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> Forest Report 2015 Condition and Use of Swiss Forests FOEN / WSL 2015
3.3 Non-wood products
Silvio Schmid
> Forest honey, venison, mushrooms, Christmas trees and sweet chestnuts are the most important non-wood forest products. According to estimates, they are valued at about 90 million Swiss francs annually.
> Nobody earns their main income from non-wood products in Switzerland. The forest may legally be freely accessed by anyone, and people can also gather fruits and berries in the quantities that are generally locally acceptable.
> In comparison with the Forest Report 2005, the amount of venison from the Swiss forest has remained unchanged. The figures for the other non-wood goods are not comparable due to the different data collection methods used.
Products
The Swiss forest does not only provide wood but also the so-called non-wood products. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations defines them as ‘goods of biological origin other than wood, derived from forests’
(FAO 2010:18). Non-wood products are therefore almost all products that come from the forest except for wood (Table 3.3.1).
The exact amounts and value of all the non-wood prod- ucts that are used and collected are only known to a certain extent. Thanks to the hunting statistics, there are at least reli- able data for game. For the other non-wood products, only extrapolations or estimations are available. These estimate the value of the most important non-wood forest products in Switzerland to be about 90 million Swiss francs. Such goods include forest honey, venison, mushrooms, Christmas trees and sweet chestnuts (Fig. 3.3.1).
Every year, the honeybee produces on average 2,200 tonnes of forest honey, which has an estimated value of about 52 million Swiss francs. It is made from honeydew produced by millions of scale insects, which suck the sap from trees and then secrete the sugary honeydew that the bees collect.
The numerous hunters in Switzerland also make a rich haul, obtaining on average 180 tonnes of venison every year valued at 19.5 million Swiss francs. In 2010 alone they shot 40,000 roe deer, 13,000 chamois, 9,000 red deer and 7,000 wild boar (Fig. 3.3.2).
Collecting mushrooms in the forest is very popular.
According to rough estimates for 2010, mushroom-collectors found 250 tonnes of boletus, chanterelle and morel, valued at 11 million Swiss francs. These figures do not include truffles, for which there are no reliable data.
Many people also decorate their homes or public places with a Christmas tree. Altogether about 1.2 million Christ- mas trees are used every year, of which about one tenth, i.e.
as many as 120,000 trees, come from Swiss forests. These Christmas trees have an estimated value of 3.6 million Swiss francs.
Users
The Swiss Civil Code (Zivilgesetzbuch, ZGB) allows every person free access to the forest, where they can collect as many fruits and berries as is normal in the region. Wild ani- mals ultimately belong to the cantons, which hold the hunting rights. Although the forest owners do not directly benefit from hunting, they benefit indirectly: the hunting stabilises the stocks of wild animals at a certain level and thus helps to limit browsing and stripping damage. The only products for- est owners are allowed to sell are Christmas trees and sweet chestnuts from managed orchards.
Today, no-one still makes a living from selling or using non-wood products. In the past it was different: the non-wood products covered a significant part of daily food and raw mate- rial needs. This was particularly true for the poorer popula- tion. Sweet chestnuts – the fruit of the European chestnut – Table 3.3.1
Examples of non-wood products and of other products that are not considered non-wood. Source: FAO 2010
Non-wood products Other products and services Mushrooms, fruits, berries, chestnuts,
herbs, venison, animal fur, litter for animals, resin, decorative materials such as Christmas trees, mistletoe or moss, seeds from trees.
Recreation is one of the services.
Wooden products such as shingles and fence posts. Gravel, sand and other products not of a biological origin.
> 3 Use 3.3 Non-wood products 65
were thus called ‘the bread of the poor’ – and were a main food source up to the 20th century, particularly in Canton Ticino. A fully-grown sweet chestnut tree produces, on aver- age, about 100 to 200 kilos of fruit every year, which covered one person’s needs at the time almost exactly. Today, rough estimates suggest that 260 tonnes of sweet chestnuts are being harvested, with a value of half a million Swiss francs. This is only a fraction of previous quantities. In May 2009, the sweet chestnut gall wasp, which originally came from China, occurred for the first time in Italian-speaking Switzerland, with consequences for the commercial cultivation of sweet
chestnuts. The long-term effects on marroni production cannot yet be estimated.
Today, hunting and gathering has become a hobby in line with a popular trend that can be described as ’back to the roots’ or ‘back to nature’. Many people enjoy going into the forest to collect mushrooms or other forest products. One sixth of those participating in a representative survey in 2010 said that the last time they had been into the forest had been to collect non-wood products (FOEN and WSL 2013), although exactly what, where, how and how much they collect in the forest are still largely unknown.
Fig. 3.3.1 Percentage of the estimated value of non-wood products harvested in one year.
Source: Limacher and Walker 2012
0.5 %
52 % 19.5 %
11.4 %
Forest mushrooms Christmas trees Sweet chestnuts Forest honey Venison 3.6 %
Fig. 3.3.2 Game shot in Switzerland between 2005 and 2010:
1/3 of the meat is from red deer and 1/3 from roe deer, and 1/6th each from chamois and wild boar.
Source: Limacher and Walker 2012
Red deer Chamois Roe deer Wild boar
Tonnes
0 700
100 200 300 400 500 600
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
