Firewood: Forest owners concerned about EU plans
Created: 01/10/2023 15:57
By: Josef Ametsbichler
Ready for the oven: The production of firewood is one of the economic mainstays of forest farmers.
© Christin Klose/dpa
Forest farmers are worried about a disguised ban on firewood - by the EU.
The reason for this is the ongoing negotiations on the revised Renewable Energy Sources Directive.
District
– The price for firewood shot up to unprecedented heights last autumn.
Stove fitters all over the country could no longer cope with the onslaught of customers.
But the forest farmers are concerned about a disguised ban on firewood - by the EU.
The reason for this is the ongoing negotiations on RED III, the revised Renewable Energy Directive.
In the meantime it had looked as if the EU would completely withdraw the title “renewable” from wood as a fuel – deforestation and fine dust were argumentative keywords.
The focus is more on the eligibility of larger heating systems than the domestic tiled stove.
The EU Parliament in Strasbourg moved away from this again in September 2022.
"Forest farmers can breathe easy," immediately tweeted MEP Angelika Niebler (CSU) from Vaterstetten.
Werner Fauth, head of the forest owners' association in the Ebersberg district.
© Artist SRO
But for Werner Fauth, the chairman of the forest owners' association (WBV) in the district of Ebersberg, it is too early to give the all-clear.
Negotiations are continuing this year - and currently on the table is a regulation and quantity limit for the burning of so-called primary wood.
In other words, that which does not fall away during wood processing anyway, but comes directly from forest work, which is why it is also called thinning wood.
Sounds complicated, but for Fauth it simply means that the production of firewood is one of the economic pillars of the forest farmers in danger.
And when you pull a leg, the whole table tends to wobble.
Trees of the future need space to grow
“The forest owner keeps an eye on the whole thing,” says the forest owner board.
Fauth means that growing high-quality timber from thick trunks also means cutting out the stalks in between to give the so-called trees of the future space to grow.
"Otherwise we have many thin trees and never long-term wood production." And before wood rots in the forest, it makes sense to use it thermally instead of relying on gas and nuclear power.
The WBV boss breaks a - presumably wooden - lance for the commercial forest.
"It is a prime example of a natural cultural landscape," says Fauth of EZ.
Instead of throwing regulatory truncheons in the way of forest farmers, climate-friendly forest conversion should be promoted.
"We need a care offensive!" demands the WBV man.
"We need Brussels!"
Foresters in the district maintain 14,000 hectares of forest
According to him, the foresters in the Ebersberg district maintain around 14,000 hectares of forest.
And on the subject of shrinkage, he emphasizes with a view to Germany: "Our forests are not shrinking!" Rather, they formed a sustainable system without illegal overexploitation, the yields of which remained in the country.
On average, Fauth assumes a level of self-sufficiency of over 80 percent for softwood, which means that local carpenters can mainly use local wood.
"The money stays with us and does not flow into a corrupt system."
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The international alliance “Forest Defenders”, which more than 100 non-governmental organizations have joined, including according to their own statements the German arm of Greenpeace and Transparency International, is sharply critical of wood as a sustainable energy source.
They are demanding that the ecological status of wood burning and the associated subsidies be put an end to - the reason is also the recently growing hunger for wood in the energy sector.
You can find more current news from the district of Ebersberg at Merkur.de/Ebersberg.
The main concern is shrinking forests in Eastern Europe and Scandinavia, as a study published by the alliance in November 2022 explains - wood that is often burned in large power plants there and elsewhere.
Accordingly, the biomass balance in Germany is also under pressure, with production and consumption currently being more or less balanced.
With a view to the regulatory plans of the EU, WBV boss Fauth wishes: "Don't lump us all in one pot!"
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