European Forestry Pulse #109 🌲

Hello,

Fires are burning across southern Europe. We get to that below, with numbers you can cite.

But first, something quieter that will cost you more.

There is a Brussels database that decides whether your timber may legally enter the EU market. For much of this year, you could not use it.

It is open again. And the clock it starts is shorter than most people think.

Here's what's moving European forestry this week:

The EUDR Information System is where due diligence statements go. No valid statement, no legal placing on the EU market. That is the whole design.

For much of this year it was closed. No new registrations. No new submissions. The practice server was down too.

The Commission had a fair reason. The December 2025 amendments rewrote parts of the law. The May 2026 simplification package rewrote more. The system had to be rebuilt to match.

In its own report to Parliament and Council, the Commission set the reopening for June 2026, in stages.

It reopened. Operators can now prepare and submit due diligence statements. Micro and small primary operators can file simplified declarations.

Then on 29 July the Commission confirmed the next step. Online training has resumed. New virtual session dates are published on its implementation page.

A small housekeeping note from the same week tells you how fast this is moving. On 30 July the Commission wrote to say the link to the 13 July Delegated Act had stopped working. The act now sits in the Register of Delegated Acts. Worth updating your bookmarks.

Read the training notice carefully.

The sessions cover submitting due diligence statements. The stated audience is upstream operators.

Then comes this line. Dedicated sessions for micro and small primary operators, covering simplified declarations, will be announced "in due course."

Now put that next to the deadlines.

30 December 2026 covers large and medium operators. It also covers all timber-sector operators. Every one. Including the micro and small ones.

30 June 2027 covers micro and small operators in everything else.

So the smallest operators in timber sit in the December group. The training built specifically for them has no date yet.

That is the gap. Most EUDR explainers say small operators have until 2027. In timber, they do not.

There are roughly 21 weeks between today and 30 December.

In that time you need three things working:

The third one is the slow part. Geolocation data has to load cleanly. Product codes have to match. Suppliers have to give you what you need, in the format you need it.

The acceptance server exists for exactly this. Statements filed there carry no legal weight. That is the point. You can get it wrong for free.

Right now the queue is empty. In November it will not be.

If you are a large or medium timber operator: you have probably registered. The real question is whether anyone on your team has filed a test statement end to end. Book one of the new sessions.

If you are a micro or small forest owner selling timber: your date is December 2026, not June 2027. Check this today. Plenty of general EUDR advice will tell you otherwise, because it is written for coffee and cocoa. (Working out which of your product lines actually needs a statement is exactly the kind of question a ForestryBriefing answers — see below.)

If you supply the EU from outside it: your buyer cannot file until you hand over the data. Whatever you are sending them, send it earlier than feels necessary.

If you build compliance systems: the API is updated for bulk submission and management. Test it against the acceptance server while nobody else is on it. Sources: European Commission — EUDR implementation and Information System | Register of Delegated Acts — entry 3137 | Commission report to the Council and Parliament on the EUDR, COM(2026) 191 final | ATIBT — Reopening of the EUDR Information System

We covered the opening of this season in EFP #104. It has since become something larger.

In Spain, around 140,000 hectares burned between 13 and 28 July, driven mainly by three major fires. That figure comes from World Weather Attribution. Copernicus EFFIS had put Spain at 119,458 hectares as of 22 July.

France's 2026 season is being reported at roughly 115,000 hectares, described as the country's largest wildfire event on record.

More than 300,000 people were evacuated across the two countries. Around 220,000 to 250,000 of those were in the Gironde alone.

By early August the pressure eased in the west and moved east. A fire near Megara, west of Athens, had been burning for four days as of 3 August.

Why it matters: These are satellite-tallied burn areas, not estimates. They convert into salvage volume, insurance claims and valuation adjustments over the next eighteen months.

The takeaway: If you hold forest in the affected regions, use the Coillte timeline from EFP #85 as your planning guide. The state bill lands first. The company bill lands about twelve months later. Plan salvage logistics and insurance now, not in the spring.

On Thursday we look at the policy side — what Europe built for exactly this season, and whether it worked. Sources: World Weather Attribution — compounding drivers of severe wildfire conditions in France and Spain | Copernicus EFFIS figures via Al Jazeera, 27 July | France24, 3 August

In EFP #103 the Weeks Ahead listed 27 July as the go-live for Verra's next-generation registry.

It went live on 27 July.

The platform was built with S&P Global Energy. The migration moved 5,900 projects, 10,500 account holders, 1.4 billion credits and 125,000 documents.

It is now joined up with the Verra Project Hub. You can follow a project from pipeline listing through validation, issuance, transfer and retirement in one place.

The first pipeline listing since the move came in the week of 20 July. Fourteen projects entered public comment. Forest conservation and restoration made up the majority.

Why it matters: If you buy, sell or retire VCS forest credits, the rails underneath you changed. Document trails and API access work differently now. This is voluntary-market infrastructure, not an EUDR system — do not confuse the two.

The takeaway: Log in and check your account access this week. Nobody wants to find a migration problem on a retirement deadline.

Sources: Verra — next-generation registry launch | ESG Today — Verra and S&P Global launch new carbon project registry

The largest listed timber REIT reported Q2 on 30 July.

GAAP earnings were $162 million, or $0.23 per diluted share. Net sales were $1,867 million, against $1,884 million a year earlier. That is essentially flat.

Adjusted EBITDA came in at $310 million. Down from $336 million a year ago. Up from $308 million in Q1.

Excluding special items, earnings were $91 million, or $0.13 per share.

The number worth writing down is elsewhere. In June the company completed the sale of 29,000 acres of non-core Oregon timberland for $114 million.

That works out to roughly $3,900 per acre. Call it $9,700 per hectare.

Why it matters: European allocators price timberland off benchmarks like this one. A public company selling real ground at a disclosed price is worth more than any survey.

The takeaway: Put $9,700 per hectare beside your own valuations. Different species, different rotation, different country — so it is not a comparison, it is a calibration. Knowing why the two numbers differ is the skill. Sources: Weyerhaeuser — Q2 2026 earnings release | SEC filing, EX-99.1

Find out which EUDR deadline is actually yours. Five minutes.

Then do one more thing. Open the acceptance server and file a practice statement for one real consignment. Not a made-up one. A real one, with the actual geolocation data you would have to use.

You will find out in twenty minutes what would otherwise surprise you in December.

If you are a micro or small primary operator, the training session built for you has not been scheduled yet. Ask your national association to ask for it. That request carries further coming from forty members than from one.

The next time someone asks why you cut trees, you'll have thirty seconds to answer.

Right now — what do you say?

If the answer isn't ready, the Playbook is.

$9,700 per hectare. Is that expensive?

You cannot answer that without knowing the species, the rotation, the discount rate and the tax treatment. Most people in a room full of investors nod anyway.

I wrote the Forest-Investment Dictionary with Danish forest economist Anders Tærø Nielsen. It has 151 pages, 11 chapters, 14 printable tools, and 3 calculators. Investors learn to read a forest. Foresters learn to read a term sheet.

When the market turns, the people who can read the numbers make the better calls. The price is €99. Get yours below.

The brief is free. The briefing is not.

ForestryBrief publishes verified intelligence — free, three times a week, in 25+ countries. When you need that intelligence applied to your specific situation, that's a ForestryBriefing.

Intelligence — Investment due diligence, market intelligence, EUDR compliance, cross-sector risk analysis, background verification in three languages.

Communication — Strategy, trade publication articles, stakeholder messaging, newsletters that people actually open. EN | DE | HU.

Live — Conference presentations, panel moderation, keynotes. Next: WAN-IFRA World Printers Summit, Rotterdam, October 2026.

First briefing guarantee: if it doesn't deliver intelligence you can act on, you don't pay.

→ See what a ForestryBriefing looks like | [email protected]

Until Thursday!

Wish you all the best: Peter

🤝 Need help with forestry communication, intelligence, or due diligence? See what we offer → ForestryBriefing

📩 Got this email forwarded to you? Subscribe to ForestryBrief here.

📚 Missed an issue? Browse the ForestryBrief archive

P.S. What’s the biggest challenge you’re facing in forestry right now?
Hit reply and let me know — I read every message personally.

P. P. S. Know a forest professional who’s drowning in EUDR complexity or missing out on timber market shifts? Forward this email to them!

Shauna Matkovich's Forest Invest Podcast is one of the best resources for understanding where forest finance is heading. If you are interested in Forest Investments, start there.

If you like FB be sure to subscribe to Boreal Tech Brief, a newsletter of my friend Axel covering tech in forestry with a Nordic angle: