The graph below shows the production of three forest industry products in a European country, namely timber, pulp, and paper, from 1980 to 2000.
Overall, while all three categories fluctuated wildly throughout the period, they ultimately increased substantially.
In 1980, even though pulp had the highest production initially (roughly 5.5 million tons), it plummeted to just over 2 million tons and was immediately overtaken by timber in the following years. From 1982 to 1985, both timber and pulp had similar increasing trends, rising sharply from 6.5 to 10 and 2.2 to 6.5 million tons, respectively. From 1985 to 1990, pulp’s figure kept growing at a slower rate while timber dipped to 8.0 million tons in 1987 and remained there till 1990. Paper consistently grew from 4.0 to 6.5 million tons during this time frame.
For the remaining period, timber declined to around 6.2 million tons before bouncing back to 8.0 in 1997 and slightly decreased to 7.8 in 2000, ultimately finishing last. In contrast, despite a slight dip in 1997, the paper almost doubled its 1990 figure and reached first place in 2000. In the same period, pulp gradually rose from 8.0 to approximately 10.0 million tons.