European Forestry Pulse #114 🌲

Hello,

On Tuesday I wrote about the difference between gross loss and net change.

Finland has just handed us the same lesson from a different direction.

One country. One six-month period. Two harvest figures in circulation. Both correct.

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

Luke, Finland's Natural Resources Institute, published its June figures on 12 August. That release closes the first half of the year.

From January to June, Finland harvested 29.5 million m³ of industrial roundwood.

That is 6% less than the same period in 2025. It is 4% below the five-year average.

In volume terms, close to 2 million m³ did not get cut. That is our arithmetic, not Luke's disclosure.

Six percent is an average. Averages hide shape.

Break the half-year down by assortment:

Energy wood fell nearly a fifth. That is close to four times the drop in logs.

But look at the last column before you panic. Energy wood is still 3% above its five-year average.

Both figures come from the same table. The year-on-year fall is steep. The longer comparison is not.

One more line runs against the tide. Spruce pulpwood is down just 4% on the year. It sits 3% above its five-year average.

So the sharpest cuts landed at the cheap end. The wood that feeds sawmills and pulp mills held up better.

June carries a second split worth reading.

Private forest owners sold 12% less industrial roundwood than in June 2025.

Forest companies and the state cut 12% more from their own land.

That is one month, not a trend. But the direction is worth watching. When owners hold back, integrated buyers lean harder on forests they already own.

Two things happened in the same fortnight.

On 17 August, Metsä Group offered its owner-members an unlimited one-year price guarantee on pulpwood. We covered the terms on Tuesday.

On 12 August, Stora Enso set out a plan for northern Finland. Pine sawing would move to Oulu and Kalajoki. The Veitsiluoto mill in Kemi, running for over a century, would close.

Change negotiations covering about 60 employees are underway. No decision has been made yet.

Read that as capacity moving, not capacity vanishing. The company says the effect on regional wood consumption would be minor.

Luke's headline figure covers industrial roundwood only. Logs and pulpwood. That is the −6%.

Energy wood is counted on a separate line.

Add it back and the total falls further. Our arithmetic puts the combined half-year near 32.8 million m³. That is Luke's two published totals added together.

The prior year is harder. Luke does not publish a combined figure. Working backwards from its rounded percentages gives roughly 35.4 million.

That implies a fall of about 7 to 8 percent. Both the prior-year figure and the range are ours, not Luke's.

Neither figure is wrong. They count different baskets.

This is Tuesday's lesson wearing different clothes.

If you own forest in Finland: check which assortment your stand is weighted towards. Energy wood demand fell hardest. Sawlog demand held up best.

If you buy wood: the thin end of the market is thinning fastest. Low-grade supply is where competition shows up first.

If you value forest assets: a −6% harvest and a −8% harvest support different conclusions. Ask which basket before you use either.

If you sell energy wood: this is the sharpest fall in the release. Luke does not give a reason. Ask your buyers what changed on their side.

Sources: Luke — Commercial fellings, 6/2026, published 12 August 2026 | Stora Enso press release, 12 August 2026 | EFP #113 — gross loss and net change

Reading an assortment table is the easy part.

Working out what it means for one estate, one mill or one fund is not.

That is what a ForestryBriefing is for. → See what one looks like

On Tuesday we wrote that the Section 338 tariffs were scheduled for 19 August. That was the schedule, unless Washington modified or delayed it first.

Washington delayed it.

Shortly before the midnight deadline, the US President paused the 50% tariffs. The pause covers three days.

Prime Minister Mark Carney confirmed the postponement runs to end of day, Friday 21 August.

The US Trade Representative listed market access, economic security and digital trade alignment. No text has been published.

The US Trade Representative sizes it at roughly $20 billion of annual Canadian imports. Wood, paper and value-added wood products are on the annexes. Softwood lumber is not, because it already sits under Section 232.

Why it matters: Nothing about the underlying exposure has changed. Only the clock has. Canadian plywood, panel and furniture producers still have to plan for a 50% wall or the absence of one, and they now have until tomorrow to find out which.

The takeaway: If you sell wood products into European markets, the redirection question from Tuesday is still live. It is simply unresolved. Do not rewrite your autumn assumptions on a three-day pause. Watch what is signed, not what is announced. Source: NBC News, 19 August 2026

SCA has announced a €100 per tonne increase across all its kraftliner grades in Europe.

The new prices apply from 1 September 2026. Brown and white-top grades are both covered.

The material comes from two Swedish mills. Obbola produces up to 725,000 tonnes a year. Munksund produces up to 400,000 tonnes. Each employs around 300 people.

Why it matters: In EFP #112 we covered German paper producers reporting price pressure through the first half. This is the other side of that conversation. Packaging producers are trying to move the price back.

The takeaway: If you buy corrugated packaging, your input cost changes in eleven days. If you sell pulpwood in the Nordics, note where the demand pull is coming from. Kraftliner runs on fresh fibre. Source: EUWID Pulp and Paper

The EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation started applying on 12 August 2026.

Two changes matter most in the near term.

First, design-for-recyclability requirements. All packaging placed on the EU market must be fully recyclable by 2030.

Second, PFAS restrictions in food-contact packaging now apply above specified limits.

Why it matters: Recyclability rules and PFAS limits both push packaging design toward fibre and away from certain coatings and composites. That is a slow demand signal aimed straight at the pulp and paper chain.

The takeaway: If you supply the packaging sector, the design brief you are quoting against in 2027 will not look like the one from 2025. Ask your customers now which of their formats fail the 2030 test. The reformulation work starts long before the deadline. Source: European Commission — new EU rules on packaging enter application

Open your last harvest or purchase record. Find the line that moved most.

Four steps. Ten minutes.

The total tells you how the period went.

The lines tell you what to do next.

Finland's total says −6%. Finland's lines say energy wood collapsed and spruce pulpwood held. Those are two completely different instructions.

Your own numbers work the same way.

Two numbers. Both correct. A journalist will ask you which one is true.

That is a communication problem, not a data problem.

Saying "it depends" is accurate and useless. There is a better answer, and it fits in one sentence.

The Playbook covers how to handle a question with two right answers.

Assortment is a valuation input, not a forestry detail.

Change the assortment mix in a cash flow model and the value moves, without a single tree changing. Logs, pulpwood and energy wood do not fall together, as Finland just demonstrated.

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.

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Until Tomorrow!

Wish you all the best: Peter

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