Lumber Industry

the industry that deals with felling, working, and processing timber. Felling (logging, or forest exploitation) is the final phase of forestry production. In countries or areas with limited forest reserves, felling is monitored or actually done by agencies or enterprises—for example, forestry sections and state logging enterprises. In countries and areas with large natural forest reserves, felling and floating timber is an extractive industry—an independent logging industry that is part of the country’s industrial complex.

All aspects of working and processing timber form the wood-processing industry, which is also known as the factory and plant lumber industry. New products are being developed through scientific and technical progress and intensification of the social division of labor, and the manufacture of these products gradually creates new branches of the wood-processing industry. The wood-processing industry of the USSR manufactures thousands of products; one part of the industry, which includes the mechanical and partially chemical and mechanical processing and working of lumber, is the woodworking industry. The other part of the wood-processing industry is made up of the cellulose-and-pulp, hydrolysis, and wood-chemistry industries, all of which process lumber and some nonwood forest products chemically.

The lumber industry is also subdivided into categories by the ministries that run its various branches—for example, lumbering and wood processing are under the auspices of the Ministry of the Timber and Woodworking Industry.

As the wood-processing industry develops, an ever-increasing role is being played by new progressive industries that can better meet the country’s economic demands and raise the effectiveness of social production. Thus, the accelerated production of fiber-board and cardboard, replacing many types of sawn wood, makes it possible to manufacture a greater and more varied amount of industrial items for the national economy from forest raw materials without significant increase in timber felling.