Abstract

Forest products are the connection between the forest as a supply of raw materials and the various markets that are the sources of revenue to the forest owner. There is strong evidence that forest products play a significant role in the livelihoods of the poor living in the rural areas of the world. Forest products are the main source of income for the forest dwelling population in many countries. In countries with industrial forests, the first resource for providing domestic timber is their productive forests. Iran is a country that holds a few timber forests in the north. The northern forests of Iran play an important role in the production and supply industry and they are the only permanent source of production of wood in Iran. Exploitation of these forests can be divided into four types according to forestry projects belonging to: administrations, co-operative companies, government and private companies. Exploitation of the northern forests is being done in four areas of Gilan, Nowshahr, Sari and Golestan. Forest products include: logs, lumber, sleeper, beam and mine woods, Katin, firewood and charcoal. In this study, the production of Iran’s forest products was considered during a 10 year period (from 1997 to 2006). The results showed that the production of forest products had a downward trend and decreased from 1571796 cubic meters in 1997 to 836281 cubic meters in 2006, therefore this has reduced by 47 percent. The maximum volume of production was of firewood in 2006 with 682104 cubic meters and the minimum production was beam and mine woods in 1997 with 4998 cubic meters. Keywords: Forest products, logs, lumber, sleeper, beam and mine woods, Katin, firewood , charcoal.