Prices soar, deforestation as people turn to firewood for heat

Tudor Popescu chops his axe on a log, then feeds the split log into a stove that heats his home in Moldova’s capital.

As the night turned colder, the pyre around him grew taller – the food he had prepared for the coming winter.

In the past, Popescu relied on natural gas for heating in the morning and firewood in the evening. But there is now a shortage of gas supplies, causing a crisis in his small Eastern European country.

“I’m not going to use gasoline anymore, so it’s just going to be wood,” Popescu said. “But what I have is not enough.”

Russia’s cut in gas flows in its war with Ukraine has sparked an energy crisis in Europe, with some having to turn to cheaper heating sources, such as firewood, as the weather cools.

But with more people hoarding and burning wood, prices skyrocketing, shortages and reports of theft, and scams keep popping up.

Foresters are putting GPS devices into logs to track valuable stocks, amid growing concerns about the environmental impact of increased air pollution and tree logging.

In Moldova, the former Soviet republic, leaders fear that this winter could be devastating for many of its people due to the high cost of electricity and heat, and while European gas prices have retreated from record highs in August, they will be around 20 percent by early 2021. Triple in early 2021.

Europe’s poorest country has pro-Western aspirations but part of its territory is controlled by the Russian military, and Russian energy giant Gazprom recently cut gas supplies by 30 percent and threatened further cuts.

Calls for burning wood are not limited to poorer countries like Moldova, but are also proliferating in wealthier parts of Europe. State-owned forests in Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic have much greater demand for the limited quantities of firewood they sell as part of sustainable forest management.

According to the Forest Service in the southwestern German state of Hesse, the firewood often comes from people who have never ordered firewood before, and who seem unaware that it needs to be bought two years in advance so it can be dry enough to burn in a wood stove.

German rangers are also seeing an increasing number of people collecting fallen wood in the forest, often unaware that it is illegal.

The Czech National Forest only sells wood for household consumption, so it has to limit the amount of firewood sold to individuals to prevent speculative buying.

In Poland, demand for small firewood from state-owned forests was up 46% year-on-year by the end of August, while demand for large firewood was up 42%. This is even before the fall, when firewood is in highest demand.

“Of course there is a growing interest in firewood in forested areas, because today it is the cheapest fuel,” said Michal Gzowski, spokesman for Poland’s National Forests.

“Small firewood is probably the cheapest heating material in EU countries.”

He said theft of firewood, which had been in place to some extent, was on the rise.

To deter theft, the forestry department in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia is trying to hide GPS tracking devices in logs, spokeswoman Nicole Fiegler said.

Large-scale thefts haven’t come out of nowhere, but recent price increases have raised concerns among small woodland owners who could face significant losses if a pile of logs is stolen.

“It’s more of a situation of anxiety and fear,” Figler said, noting that the value of firewood has increased​​.

Foresters in the neighbouring Hesse region have been using GPS trackers since 2013 and say they have been able to solve a number of thefts this way.

Austrian police last week warned of a sharp rise in fraudsters claiming to sell firewood and wood pellets online, while several companies across the country were raided for alleged involvement in price-fixing.

The German Particle Institute has also warned buyers to beware of fake sellers, who demand payment in advance and then disappear.

Prices for wood chips and wood pellets, which can be used for central heating in homes, rose by more than 85% year-on-year in August, Statistics Germany said.

The Pellets Institute said the price per ton of pellets fell 2.6% in October, but was still nearly 200% higher than a year ago.

Even so, heating with pellets is cheaper than natural gas for those who can afford to burn them, it said. Natural gas costs 18.01p per kilowatt-hour of heat, while pellets cost 12.87p.

In Denmark, the demand for wood-burning stoves has grown along with the firewood itself. Danish sales website DBA said searches for wood pellets surged by more than 1,300% last year.

Government and environmentalists have warned Danes planning to burn firewood to consider risks: fires can be a health hazard, while smoke can cause particle pollution.

Cutting down more trees can also have devastating effects on the environment.

Egzona Shala, head of an environmental group in Kosovo, where electricity prices have soared, said deforestation has increased significantly there. Her group, EcoZ, has been monitoring forests in the mountains and found that in some cases trees were felled illegally at 5 a.m. Firewood is then sold around the capital.

Usually those felled are young trees. She said the forests were being subjected to “vulgar deforestation without any standards and controls”.