POTENTIAL OF THE CROATIAN WOOD INDUSTRY IN ACHIEVING CARBON NEUTRALITY - PRODUCTION TRENDS ANALYSIS FROM 1900 TO 2020

The total area of forests and forest lands in Croatia is 2,76 million ha, which is 49.3% of the land area of the country. Of this, 2,1 million ha are public owned forests, while 661,721 ha are owned by private forest owners. The majority of forests owned by the state are managed by the public forest owner company. According to available data a total amount of wood stock is 418.6 million m3. Croatian wood-based industry has been developed on high quality forest raw material and as such, it represents an important economic segment of the country. On the other hand, beside seas and oceans, wood represents the most important atmosphere carbon storage, but no wood products manufacturers nor final customers, are aware of their role and possibilities of influence on decreasing of products negative influence on environment. The objective of this paper is to present production trends of selected wood products from 1900 to 2020 in Croatia aiming to motivate all relevant stakeholders within wood-based sector to pay more attention about its potential and emphasize its importance in achieving carbon neutrality goals.