Statistical data

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Alberta

Population (January, 2022)

4,464,170

Disturbance
Insects (hectares, 2020)
Area defoliated by insects and containing beetle-killed trees	1,173,924
Fires (2021)
Area burned (hectares)	54,088
Number of fires	1,342

Disturbance sources and information

Insects

Source: National Forestry Database. Forest insects – Forest insects, Table 4 Area of moderate to severe defoliation (including beetle-killed trees) by insects. (accessed June 21, 2022).

Notes:

Forest area disturbed by defoliators (e.g., budworms, Lymantria dispar) includes only areas with tree mortality or moderate to severe defoliation. Defoliation does not always result in mortality. Several factors, including defoliation severity, duration, and frequency, or presence of other stressors (e.g., drought), can affect the level of mortality.
Forest area disturbed by bark beetles (e.g., mountain pine beetle, spruce beetle) is derived from aerial surveys that map trees that are dead or dying from successful beetle attack.
Summing the areas affected by more than one insect to create a grand total can result in an overestimate if more than one insect species occurs in the same stand in the same year. For example, in a mixedwood forest, spruce budworm may defoliate balsam fir in the same stand where forest tent caterpillar is defoliating the aspen trees.

Fires

Sources:

National Forestry Database. Forest fires, Table 3.1.1, Number of fires by cause class. (accessed June 21, 2022).
National Forestry Database. Forest fires, Table 3.2.1, Area burned by cause class. (accessed June 21, 2022).

Note:

The National Forestry Database sources the latest year’s fire data from the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre and all years prior from the Canadian Wildland Fire Information System.

Forest management
Harvesting (2020)
Area harvested (hectares)	99,712
Volume harvested (cubic metres)	29,653,479
Regeneration (hectares, 2020)
Area planted	79,776
Area seeded	2,939
Third-party certification (hectares, 2021)
Area certified	20,549,817

Forest management sources and information

Harvesting

Sources:

National Forestry Database. Harvest, Table 5.1, Net merchantable volume of roundwood harvested by ownership, category and species group. (accessed June 21, 2022).
National Forestry Database. Harvest, Table 5.2, Area harvested by ownership, management and harvesting method. (accessed June 21, 2022).

Notes:

The national and provincial/territorial profile figures for harvesting volumes include data for industrial roundwood, fuelwood and firewood from provincial and territorial Crown land and from private land.
Area harvested data include federal, provincial, territorial and private forest lands.

Regeneration

Sources:

National Forestry Database. Regeneration, Table 6.3, Area of direct seeding by ownership and application method. (accessed June 21, 2022).
National Forestry Database. Regeneration, Table 6.5, Area planted by ownership and species group. (accessed June 21, 2022).

Note: If a forest area has been certified to more than one of the three sustainable forest management standards (Canadian Standards Association, Sustainable Forestry Initiative, and Forest Stewardship Council), the area is counted only once. Therefore, the total certification for sustainable forest management standards may be less than the sum of the individual totals for these standards. The independently certified forest area is calculated using Forest Management Units, which include streams, lakes, rivers and roads.

Third-party certification

Source: Certification Canada, Canadian statistics. (accessed May 25, 2022).

Note:

Data obtained from the Canadian Protected and Conserved Areas Database (CPCAD).

Domestic economic impact
Revenue from goods manufactured (dollars, 2020)
Housing starts (2021)	31,935
Logging	1,206,152,000
Pulp and paper product manufacturing	2,115,846,000
Wood product manufacturing	5,165,065,000
Total revenue from goods manufactured	8,487,063,000

Economic impact sources and information

Canadian housing starts

Source: Statistics Canada. Table 34-10-0126-01 (formerly CANSIM table 027-0009): Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, housing starts, under construction and completions, all areas. (accessed March 3, 2022).

Revenue from goods manufactured

Sources:

Statistics Canada. Table 16-10-0117-01 (formerly CANSIM 301-0008): Principal statistics for manufacturing industries, by North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) (x 1,000). (accessed March 3, 2022).
Statistics Canada. Table 16-10-0114-01 (formerly CANSIM 301-0009): Logging industries, principal statistics by North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) (x 1,000). (accessed May 25, 2022).

Note: Revenue from goods manufactured includes revenue from the sale of goods manufactured using materials owned by the establishment, as well as from repair work, manufacturing service charges and work contracted to others.

Forest sector employment
Employment (number, 2021)
Canadian System of National Accounts	17,090
Survey of Employment, Payrolls and Hours	15,759
Wages and salaries (dollars, 2020)
Logging	217,004,000
Pulp and paper product manufacturing	Not available
Wood product manufacturing	714,856,000
Total wages and salaries	931,860,000

Employment sources and information

Survey of Employment, Payrolls and Hours

Source: Statistics Canada. Table 14-10-0202-01 (formerly CANSIM 281-0024): Employment by industry, annual. (accessed March 29, 2022).

Notes:

Employment–includes jobs held by people employed directly in the following subsectors: forestry and logging, support activities for forestry, pulp and paper product manufacturing, and wood product manufacturing.
Natural Resources Canada prefers to use employment data from Statistics Canada’s System of National Accounts (SNA) because these data are linked to the underlying framework used to compile the Canadian System of Natural Economic Accounts (e.g., GDP, national wealth).
SEPH data focus on industry and can be used for comparing direct company employment in forestry with that in other sectors.

Canadian System of National Accounts

Source: Statistics Canada. Table 36-10-0489-01 (formerly CANSIM 383-0031): Labour statistics consistent with the System of National Accounts (SNA), by job category and industry. (accessed May 20, 2022).

Note: Natural Resources Canada prefers to use employment data from Statistics Canada’s System of National Accounts (SNA) because these data are linked to the underlying framework used to compile the Canadian System of Natural Economic Accounts (e.g., GDP, national wealth).

Wages and salaries

Sources:

Statistics Canada. Table 16-10-0117-01 (formerly CANSIM 301-0008): Principal statistics for manufacturing industries, by North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) (x 1,000). (accessed March 3, 2022).
Statistics Canada. Table 16-10-0114-01 (formerly CANSIM 301-0009): Logging industries, principal statistics by North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) (x 1,000). (accessed May 25, 2022).

Note: Wages and salaries are the earnings, in cash or in kind, of Canadian residents for work performed before deduction of income taxes and contributions to pension funds, employment insurance and other social insurance schemes.

Trade
Value of domestic exports (dollars, 2021)
Balance of trade (total exports, dollars, 2021)	5,587,805,898
Primary wood products	24,356,719
Pulp and paper products	1,795,550,916
Wood-fabricated materials	4,106,178,598
Total value of exports	5,926,086,233
Value of imports (dollars, 2021)
Primary wood products	6,267,892
Pulp and paper products	177,719,973
Wood-fabricated materials	154,292,470
Total value of imports	338,280,335

Trade sources and information

Balance of trade

Source: Statistics Canada. Merchandise trade data (special extraction, March 8, 2022).

Note: Balance of trade is the difference between the value of the goods and services that a country exports domestically and the value of the goods and services that it imports. If a country’s exports exceed its imports, it has a trade surplus. If its imports exceed exports, the country has a trade deficit.

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Statistical data

Disturbance

Forest management

Domestic economic impact

Forest sector employment

Trade