European Forestry Pulse #116 🌲

Hello,

Every hardwood owner in Europe has heard the same three sentences for fifteen years.

China buys beech. China sets the price. Plan around China.

That stopped being true this year.

Not because the demand vanished. Because the wood found somewhere else to go.

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

From January to May 2026, Germany exported 15% less beech roundwood than a year earlier.

Shipments to China fell by more than a third.

Austria moved ahead of China as a destination.

That is a change in the shape of the market, not only its size.

The pattern started earlier in the year.

Through April, deliveries to China were already down. Deliveries to Switzerland rose strongly over the same months.

In the north, Danish demand has been supporting German operations.

Three destinations. All of them European. All of them close.

In the first quarter, China imported 134,600 cubic metres of beech roundwood from all countries.

That was 20% less than a year earlier, down from 169,000 cubic metres.

At that stage Germany's share was holding up better than the total. The steeper fall came in spring.

One clarification, because these two numbers get mixed up. The 134,600 figure is what China bought from everyone. It is not what Germany sold.

Here is the useful bit, and it points forward rather than back.

The 2026/27 hardwood log season is now starting in Germany. Chinese traders and processors are interested in beech again.

But selling prices in China do not yet justify the trade.

Interest is not demand. Price is demand.

Freight is doing similar work on the India route. High rates are weighing on shipments there.

If you grow beech: your buyer list has changed shape in about eighteen months. Find out who bought your last three hardwood lots. Then find out where that wood ended up.

If you sell hardwood: distance came back as a cost. Austria, Switzerland and Denmark are winning volume. Freight to Asia stopped making the numbers work.

If you value hardwood: one destination is a concentration risk. It sits inside your growing stock. It rarely appears in the valuation.

If you buy beech: wood that used to leave Europe now competes inside it. That is not the supply picture most 2024 budgets assumed.

None of this reads as a collapse, and it should not be sold as one.

This market lost its largest buyer. In under two years it found three closer ones. That is a market that works.

The wood sold. The price adjusted. The trade moved.

The risk is not that China left. The risk is planning as though it never will again.

Sources: Holzkurier — Buchenrundholz-Export: Österreich überholt China, 22 July 2026 | Holzkurier — Deutschland Exporte Buchenrundholz Januar bis April 2026 | Holzkurier — China Importe von Buchenrundholz Januar bis März 2026

Setra returned to an operating profit in the second quarter of 2026.

Three things did the work. Log prices came down. Storm-damaged wood was available. Costs were cut.

One quarter is not a recovery. The first quarter was still a loss, and the year has not turned yet.

The drivers are what matter here.

Why it matters: Read that list again from the other side of the gate.

Lower log prices are a mill's relief and an owner's squeeze. The same number lands in both accounts with the opposite sign.

Storm wood does something similar. A forest owner's bad week becomes a sawmill's cheap input.

The takeaway: Neither side is the villain here. But read the quarterly reports of the mills that buy from you. They tell you what your buyer thinks your wood is worth next season.

Sources: Timber-Online, Setra back in the black

Member States must submit draft National Restoration Plans by 1 September 2026. They go to the European Commission.

The obligation sits in Regulation (EU) 2024/1991. The Commission set the standardised submission format by Implementing Regulation on 20 May 2025.

Some countries have been consulting for months. Finland circulated its draft for comment in February.

Why it matters: These plans decide where restoration happens, and on whose land. Compensation is settled there too. Forest area is in scope in most Member States.

The drafts are the point at which the mapping is still soft. Once a plan is submitted, it is much harder to argue with.

The takeaway: Find out whether your country has published its draft. If it has, look for two things. Which habitat types are targeted. And whether private forest land counts as available. Five days left on the clock.

Sources: European Commission — nature restoration regulation | Regulation (EU) 2024/1991

Westerwälder Holzwerke is a German sawmill and pellet plant. It is expanding its battery storage to 6.4 MWh, after a first system in 2020.

In Switzerland, paper maker Perlen Papier is installing 20 MWh on its own premises. The work is due by year end, with partner companies.

Two countries. Two different products. The same move.

Why it matters: Wood processing sites have three things grid operators want. Large connections, steady industrial load, and land nobody else is bidding for.

That combination turns a mill yard into a second business. The wood still gets sawn. The site also earns from holding electricity.

The takeaway: Do you run a site with a heavy grid connection? That connection may now be an asset, not a cost line. Ask your electricity supplier one question. What is your connection capacity worth to someone else?

Sources: Timber-Online, Sawmill and pellet plant expands battery storage to 6.4 MWh | Timber-Online, Contracts awarded for battery storage system on paper mill premises

Find out where your hardwood actually went. One phone call.

Most owners know who bought their beech. Far fewer know where it ended up.

This takes ten minutes and it is the cheapest risk assessment in forestry.

Most owners will find two or three destinations behind a single buyer. That is a healthier position than it looks from the gate.

"Why do we ship raw logs abroad instead of sawing them here?"

It comes up at every public meeting about hardwood. It has come up for thirty years.

It is a fair question. It also has a real answer, and most foresters give it badly.

You have thirty seconds and no notes. What do you say?

A single export destination is a concentration risk sitting inside your growing stock.

It does not appear in the yield table. It does not appear in the valuation. It appears when the destination stops buying.

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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