Why publishers need to pay attention to timber markets
European publishers have spent two decades responding to lower circulation, reduced advertising revenue and mill closures.
But Peter Hasulyó, Founder & Editor, ForestryBrief, says the next challenge for print may come from a different direction.
Speaking ahead of WAN-IFRA’s World Printers Summit in Rotterdam, he points to fibre supply and forest economics as issues publishers need to watch more closely.
In the interview below, he explains what this means for paper supply and long-term planning.
WAN-IFRA: European forests are under pressure from regulation, climate, and competing land uses. Which of these is most underestimated by the print industry, and why?
Peter Hasulyó: Competing land uses. Without question.
Publishers understand regulation — EUDR (European Deforestation Regulation) has been in the headlines for two years. Climate change is discussed constantly. But competing land uses? This barely registers.
Here’s what’s happening on the ground: Forest owners across Europe are increasingly asking themselves, “Why should I sell my timber?” The alternatives are multiplying. Carbon credit schemes offer payments for not cutting trees. Solar developers are approaching landowners with attractive lease offers. The EU Nature Restoration Law pushes toward set-asides. Bioenergy demand competes for the same wood.
In Finland, timber trade collapsed 42 percent in Q3 2025 — not because forests are empty, but because forest owners simply chose not to sell at current prices. When a private forest owner in Sweden can earn revenue from carbon credits, solar leases, and biodiversity payments — all without the hassle of harvesting operations — why would they sell timber to a sawmill struggling with razor-thin margins?
Based on a recent study published by the European Commission, 80 percent of revenue in the forestry industry still comes from selling timber. For now. But the signs are obvious: the tides are shifting, and the direction is clearly to put more in the “living trees” pan of the industry’s imaginative great scale. The other is called “dead trees”, or timber in a less dramatic and more common fashion. And that is what supplies the print industry with its raw material: paper.
This is structural, not cyclical. And almost nobody in the print industry is talking about it.
From a forestry insider’s view, where do sustainability policies begin to collide with material availability?
The collision happens at the EU level, and it’s already underway.
Consider: The EU Biodiversity Strategy wants 30 percent of land protected. The Nature Restoration Law pushes for rewilding. The Renewable Energy Directive subsidises burning wood for energy. LULUCF (Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry) regulations demand increased carbon sinks. The Forest Strategy promotes “close-to-nature” forestry with longer rotation periods.
Each policy makes sense individually. Together, they pull in opposite directions. You cannot simultaneously maximise carbon storage (don’t cut), maximise renewable energy (burn wood), maximise material substitution (use more wood in construction), and maximise biodiversity (leave trees standing).
The result? European softwood fibre prices are already significantly higher than in North America. Energy costs have accelerated mill closures. And we haven’t even fully implemented the Nature Restoration Law yet.
The graphic paper sector is caught in the crossfire. Operating rates in European magazine and newsprint mills hover around 65 percent. That’s survival mode. Any additional constraints on fibre supply push mills from “struggling” to “closing.”
The industry has lived through paper shortages before. What makes the current timber situation fundamentally different from past supply crises?
Previous shortages were about logistics — a port closure here, a transportation strike there. The wood was always there; it just needed to move.
This is different. Three fundamental shifts are converging:
First: Russian wood is gone. When the EU banned Russian timber imports, Europe lost a significant supply buffer. Finland alone had to increase domestic harvesting dramatically to compensate — harvesting may have increased “too much,” according to their own industry forecasts.
Second: The mills that can absorb price spikes are disappearing. In 2025 alone: UPM closed Ettringen (Germany) and Kaukas (Finland). Sappi is downsizing Kirkniemi. White Birch closed Soucy. Thunder Bay is shutting newsprint production. Over a million tonnes of European paper capacity vanished in twelve months. When supply disruptions hit, there are fewer mills left to pick up the slack.
Third: Forest owners have options now. A Finnish forest owner in 1990 had one customer: the wood buyer. A Finnish forest owner in 2026 has carbon credit aggregators, solar developers, conservation schemes, and bioenergy plants all competing for their land — or for their decision NOT to harvest.
Past crises were supply chain problems. This is a supply structure problem.
Are publishers and printers misreading today’s price volatility as a short-term disruption rather than a structural shift?
Many are, yes.
I see the mindset in industry forums: “Once construction recovers, demand will return to normal.” “When energy prices stabilise, mills will reopen.” “This is just a post-COVID correction.”
But look at the data. European graphic paper demand fell another 10 percent in Q3 2025 alone. This wasn’t a bad quarter — this is the continuation of a twenty-year structural decline accelerated by digitalisation. Mills aren’t closing because of temporary market conditions. They’re closing because the demand isn’t coming back.
Stora Enso is reviewing seven sawmills and three CLT facilities for potential divestment — half of its wood-products division sales. UPM has essentially exited direct sawmilling. International Paper is restructuring across Europe. These are not short-term defensive moves. These are companies fundamentally repositioning away from graphic grades.
The publishers who understand this are already diversifying suppliers, locking in longer-term contracts, and building relationships beyond traditional channels. Those waiting for “normal” to return may find there’s no normal left to return to.
How exposed is the print sector to decisions being made far outside the industry: by policymakers, landowners, or even environmental NGOs?
Extremely exposed. And often completely blind to it.
Consider what happened in late December 2025: Storm Johannes swept across the Nordics, felling an estimated 10 million cubic meters of timber in Sweden alone. This wasn’t a policy decision — it was weather. But it will ripple through pulp and paper markets for years, first as oversupply (salvage wood flooding markets), then potentially as shortage (damaged stands can’t be harvested normally).
Or consider the EU Deforestation Regulation. After years of development, it was delayed by a year in November 2025. That single delay — made by politicians in Brussels responding to lobbying from multiple industries — immediately affected sawmill planning, inventory strategies, and investment decisions across the continent. Publishers had zero input into that decision, but they’ll feel its effects.
NGO campaigns have real market power too. When Nestlé announced it will stop sourcing virgin fibre from suppliers involved in “controversies” in Northern Sweden, that sent ripples through Nordic supply chains. NGO pressure can shift buyer behaviour faster than market forces.
The print sector consumes paper. But the decisions about how much paper gets made — and at what price — are increasingly made by people who never think about publishing at all.
Is the industry sufficiently prepared for a scenario where timber availability, not demand, becomes the main constraint on print?
No. And this should keep you up at night.
The industry has spent two decades managing demand decline. Every strategy, every metric, every planning assumption is built around “how do we adjust to falling consumption?”
We have almost no institutional muscle for the opposite scenario: “What happens when we want paper, but can’t get enough fibre at any reasonable price?”
Look at how Sylvamo is responding to losing supply from IP’s Georgetown mill — they’re evaluating imports from European and Brazilian mills, despite new tariffs. When major producers start scrambling for alternative sourcing, that’s a warning sign.
European mills are structurally disadvantaged on fibre. Softwood prices here are significantly higher than in North America. Energy costs compound the challenge. If global demand for paper rebounds — and packaging demand IS rebounding — European graphic paper mills will be competing for fibre against packaging mills that can pay more.
The scenario isn’t hypothetical. In certain grades, supply constraints are already the binding constraint, not demand. For newsprint specifically, the lack of mills and supplier choice is already causing buyer nervousness.
Without giving away your session: what’s the most uncomfortable reality about Europe’s forest–paper relationship that industry leaders tend to avoid?
The carbon math doesn’t work the way we pretend it does.
We tell a comfortable story: trees grow, we harvest them, we make paper, paper gets recycled, new trees grow. Circle of life. Carbon neutral.
But EU scientists have raised uncomfortable questions. Forest carbon sinks in Europe are actually weakening. More harvesting, plus climate stress, plus pest outbreaks mean European forests are absorbing less carbon than they did a decade ago. Some EU members are failing their LULUCF targets.
Meanwhile, we count biomass as “carbon neutral” for energy purposes — even though burning wood releases CO₂ immediately, while regrowth takes decades. The 500+ scientists who wrote to world leaders arguing that the carbon debt from biomass takes 50-100 years to repay aren’t fringe voices.
I’m not saying publishing should stop. I’m saying the industry should stop pretending the carbon story is simple. When your sustainability report says “carbon neutral” and climate scientists say “it’s complicated,” that’s a credibility gap. And credibility gaps eventually become business risks. I say that from first-hand experience: I am a forester. Just take a look at the public perception of my beloved profession nowadays. That is also a credibility gap we failed to address for years or even decades and now are either forced to do so or face the dire consequences.
If there’s one strategic mistake publishers could make in the next five years when it comes to paper supply, what would it be?
Assuming your current supplier will still be there.
I monitor mill closures weekly for ForestryBrief. The pace is accelerating. In the past 18 months: Kabel, Heinzel Laakirchen, UPM Kaukas, UPM Ettringen, Sappi Alfeld (multiple closures), International Paper facilities, Bergkvist Siljan Mora… The list grows every quarter.
Each closure eliminates options. Each closure concentrates supply in fewer hands. Each closure makes the next supply disruption more impactful.
Publishers who have single-source relationships, who haven’t built redundancy into their paper supply chains, who haven’t explored secondary suppliers or alternative specifications — they’re exposed.
The time to build supply chain resilience is before you need it. By the time your primary supplier announces a closure, your competitors have already locked up the alternative capacity.
Is there anything you’d like to share with industry leaders as they prepare for your session at the upcoming World Printers Summit?
The forester’s perspective
We closed with a few quick questions to better understand the forester behind the forecasts.
When you’re not immersed in forestry intelligence, what do you enjoy reading in print, and why?
A good book about the countryside. Preferably from a country I am not intimately familiar with. Like “Of Thorn and Briar” written by Paul Lamb, a hedgelayer from the UK’s West Country. It is not a well-known profession in my neck of the woods (pun intended) and I love to read and learn about things like this. Also books about permaculture, agroforestry and our changing world. Because there are challenges we have never faced before and you have to keep an open mind if you want to adapt.
What’s your favourite question to ask someone who claims they understand forests and paper markets?
“Where does the average European paper mill get its fibre today — and where will it get fibre in 2035?”
If you weren’t allowed to use the words ‘sustainability,’ ‘climate,’ or ‘regulation,’ how would you describe the real issue facing paper supply?
The people who grow trees are tempted with better deals than selling to paper mills. That’s it. That’s the whole story.
What’s the strangest or most counterintuitive thing you’ve learned since starting ForestryBrief?
That more trees can mean less “forest”.
Which question do you wish publishers would stop asking — and which one do you wish they’d start asking instead?
Stop asking: “Will paper prices go up or down next quarter?”
Start asking: “What’s happening to the forest owners who supply my mills?”
