European Forestry Pulse #79 🌲

Hello,

On Friday we published Part 1 of the Butterfly Effect series. It mapped the Expectations Gap in European forestry — the distance between what society asks of each hectare and what the trees can deliver.

But a few days before, an invoice already arrived.

Storm Dave left 2 million cubic metres of windfallen forest on the ground in southern Sweden. France's largest pulp producer filed for insolvency. German sawmills tried to negotiate log prices down — and failed.

The Expectations Gap is not theoretical. It is trading hands right now as salvage bills, court filings, and contract disputes.

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

On Easter Sunday, April 5, Storm Dave swept across Scandinavia and the UK. The Swedish Forest Agency Skogsstyrelsen's first assessment on April 9 called it scattered windthrow.

Ten days later, the scale came into focus.

On April 14, Skogsstyrelsen completed a joint inventory with Swedish forest owners. The verdict: just over 2 million cubic metres of forest fell across Götaland over the weekend.

The regional breakdown is uneven:

Södra Skog's inventory on member land found about 1 million m³ of damage across Götaland. The species split on Södra land: 61% spruce, 35% pine, 4% deciduous. Pine share is unusually high. That raises the risk of a secondary bark beetle wave if salvage lags.

SVT Nyheter cites assessors who estimate total damage value at around 2 billion Swedish kronor. At current exchange rates, that is roughly €180 million. Mattias Sparf, Skogsstyrelsen's regional damage coordinator, said the scattered pattern of damage made assessment unusually difficult.

For scale: 2 million cubic metres is the annual log intake of a medium-sized sawmill. That much timber is now on the ground, unscheduled, from one weekend.

The supply shock is landing on an already soft Nordic market. Swedish forest owner cooperative Mellanskog cut log prices effective April 9 — its fifth price reduction since autumn 2025. Sawlog base prices fell 30 to 150 SEK per cubic metre depending on species. Södra followed with its own sawlog price cut.

For contracts covering Storm Dave timber, Mellanskog applies "open pricing." The final price is set later, once salvage logistics and scale are clear.

Southern Sweden was a low-disturbance zone in the Grünig et al. disturbance projections we covered in Butterfly Effect #1 last Friday. The Mohr et al. cost model placed it outside the worst cost bands.

Even in the low-risk band, a single storm in early April can put a whole region's annual harvest plan on the ground.

The insurance gap matters here. Sweden is the outlier: around 95% of commercial forest carries some insurance. In Germany the figure is around 5%. A 2-million-cubic-metre event in southern Germany or Austria today would sit almost entirely on the balance sheets of private owners.

If you own forests in southern Sweden: Contract options matter more than price. Mellanskog's "open price" provision buys timing optionality. Salvage contractor capacity, not price, is the binding constraint now.

If you process wood in Central Europe: Cheaper Nordic lumber is likely in late 2026 as salvage volumes flow through the system. Plan procurement accordingly.

If you hold European forest assets in a fund: Re-check disturbance insurance on any Central European holdings. Coverage below 50% means you are carrying most of the Expectations Gap yourself. Sources: Skogsstyrelsen press release | Timber-Online | SVT Nyheter | Södra survey via Lesprom | Mellanskog price announcement

France's largest national pulp producer filed for insolvency on April 13 at the Toulouse Commercial Court. Fibre Excellence runs two mills — Saint-Gaudens in Haute-Garonne and Tarascon in Bouches-du-Rhône. Company filings list 670 employees and combined annual capacity of around 550,000 tonnes of pulp.

The immediate trigger was a dispute over the CRE5 biomass electricity feed-in tariff. Biomass cogeneration is the economic backbone of both mills. Fibre Excellence says its electricity business alone lost around €30 million in 2025.

The cost picture is brutal. Wood procurement prices are up roughly 50% since 2022. Pulpwood costs sit near €100 per tonne. The mills require about 4 tonnes of wood to produce 1 tonne of pulp. Fibre Excellence has told the state these pressures caused more than €52 million in combined losses across both sites by end of 2025.

The Commercial Court examines the filing on April 21. A decision is expected by April 27.

The takeaway: Integrated biomass-plus-pulp economics can be undone by one policy decision on electricity tariffs. Regulatory risk on biomass remuneration is now a first-order issue across Europe. Source: Print Industry News | Metissue | EUWID Paper

In recent follow-up contract negotiations, many sawmills in northern Germany tried to reduce prices for spruce and pine sawlogs. Eastern German buyers pushed hardest. Some firms openly threatened to increase log imports from Scandinavia.

As of mid-April, those demands have been largely unsuccessful.

The market context explains why. According to Forest Machine Magazine, German spruce B 2b+ net prices reached record levels in early 2026 — between €129 and €132 per solid cubic metre for the leading grade. The German Federal Association of the Wood Industry described conditions earlier this year as a raw material shortage.

Raw-material shortages do not resolve through buyer negotiation. They resolve through reduced processing capacity — like Mocopinus shutting down in March, and Fibre Excellence's filing above.

The takeaway: Forest owners hold pricing power in Central Europe right now. Buyers threatening Scandinavian imports may find those same Scandinavian logs redirected into Swedish salvage markets after Storm Dave.Source: Timber-Online | Forest Machine Magazine

Swedish company Nordic BioPower, owned by Averra Group, received regulatory approval and started production in Höganäs in April 2026. The plant was acquired from Cortus AB in 2025. At full capacity it will produce 5,000 to 8,000 tonnes of biochar per year, plus 20 to 25 GWh of renewable energy. Nordic BioPower also runs an existing pellet site in Davidstad, Finland.

Axel Wretemark's Boreal Tech Brief #040 flagged a reader tip worth noting. Biochar has been studied as a carrier for biological control agents. Certain microbes can suppress Heterobasidion root rot — the same problem Skogforsk mapped from harvester data in EFP #77. This is early and unproven. It is also worth tracking.

The takeaway: The most interesting forestry tech stories now sit at the boundary between two problems. One-problem solutions are easy to find. Cross-problem solutions change the economics. Source: Nordic BioPower press releases | Nordic BioPower – In brief | Boreal Tech Brief #040

Swedish industrial packaging group Nefab announced on April 15 that it has acquired Slovak packaging producer Vallos. The deal expands Nefab's fibre-based packaging solutions for industrial customers across Central Europe.

Nefab now employs around 5,300 people across 39 countries. The company designs and manufactures packaging for sectors including telecom, automotive, and energy storage. Vallos brings regional manufacturing depth and customer relationships that Nefab did not previously have in Slovakia.

The contrast with Fibre Excellence is worth noting. Commodity pulp in France is in receivership. Specialty industrial fibre packaging in Slovakia is consolidating through M&A.

The takeaway: The fibre value chain is not moving in one direction. Bulk pulp economics are under pressure. Engineered and specialty fibre products are attracting capital. If you supply wood to the fibre industry, the question is which end of the chain your buyer sits on. Source: Lesprom Network

Read one stakeholder communication out loud before you send it.

If you manage forests in southern Sweden, you probably have insurance claim forms, supplier updates, and lender notes to write this week. Storm communications get read faster than anything else. Clarity saves you one follow-up per recipient.

Pick one message. Read it aloud. If you pause for breath mid-sentence, shorten. If you use a three-syllable word without defining it, define it. If your message reads like a ministry press release, it is costing you time you do not have right now.

Fifteen minutes. One message. One small shift toward clarity.

If your stakeholder communications keep sounding heavier than they need to, the Forestry Communication Playbook gives you the templates and tools to fix it.

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.

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Until Thursday!

Wish you all the best: Peter

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