The barbaric and completely unnecessary new regulation encouraging deforestation in Hungary

The Hungarian government recently declared an "energy emergency" to mitigate the impact of sanctions against Russia on gas imports. Among other things, it was decided to ban the export of firewood from the country and to expand logging. The intention is understandable, especially as cutting back on the utility price caps means that many families who previously only used gas to heat their homes are now trying to get access to stoves and firewood – the price of which is also soaring due to the increased demand.

However, the government decree issued in early August goes over the top in many respects, and unnecessarily tramples on what are now basic conservation and forest management guidelines, experts in the field told Telex. They claim that logging could be increased in Hungary without going back several centuries in time. That this has not been increased yet is partly due to factors that the legislation does not change at all, while creating the possibility of damage that cannot be repaired even within decades.

Making worse what was already insufficient

21% of Hungary's land area, around 2 million hectares are forests, 40% of which is protected or part of the EU's Natura 2000 network. As the "ecosystem services" provided by forests are becoming increasingly valuable due to climate change, no doubt, our aim should be to further increase forest cover, protect forests and keep them in their natural state as much as possible. Until now, it seemed that the government was aware of this, at least István Nagy, Minister of Agriculture, regularly bragged about the progress made in forestation. There is a so-called National Forestation Programme, and the plan is to increase the proportion of land covered by forests and trees to 27% by 2030.

However, Viktor Orbán has just signed a decree on emergency firewood supply that is a step backwards in forest management, both in terms of message and practicality. The new legislation includes these elements, among others:

• It is permitted to do clearcutting even in protected state-owned forests of high natural value, and this may cover a larger area.
• If a forest of non-native species, – such as acacia – is cleared in a protected area, it is not required to plant native species in its place, or indeed to plant anything at all if the forest can regenerate from coppice.
• No official permission is needed for using roads in state-owned forests leading to the forest area which is to be harvested.
• Even in forests that are 100% state-owned, the rules for determining the age at which trees can be harvested are more relaxed. The harvesting age can be up to 20 years earlier than the age originally specified in the forest plan.
• Unlike in the past, it will also be sufficient to regenerate areas of more noble tree species, like Austrian oaks and noble oak species, from coppice.
• Logging not included in the forest plan may also be carried out if the Minister responsible for forest management orders it.

"One of the biggest problems is that the regulation will now put more pressure on protected forests, while the majority of forests are not protected," László Gálhidy, head of WWF Hungary's Forest Programme told Telex. According to him, the restrictions that have now been lifted were introduced for a good reason, and most conservationists already considered the Forestry Act which has been in force to be insufficient and objectionable in some elements.

As an example, he mentioned that forest management is practised (i.e. timber can be harvested within certain limits) in national parks in Hungary, while this is not the case in many other countries. This is mainly due to historical reasons, as the first national parks were established in the 1970s, while forest management dates back to earlier times.

National parks and forestry companies

The country has 10 national parks and 22 state forestry companies, with state-owned forests accounting for about 48 percent of the forested area (typically large, contiguous forests in mountains of medium height). The rest is privately owned, but these too must comply with conservation rules and the Forestry Act.

Forests in national parks are managed by the regional state forestry companies (a separate legal entity in each case, a state-owned company under the Ministry of Agriculture), and the national park only has indirect influence on what happens there. However, the company is obliged to act on the basis of the ten-year plan for the regional forest planning (of which there are 150 in the country) and to obtain the approval of the forestry authority for interventions.

Just as in the case of hunting, the interests of forest management and nature conservation sometimes clash. But since the Forestry Act and the Nature Conservation Act came into force in 1997, there has been a gradual convergence, creating a special system of "checks and balances". Now the new regulation, which scares both sides, is interfering with this, an anonymous senior forestry source expert told us.

One hundred and fifty years backwards in time

Conservation and more progressive forestry experts see several serious problems with the recent changes to the regulation.

According to László Gálhidy, one of the most problematic points is the permission of felling trees during the vegetation period, as this has a serious impact on other organisms besides trees, for example, trees can be felled during the nesting period of birds. Another major setback is that the provision removes a restriction in the new Forestry Act of 2009, which essentially prohibited felling in state-owned, high nature value, special purpose forests (mostly old oak and beech forests).

When non-native forests are felled, there will also be no obligation to plant native species. The regulation states that such will be the case "if the forest is capable of regenerating from coppice", but our forestry expert source says that in such a case it is nonsense to think that a valuable forest will grow back on the harvested area. "If you do clearcutting in a forest and then let it grow on its own, all the light that suddenly comes in will produce such big thickets that the seedlings of the nobler species cannot grow. In the last 150 to 200 years, there has never been a time in the country when it was not compulsory to restore a forest after clearcutting," he said.

It is also sad that under the new rule, waiting until the trees are ready for felling is not necessary. In practice, this could mean that an oak forest that is more than 130 years old can be felled up to 20 years earlier, and we lose the 20 years that are of greatest value from a conservation point of view. This is when trees can provide the most useful habitat functions for other forest life forms..

Another strong and worrying element is that the Minister of Agriculture, István Nagy, will now have the power to decide on his own whether to harvest forests that are not included in the forest plan. To do this, forestry companies would of course have to submit a request first, which is where the question of whether they intend to make use of the new opportunities arises.

From now on, it's up to the professionals

According to our forestry source, it will ultimately be up to the professionals in the area to decide how rough the impact of the regulation will be in practice, but there are some factors that give cause for optimism. As he said, while "there will certainly be some over-enthusiasts" who will try to take advantage of the new opportunities, the regulation, fortunately, does not impose such obligations on forestry companies. And the majority will not necessarily be self-motivated. The legislation is not only contrary to the Nature Conservation Act, but also to the 'common sense interpretation of the Forestry Act', negating decades of development in forestry.

First, modern forest management is now based on the premise that forests are not just a means of profit, but an ecosystem.

In contrast, the current regulation has been narrowed down to a single criterion, a single function: how many cubic metres of firewood can be harvested from a forest. Most forestry professionals are more nuanced than that, knowing that forests have other functions (e.g., water conservation, nature protection, recreation) and hopefully not wishing to destroy them without justification.

It is especially true because the ecosystem functions provided by forests are really valued in the context of climate change, while forests are becoming increasingly vulnerable to a warming climate. "If disturbed by clearcutting, forests are less able to fulfill their role as climate regulators, and the recent flash floods occured because, the rainfall is eroding the soil from the clearcut areas," László Gálhidy says. The WWF official was less optimistic about the likely attitude of forestry companies, adding that in his experience "the forestry sector and its interest groups have repeatedly lobbied for the relaxation of the Forestry Act", and that it is feared that more of them may take advantage of the opportunities offered by the new regulation.

However, according to our forestry source, most of the experts are now aware of the conservation aspects, but even if they were not, there are some much more pragmatic aspects that militate against the use of the potential of the regulation.

There is no need to increase logging in this way

The most important of these is that we are currently nowhere near the national extractable timber production levels specified in the current ten-year operational plans. "A net of 6-7 million cubic metres of wood is extracted annually in Hungary, of which 3.5 million cubic metres is firewood. This 6-7 million cubic metres is almost a third less than the amount that could be extracted from the forests with the methods that have been allowed until now," our forestry source told us.

So, it would be possible to increase logging by up to 25 percent without unnecessary clearcutting and without cutting protected trees and ones that are not yet ripe for felling.

This has not happened so far for very prosaic reasons: there has not been enough demand (this may now go away with the increase in overheads) and not enough logging capacity (which, however, cannot be solved in the short term).

The widely felt labour shortage in Hungary is also affecting forestry: many competent professionals have left the country, but there is also a shortage of manual workers. "Whereas 3-4-man brigades used to do the logging, now there are 1-2-men teams that can do 30-35 cubic metres a day instead of 70-80," we heard. The sector lacks both contractor and machine capacity, and the technology of domestic logging is generally outdated; what is done by machinery to the west of us is done by people here, but their number continuously decreases.

Increased logging could therefore face fundamental capacity problems, and if a forestry company were to take advantage of the new opportunities, this could have a negative financial impact in the medium term. "A normal forestry professional would not even think of clearcutting these days, as most engineers in positions of responsibility prefer continuous forest management," says our source. The latter means select-cutting, where there is still plenty of untapped potential. It is also more economical to maximise the use of this type of cultivation since the forest manager who does clearcutting and then does not plant saplings in the area will make his work more difficult in the next 5 to 10 years and will have a lot of work to do to clear the so-called "spoiled forests" that will be created.

Heating with wet wood is no good

A particular oddity of the regulation is that while it is intended to deal with the energy crisis expected this winter, only a small proportion of the wood felled now will be suitable for burning within a few months.

The calorific value of wood is significantly worse if it has a high moisture content, and it also overheats the stove, so it needs to dry at least for six months before it is worth burning. The drying time depends on the type of wood, its processing, the humidity at the time and the storage location, but in general, it is optimal to wait 1-2 years before putting it in the stove.

Wood felled now will not produce valuable fuel within six months, the only exception being perhaps acacia, which has a lower moisture content but a lower calorific value than other hardwoods. What's more, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Herman Ottó Institute have set up a website on how to heat wisely, and the disadvantages of burning wet wood are also explained here.

Looking at the whole picture, it is very difficult to see what the point of the new regulation is:

• if anyone were to exploit it, it could do a lot of harm to nature even in the short term, whereas the exact opposite would be desirable;
• clearcutting is outdated and not economical even in the medium term;
• even without lifting restrictions, logging could still be increased in non-protected forests, but there is little capacity to do so;
• and trees felled this year are not worth burning immediately.

Our source summed up their suspicions as to why the regulation was needed: "the decree's function is probably to show the Prime Minister that the Ministry of Agriculture is dealing with the issue". In any case, after the public outcry, István Nagy has already started to save the day: according to a statement issued by the Ministry last Saturday, "firewood extraction continues to be carried out in a sustainable manner".

A recent development is that LMP, an opposition party, has appealed to the Constitutional Court against the regulation. We have seen something similar before in 2017 when the Forestry Act was rewritten, NGOs took the same action and were ultimately successful. But by the time the Constitutional Court annulled the law, it was 2020. According to László Gálhidy, it is feared that the process could drag on again, and meanwhile the damage that can only be corrected over several decades will have been done.