
Changes in inventories – changes in stocks of raw materials, finished products and work-in-progress
Change in work-in-progress on cultivated biological assets – the difference between the net increment and removals, expressed in monetary units
Closing stock – the volume or value of wooded land resources or forest assets at the end of the accounting period
Compensation of employees – wages and salaries and employers’ social contributions
Consumption of fixed capital – the decline in the value of fixed assets due to use and ageing
Deforestation and other decreases – decreases in area resulting from deforestation or changes in land use
Forest – land spanning more than 0.5 hectares with trees higher than five metres and a canopy cover of more than 10% or trees able to reach those thresholds in situ. It does not include land that is predominantly under agricultural land use or trees in urban settings, such as city parks, alleys and gardens.
Forest accounts – asset accounts for forest resources, comprising wooded land and timber on wooded land, and economic activity accounts for forestry and logging
Forest land available for wood supply – forest land where wood harvesting is permitted
Forest land not available for wood supply – forest land where wood harvesting is not permitted or is significantly restricted
Forest trees used to produce timber – the value of removals of timber valued at the average stumpage price
Gross fixed capital formation and acquisitions less disposals of non-produced non-financial assets– the value of acquisitions less disposals of fixed assets, together with the net acquisition of non-produced non-financial assets during the accounting period
Gross value added – the new value created in the production process, calculated as output less intermediate consumption. It consists of consumption of fixed capital, compensation of employees, other net taxes on production, and operating surplus and mixed income.
Intermediate consumption – goods and services used to produce other goods and services
Irretrievable losses – felling residues and all fellings from windthrow that cannot be removed from the forest, and timber lost through forest fires
Labour input – employed labour expressed in full-time equivalents
Net annual increment of timber – the average annual increase in the volume or value of live trees, less the average annual loss due to tree mortality
Net value added – gross value added less consumption of fixed capital
Opening stock – the volume or value of wooded land resources or forest assets at the beginning of the accounting period
Other wooded land – land not classified as forest, spanning more than 0.5 hectares,

• with trees higher than five metres and a canopy cover of 5 to 10% or trees able to reach those thresholds in situ;
• or with a combined cover of shrubs, bushes and trees greater than 10%.

It does not include land that is predominantly under agricultural land use or trees in urban settings, such as city parks, alleys and gardens.
Other land with tree cover available for wood supply - other land with tree cover used for wood harvesting
Other wooded land available for wood supply – other wooded land used for wood harvesting
Output for own final use – the value of goods and services produced by households for their own final use
Output of forest trees – the sum of income from sales of harvesting rights and the value of net increment valued at the average stumpage price
Output of the forestry and logging activity – the total value, at basic prices, of goods and services produced by the forestry and logging industry. It distinguishes live forest tree plants and tree seeds, forest trees, wood in the rough, non-wood products, services characteristic of forestry and logging, and other products not included in the preceding categories.
Output of wood in the rough – the value of harvested wood at roadside prices, distinguishing between logwood, pulpwood and fuelwood assortments
Removals – the volume of all trees, living or dead, that are felled and removed from the forest, other wooded land or other felling sites. It includes unsold roundwood stored at the forest roadside; natural losses that are recovered; removals during the year of wood felled in an earlier period; removals of non-stem wood (such as stumps and branches); and removal of trees killed or damaged by natural causes (known as natural losses), e.g. fire, wind, insects and diseases. It does not include non-woody biomass or any wood that is left in the forest and not removed during the year, e.g. stumps, branches, tree tops and felling residues (harvesting waste).
Revaluation – a change in the value of a forest asset resulting from changes in prices rather than changes in the physical quantity of the asset
Roadside price – the price of timber at a forest roadside landing. In the accounts, data from the State Forest Management Centre are used
Statistical reclassification – the reclassification of an area or asset between categories
Work in progress – output that has entered the production process but has not yet been completed or realized by the end of the accounting period; in forestry, this primarily refers to the increase in the value of standing timber resulting from biological growth.

Institutional unit;
economic territory

All institutional units;
whole economic territory of Estonia

Estonia as a whole

2022–…
The data published in 2026 refer to 2022, 2023 and 2024.

Not applicable

Official Statistics Act;
Regulation (EU) No 691/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 July 2011 on European environmental economic accounts (Text with EEA relevance);
Regulation (EU) 2024/3024 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 November 2024 amending Regulation (EU) No 691/2011 as regards introducing new environmental economic account modules (Text with EEA relevance), Annex VII "Module for forest accounts".

None

The news can be viewed on the website of Statistics Estonia in the section News.

In December 2025, a news release „Uued metsaarvepidamise andmed: metsanduse lisandväärtus oli 2023. aastal 221 miljonit eurot“ was published (in Estonian).
No regular press releases will be issued for this statistical process in the future. Decisions on whether to publish blog posts, short news items or social media posts will be made as needed.

Not published

Data are published in the statistical database at under the subject area Environment / Environmental accounts / Forest accounts in the following tables:
KK53: Area of wooded land by type and component of balance;
KK54: Timber volume and value on wooded land by type of land and component of balance;
KK55: Economic indicators for forestry and logging.

Not applicable since this is a new regular statistical process.

Under the Official Statistics Act, researchers and policymakers may apply for access to pseudonymised data in Statistics Estonia’s secure research environment. Access is governed by the Procedure for dissemination of confidential data for scientific purposes, which requires the intended use of the data to be justified. Depending on the type of data, approval from the Data Protection Inspectorate or the relevant ethics committee is a prerequisite for applying for access.

The data of this statistical process are also published on Statistics Estonia's website in the environment section under the heading Forest.

On the same day that the data are published in Statistics Estonia’s database (by 30 September at the latest), we transmit them to Eurostat via the EDAMIS data transmission channel. Eurostat publishes comparable forest accounts data for the Member States in its database:
Volume of timber over bark;
Area of wooded land;
Economic aggregates for forestry.

Not applicable since this is a new regular statistical process.

European forest accounts handbook (2024)

This statistical process is guided by the European Statistics Code of Practice – revised edition, 2017.

In accordance with Regulation (EC) No 549/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council, a report on the methodology used and the quality achieved is prepared for transmitting to Eurostat.

This is a multisource process where some data come from administrative sources and some from other statistical processes.
A1. Area of wooded land
National Forest Inventory (NFI); Estonian Nature Information System (EELIS); GHG LULUCF Common Reporting Tables (CRT); GIS land-use and spatial datasets.

A2. Timber on wooded land
National Forest Inventory (NFI); including remeasurement data, increment estimates, deadwood data and felling statistics, Estonian wood balance; Joint Forest Sector Questionnaire (JFSQ); expert estimates.

A2b. Timber resources: monetary account
A2 timber resource account data; National Forest Inventory (NFI); State Forest Management Centre (RMK) roadside timber prices; Environment Agency timber assortment statistics, harvesting cost models; Ministry of Finance discount rate data and forestry sector inflation forecasts.

B1. Forest and logging sector accounts
Other statistical processes: 21401 "National Accounts (annual)", structural business statistics 20300 "Financial statistics of enterprises (annual)" (EKOMAR), 40013 "Labour force survey"; Estonian Business Register (enterprise financial statements); RMK's statistics of timber price; forest resource data derived from A2 and A2b accounts

Year

Administrative data were obtained in 2026 through the Data Gateway, e-mail, and an FTP server.

Validation includes arithmetic and qualitative checks, including comparisons with data from previous periods.
Data from administrative sources are checked by the respective data collectors and database managers. The data are also checked after they have been incorporated into the forest accounts. Where necessary, the data manager is contacted for clarification.
Input data from other statistical processes are first checked as part of those processes. Additional checks are carried out in the forest accounts, where the data are examined across different accounting breakdowns.
In addition to checks performed after the data have been incorporated, the data are analysed continuously during the compilation of the accounts. The aim is to ensure quality at every stage. If inconsistencies appear in the final results, the compilation steps are reviewed and, where necessary, additional information is requested from the original source. To confirm the final results of the forest accounts, validation is carried out with specialists responsible for the administrative data sources and related statistical processes.
Additional quality control is carried out in Eurostat’s validation system.

The collected data are converted into statistical output. Microdata from different sources are aggregated into summary indicators in accordance with the methodology European forest accounts handbook (2024) used.

Not applied

Not applied

Not applied