Sustainable forest management in Poland

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyse sustainable forest management in Poland in the years 2009-2015. The concept of sustainable development itself has also been analysed as the starting point for sustainable forest management development. Based on the conducted analysis of statistical data, it was attempted to answer the question about the condition of sustainable forest management in Poland. Design/methodology/approach Two basic research methods were used in the presented paper. The first of them was the analysis of existing data. The conducted analysis covered the subject literature, reports and analyses referring to forest management. The second applied research method was the statistical analysis which covered structure analysis and dynamics analysis. Findings It can be adopted, within the framework of general conclusions, that the condition of sustainable forest management in Poland is moderately satisfactory, with the reservation of the need to maintain and intensify all processes and projects aimed at the implementation of the broadly approached concept of sustainable development. Originality/value The core of the study is focused on the statistical analysis of selected forest management aspects in Poland in the context of the assessment of sustainable forest management condition, with particular emphasis on forest cover, defoliation, forest area, restoration and afforestation, tree planting, wood harvesting, average wood sales price, excluding land from forest production for non-forest purposes. The importance of environmental education was also highlighted.