NGOs say they speak for the trees, which they worry countries seem to be chopping as fast as they please.

Faced with soaring energy prices and potential blackouts, many EU governments are relaxing logging rules and encouraging people to burn wood to keep their houses warm — something campaigners say spells disaster for Europe’s already vulnerable forests.

NGOs and scientists warn that consuming more wood for fuel risks decimating dwindling forests and increasing illegal logging — a claim the industry strongly rejects.

Logging protected forests to guarantee energy security is “crazy” and “very, very destructive,” said Katalin Rodics, biodiversity campaigner with Greenpeace Hungary, who pointed out that forests in Hungary had already been damaged by this summer’s extreme heat.

Countries are sharply divided over what role forests should play in achieving the bloc’s green goals.

Campaigners say wood logging and monoculture plantations can harm biodiversity and will make it harder to reach climate targets, as forests currently act as the EU’s main carbon sink. They also point out that wood-burning releases harmful pollutants including fine particulate matter, which has been linked to a number of health conditions.

Now some of Europe’s most forested countries are allowing more logging to cushion the blow of the energy crisis and encourage wood burning to save on more scarce resources like gas — even if it means decreasing protection for forests.

“Europe is going to burn a considerable amount of wood this year,” said Martin Pigeon, forest and climate campaigner with the NGO Fern, adding the burning will likely be a record and that forests are going to experience a “very, very dark winter.”

A European Commission spokesperson said Brussels “is aware” of media reports warning of a potential increase in logging in countries like Hungary but can’t confirm that there is an uptick and that there is any ink to the energy crisis.

Cutting trees to save gas 

While harvesting has not increased in Sweden and Finland, the problem is set to be particularly acute in Central and Eastern Europe.

In Romania, where more than half the population already heats their homes with wood, the government has capped the price of firewood to keep energy bills low — a measure the nonprofit WWF warns could boost illegal logging. Romania is already subject to an EU infringement procedure for failing to stop illegal logging in its Natura 2000 protected forests.

Slovakia has already registered a rise in illegal logging and wood theft over the summer, according to local media reports.

Hungary, which is heavily dependent on Russian gas, in August lifted provisions that shielded protected forests from logging. The Commission spokesperson said this new legislation “may potentially be in breach with EU rules” and that the Brussels “will follow closely the implementation of these new provisions.”

Latvia has authorized the logging of younger trees, while the Lithuanian environment ministry has asked the state forest company to increase harvesting to bolster the country’s bioenergy supply.

The Estonian government is resisting industry calls to increase logging. “Because of political indecisiveness, there has not been an increase in harvesting in Estonian forests since the start of the war in Ukraine,” said Henrik Välja, CEO of the Estonian Forest and Wood Industries Association. “But given the situation it would be beneficial and necessary.”

In Poland, “a lot of people” are busy cutting trees to gather enough wood for the winter, said Piotr Siergiej, spokesperson of the NGO Polish Smog Alert. The country’s de facto leader Jarosław Kaczyński last month encouraged people “to burn almost everything, of course aside from tires and similarly harmful things” to keep warm amid a looming coal shortage that stands to affect some 2 million households.

The famous Berlin park went to firewood: By winter, Europe may be left without forests due to sanctions
Bloomberg: Famous park cut down in Berlin to prepare for winter

Знаменитый Берлинский парк пошел на дрова: К зиме Европа может остаться без лесов из-за санкций

“Father, you hear, he cuts, and I take him away. A woodcutter’s ax was heard in the forest…” These Nekrasov lines are quite suitable for illustrating what is happening now in many European countries. The American publication Politico writes that after the refusal of Russian gas, Europe may be left completely without forests, because the Europeans began to cut them down for firewood.

Faced with soaring energy prices and potential power outages, governments in many EU countries have loosened logging regulations and are encouraging people to harvest woodfuel, a move that threatens to disastrous old Europe’s already sparse forests. “This is madness!” – environmentalists and representatives of environmental organizations are sounding the alarm. The destruction of forests not only harms flora and fauna, but also has a serious impact on environmental pollution.

Yes, there are forests! According to Bloomberg , there are now more stumps than trees left in Berlin’s famous Tiergarten park. Citizens remember that this was only during the Second World War. At home, they now all gather in one room to warm up together by the stove or fireplace.

In relatively warm Italy, the cost of a pallet of firewood with a volume of slightly less than two cubic meters has reached 349 euros. And this is not the limit. The owners of wood warehouses are strengthening their security, so that the goods that have become popular are not stolen.

Even the Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko could not remain indifferent to the hardships of his neighbors on the continent and decided to personally chop poles for them. A video with the president chopping wood appeared in one of the Telegram channels.

– Europe does not choose now – a Christmas tree, a birch – the main thing is that it is warm. The main thing is that Duda and Morawiecki do not freeze in Poland. Maybe they will come to their senses, – Lukashenko said ironically, hinting at European sanctions, having finished wielding an axe.