Literature knows a variety of forest and timber related balances and even wider variety of calculations concerning the themes. The article presents forest and timber balances divided into three categories, based on their purpose.
The three categories are: 1) (national) economic balances for calculating the sustainability of forest use and sufficiency of forest resources; 2) balances of yearly harvesting rates for mostly commercial purposes, but also economic uses; and 3) balances of timber demand and those for balance between supply and demand, especially for foreign trade.
Finally the author critically views the use of balances to describe the amounts of wood used in industry.
The PDF contains a summary in Finnish.