Record amount of timber felled in Šumava National Park this year

More than 250,000 cubic metres of timber was felled in the Šumava National Park in the south-west of the country this year, which is an increase by nearly 100 percent compared to 2017. Most of the trees, nearly 80 percent of the overall production, were felled by storms that hit the national park in the summer and autumn of 2017. Only 48,000 cubic metres of timber came from trees infested with bark beetle, which is more or less the same amount as last year.

Photo: Štěpánka Budková

The situation on the market is currently affected by a surplus of timber and according to the National Park’s spokesman Jan Dvořák, the profit from the sale of timber will be significantly lower than in the previous years. According to Dvořák, one cubic metre of timber equals roughly one tree.

The average price of one cubic metres of timber currently stands at around 1,200 crowns this year, a drop by several hundred crowns on the previous years.

“Over the past month, the average price of a cubic metre of timber has dropped to 1,000 crowns. So it is still not clear what the overall profit will be,” Dvořák told the Czech News Agency.

A heavy storm that hit the Šumava National Park in the summer of 2017 felled nearly 150,000 cubic metres of timber, mostly around the Schwarzenberg shipping canal, closing down tourists trails in the area for several months to follow. An additional tens of thousands of cubic meters of timber were felled in October by hurricane Herwart.