Zambia Forestry Industries completes forest inventory of plantation

The Zambia Forestry and Forest Industries Corporation (ZAFFICO) has completed a comprehensive forest inventory of its plantations, which was undertaken by Arbonaut Oy Limited from Finland.

ZAFFICO Public Relations Manager, Irene Chipili, said the study used combined natural resource measurement technology with remote sensing data to assess the quantities and quality of the wood stock in the plantations.

Chipili revealed this in a statement issued in Ndola on Thursday and made available to Zambia Monitor.

She said the inventory results have indicated that the total gross area of the Corporation’s plantations is approximately 61,771 hectares of which 57 percent is planted with pine and 31 percent with eucalyptus.

“The inventory findings have further revealed that pine wood stock has significantly reduced from 3,370,681m3 recorded in 2016 to 1,281,136m3 as at December 31, 2022 representing a reduction of 62 percent,” Chipili said.

She said as a result, the sustainable annual harvest for pine had reduced from 110,831m3 in 2016 to 82,549m3 representing a reduction of 34 percent.

Chipili said eucalyptus wood stock had increased from 1,272,103m3 in 2016 to 1,862,392m3 in 2022 representing an increase of 46 percent.

“As a result, the sustainable annual harvest for eucalyptus has increased from 38,603m3 in 2016 to 78,917m3 in 2022 representing an increase of 104percent,” she said.

Chipili said consequently, the Corporation would implement measures to achieve operational efficiency, financial profitability, and sustainability to ensure business continuity.

She said the corporation would intensify its focus on value addition activities which include increasing the production of treated poles, setting up a plant for processing treated timber, chipboard, plywood and briquette processing.

“The Corporation will at the same time, scale up the implementation of its forest expansion Programmes.
ZAFFICO wishes to thank the Saw Millers and all our stakeholders who were supportive during the undertaking of the forest inventory,” Chipili said.

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