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Forest products professionals in the Nordic region are being squeezed by high raw material costs and evolving environmental regulations that have immediate and long-term implications. Source: ResourceWise Over the past year, domestic softwood pulplog prices rose in Norway by 25%, in Finland by 15% and in Sweden by 11%. These cost increases are occurring alongside early signs of pulp production slowdowns in some areas. While the reasons vary by market, many producers are closely watching both supply conditions and regulatory developments that could influence fibre availability going forward. Two key policy developments from the European Union are adding complexity to long-term forest planning. The Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) regulation aims to improve carbon sequestration through forest management — a goal that may prove difficult to meet without changes to current harvesting levels in Sweden and Finland. In addition, the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), which goes into effect this December, is expected to reshape sourcing practices for timber and other forest-based materials. These regulations introduce new factors for forest owners and wood-using industries to consider as they plan future harvests and investments. A report from ResourceWise provides a more detailed overview of current pulpwood price developments, regional differences across Finland, Sweden, and Norway, and how producers are responding to emerging challenges. It also highlights the potential impact of EU climate legislation on harvesting activity and forest management strategies in the Nordic region. More information at https://www.resourcewise.com/

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According to a new global study published in Global Change Biology, lightning directly kills approximately 320 million trees each year — a number that rivals other major causes of forest disturbance but has gone largely unrecognized. Source: ScienceBlog These deaths release an estimated 0.21–0.30 gigatons of carbon annually, underscoring lightning’s surprising role in shaping forest structure and the global carbon cycle. While lightning has long been associated with wildfires, its direct impact on tree mortality has rarely been quantified. To address this gap, researchers led by Andreas Krause at the Technical University of Munich integrated lightning mortality into a dynamic global vegetation model known as LPJ-GUESS. Their approach used detailed field data from Barro Colorado Island in Panama, where each lightning strike was found to kill about 3.2 trees, often through lethal flashovers that affect neighbouring trees up to 45 meters away. By scaling these observations with global lightning density maps from satellite and ground-based sensors, the model simulated lightning’s effects across tropical and temperate forests worldwide. Simulations revealed that: 301–340 million trees (>10 cm diameter) are killed annually by lightning 24–36 million of these are large trees (>60 cm diameter) Lightning causes 0.21–0.30 GtC of dead biomass annually Most of this mortality occurs in tropical Africa, where both lightning density and the prevalence of tall, vulnerable trees are high. However, the study also found that as climate change intensifies thunderstorms, lightning-induced tree deaths could increase in temperate and boreal forests. “Most climate models project an increase in lightning frequency in the coming decades, so it’s worth paying closer attention to this largely overlooked disturbance,” Krause noted in the press release. Until now, ecosystem models have accounted for lightning only as a fire ignition source — not as a direct cause of tree death. That omission, the researchers argue, likely underestimates forest turnover and distorts projections of carbon storage under future climate scenarios. Interestingly, LPJ-GUESS underestimated lightning mortality in some sites like the Amazon and US pine forests but performed well in Panama, thanks in part to the model’s design: lightning was assumed to strike the tallest tree cohorts, mimicking real-world behaviour. Deviations in other forests may reflect undercounted secondary effects like beetle infestation or long-delayed tree death, both common after lightning strikes. To improve accuracy, the authors call for more real-time data from forest lightning detection systems, particularly outside the tropics and closer attention to species-specific vulnerability. Trees with denser wood or lower electrical resistance, for instance, may better withstand strikes, a factor not yet fully integrated into global models.

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