Forest Products Industry

Stora Enso is planning to centralise pine timber sawing from its Veitsiluoto sawmill in Kemi, Finland, to the company’s other sawmills in Northern Finland, particularly Oulu and Kalajoki. Source: Timberbiz The planned change is part of Stora Enso’s ongoing efforts to improve efficiency, profitability, and competitiveness in line with its strategy. If implemented, the plan would result in the permanent closure of the Veitsiluoto sawmill. Stora Enso Veitsiluoto Oy and Stora Enso Oyj will initiate change negotiations concerning the planned permanent discontinuation of production at the Veitsiluoto sawmill. The negotiations cover all employees at the sawmill, approximately 60 people, and are expected to last three weeks. According to the current plan, the sawmill would not restart production in October 2026 after the ongoing temporary curtailment. No decisions on the planned closure or possible personnel reductions will be made before the negotiations have been concluded. “In recent years, Stora Enso has expanded its sawmilling operations in northern Finland to deliver high-quality sawn goods for demanding applications, complementing our expanding high-quality board production. “However, Veitsiluoto has operated for over 100 years, and continuing production there would require significant investments. At the same time, our modern Oulu sawmill is ramping up. We are committed to conducting the negotiations in a responsible and constructive manner and supporting our personnel throughout the process,” said Matti Lielahti, Head of Stora Enso Business Unit Oulu. Stora Enso Business Unit Oulu employs approximately 900 people across its board mill, port operations and sawmill in Oulu, and its sawmills in Veitsiluoto, Oulainen and Kalajoki. If implemented, the planned closure would only have a minor impact on the business unit’s wood consumption.

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Metsä is investing in a new production line for Muoto food packaging in Äänekoski, Finland. As for Metsä’s other innovation projects, the development of the lignin product and carbon capture is continuing as planned, but the conditions for the Kuura textile fibre project are estimated to have changed significantly due to the global market situation. Source: Timberbiz Investment in Metsa’s Kuura textile fibre mill will not proceed. In the target market for Kuura textile fibres – that is, man-made cellulosic fibres – significant global overproduction has emerged in a short period, which has undermined the competitiveness of high-quality and responsibly manufactured fibres. The greatest change has taken place in Asia, where significant new capacity has emerged in recent years. Currently, too few customers are willing to pay a premium for responsibly produced materials. Due to the market changes, the investment in the Kuura textile fibre mill in Kemi, Finland, will not proceed. The Kuura project is not estimated to have the prerequisites to continue in its current form. However, the expertise developed in the field of textile fibres is valuable, and the company is exploring options for utilising it. Developed by Metsä, Muoto is a fibre-based packaging solution produced from Metsä’s own wood fibres. The products can be shaped to meet a variety of customer needs. “We’ve developed a competitive product and production concept for Muoto packaging that responds to the growing demand for fossil-free packaging solutions. Muoto supports Metsä’s ambition to develop new packaging innovations in collaboration with companies in the packaging value chain,” said Niklas von Weymarn, CEO of the innovation company Metsä Spring. Muoto products are made directly from wet wood pulp, without any intermediate steps. Muoto combines stiffness and functionality with a light weight, making it suitable for applications such as demanding serving and food packaging. “There’s a strong market trend to find alternatives to plastic in certain product groups, which opens a significant market niche for the Muoto business. Muoto products also meet the strict requirements of the EU’s recent Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation. Legislation is expected to give a boost to the product’s chances of success,” von Weymarn said. The new Muoto fibre packaging production line will be located within the Metsä mill site in Äänekoski, next to the existing Muoto demo plant, and it will start up in 2028. The investment will be made in Äänekoski instead of Rauma, as previously planned, based on the infrastructure of the mill site, the existing production line and the costs of the investment. The value of the investment is approximately EUR 25 million, and the nominal capacity of the production line will be more than 100 million products per year.  

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Wood is widely regarded as the building material of the future. But turning renewable raw materials into high-rises that can genuinely bear structural loads takes more than good timber. It takes adhesives that deliver on what architecture promises. Source: Timberbiz In the Medienhafen district of Düsseldorf, Germany there is a building that speaks a different language: The Cradle is an office building with a striking façade of timber diamond shapes, where wood is not just decoration but structure. Framework. And right at its heart, invisible yet indispensable: adhesive – “the unsung hero,” as Marcel Blodau calls it. Mr Blodau works in product development at Henkel Adhesive Technologies, focusing on Engineered Wood, structural timber construction. “We’re not talking about chairs or tables. We’re talking about structures that carry loads: walls, ceilings, high-rises,” he said, explaining why the right adhesive is so critical: in cross laminated timber (CLT), layers of wood are stacked at 90-degree angles and bonded with adhesive. Cross-bonded layers compensate for the natural weak points of timber and achieve strengths comparable to concrete and steel. “That is only possible through the combination of adhesive and wood,“ Mr Blodau said. Mr Blodau has been part of the team since 2020. While the market has long been dominated by melamine-urea-formaldehyde (MUF) adhesives, Henkel focuses on polyurethane, a technology that contains no water and no solvents and can be processed at room temperature. “Polyurethane in structural timber construction is a comparatively young technology. We are at the beginning of a shift from concrete to more sustainable wood as building material – and that is exactly what makes it so exciting,” Mr Blodau said. What sets timber construction apart from steel and concrete is not just the material itself. It is the way buildings can be constructed. Timber components are manufactured in climate-controlled facilities, year-round, regardless of weather. When concrete cannot cure in winter, a conventional construction site comes to a standstill. In mass timber construction, production continues. “A finished wall element arrives on site and just needs the door fitted,” Mr Blodau said. That means shorter, more reliable build times and fewer trucks on the road. Claudia Meckel, who leads global product development for structural timber construction at Henkel, sees a further advantage. “Construction teams can prefabricate in a heated factory instead of standing on a building site in freezing temperatures. That is better for the workforce, for build quality and for planning reliability alike,” she said. There is a personal dimension to it as well: the prepolymer on which Henkel’s timber adhesives are based – the chemical building block that gives the adhesive its bonding properties was developed by her father, a chemist who spent many years in fundamental research. “It is wonderful to see what has come out of so much research and development work,” she said. Henkel’s ambition does not stop at the laboratory. The assembly time/press time ratio – the relationship between how long an adhesive remains workable and how long it needs under pressure to cure – shows how far product development reaches: directly into customers’ production processes. “If the adhesive has a long open time but a short press time, that increases the output of the entire production line,” Ms Meckel said. There is one question that comes to mind immediately: Don’t timber buildings burn far more quickly? Ms Meckel shakes her head. Steel softens under extreme heat and loses its structural integrity. Timber, by contrast, chars on the outside, forming a protective layer while retaining its load-bearing capacity in the core for a long time. For tall buildings, adhesives are needed that actively support this behaviour. In a fire, an adhesive must not melt. If it does, the char layer falls away, fresh wood is exposed and the fire gains strength again. “Using phosphorus compounds, the adhesive forms a stable char layer,” Ms Meckel said. “This allows timber structures to remain stable, enables safe evacuation and is a key enabler for high rise timber construction.” Henkel’s position as a pioneer in this field is clear from the fact that its internal research division began working on the topic as early as 2017 and long before EUROCODE 5: The European standard that for the first time sets binding fire protection requirements for adhesives in structural timber construction. “The goal was clear: develop adhesives that make it possible to build tall buildings from wood,” Mr Blodau said. Henkel is the only supplier worldwide offering a fire-retardant polyurethane adhesive, LOCTITE HB X, that meets both European and American certification standards. Building on this success, Henkel introduced the new fire-retardant LOCTITE HB XE product line in 2025. The new generation adhesive delivers outstanding performance in meeting the latest EUROCODE 5 requirements while also offering enhanced processing and application properties for customers. Sustainability in timber construction operates on several levels: CO₂, recycling, health, certification. The visible dimension: Wood stores CO₂ and replaces energy-intensive concrete. The less obvious one: the bonding agents themselves. But Henkel goes a step further. The answer is mass balance – a certified accounting method that tracks the share of sustainable raw materials through the production chain and it starts with used cooking oil. Used cooking oil is processed into bio-naphtha, which is fed together with conventional naphtha, into the start of the chemical production chain. Through a certified mass-balance accounting system, the improved CO₂ footprint can be documented and passed along the entire supply chain as a certificate. The result: the LOCTITE HB S ECO line – the first polyurethane adhesive for structural timber construction certified under ISCC Plus, an internationally recognized sustainability standard. “With this, we can reduce the CO₂ footprint per kilogram of adhesive by up to 60 per cent,” Ms Meckel said. Mr Blodau said that Henkel is currently the only supplier in the polyurethane space with this certification. Jeanine Wojciechowski has been responsible for Henkel’s European business in structural timber construction since September 2025. And is still captivated by what she sees every day. “Every time I walk into the production facility, […]

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Prescribed burning is the only landscape scale tool capable of reducing fuel loads, simplifying fuel structure, breaking fuel continuity and moderating dangerous fire behaviour across Australian forests. Source:  John O’Donnell As noted in the attached review, prescribed burning is the only landscape scale tool capable of reducing fuel loads, simplifying fuel structure, breaking fuel continuity and moderating dangerous fire behaviour across Australian forests. Decades of scientific and operational evidence, from McArthur (1962) to Burrows et al. (2023), demonstrate that fuel quantity, fuel structure and fuel continuity are the dominant drivers of fire intensity, severity, rate of spread and spotting. Weather and topography matter, but only fuel can be modified at scale. The impacts of intense, severe and long duration bushfires across south eastern Australia are enormous, spanning 32 impact areas and affecting communities, ecosystems, water supplies, infrastructure and national resilience. The combined impacts across SE Australia are huge, especially considering intense and severe bushfires. With severe fires becoming more frequent, fuel management has become a critical national priority. The full review is attached here. Fuel layers, understanding how fires actually spread A central insight of the review is that prescribed burning directly modifies the fuel layers that govern fire behaviour. Cheney’s (2026 a per. comm) fuel layer framework shows that dry eucalypt forests contain six distinct layers, including canopy, intermediate, elevated, near surface, surface and duff, each contributing differently to flame development, vertical progression and spotting.  Cheney observes that “the structure of the vegetation in a dry eucalypt forest can be identified in 6 layers of different density” and that the near surface layer “is the first to dry after rain and always burns.” This layered understanding clarifies why prescribed burning is uniquely effective: it reduces the fine fuels that dominate rate of spread, removes ladder fuels that enable crown fire and chars bark fuels that drive spotting. Relative Fire Hazard and risk Relative Fire Hazard (RFH) analysis highlights the enormous differences in hazard between fuel types. Cheney (2026 b pers comm) shows that under very high fire danger, “a fire in a wet forest is 3000 times more hazardous than an eaten out or fine one year old pasture.” These hazard ratios incorporate both intensity and burnout time, the latter being crucial because long combustion periods drive soil heating, tree mortality and deep duff ignition. RFH demonstrates that fuel structure, fuel mass and combustion duration, not weather alone, govern the destructive potential of bushfires. Fuel load reduction, the cornerstone of bushfire mitigation Fuel load reduction is a major benefit of prescribed burning. Fine fuels accumulate rapidly after fire, and without regular mild burning they reach levels that support high intensity, fast moving and uncontrollable bushfires. Prescribed burning reduces surface litter, near surface fuels, elevated fine fuels, bark fuels, understorey shrubs, and parts of the duff and coarse woody debris layers. Western Australia’s long-term data demonstrates this clearly: maintaining prescribed burning at ~8–9% of public land annually keeps roughly 40% of the landscape in 0–5 year fuels, resulting in low bushfire area and high suppression effectiveness. Fuel structure simplification Fuel structure, the vertical and horizontal arrangement of combustible material, is as important as fuel load. Long fire free intervals produce dense understorey, low canopy base height, heavy bark fuels and continuous vertical ladders, conditions highly conducive to crown fire initiation. Fuel arrangement can have a greater impact on fire behaviour than overall fuel quantity. Prescribed burning simplifies fuel structure by reducing understorey density, removing juvenile eucalypts and shrubs, reducing dead woody debris, increasing vertical separation between fuel layers and charring fibrous bark, reducing spotting for several years These structural changes directly reduce flame contact with elevated fuels and limit crown fire potential. Breaking fuel continuity creating landscape mosaics Horizontal fuel discontinuity slows fire spread, reduces flame contact with elevated fuels and limits spotting. Landscape mosaics created by regular prescribed burning provide natural containment lines, reduce the probability of large fires, and support biodiversity by maintaining varied successional stages and unburnt refuges. Prescribed burning creates landscape mosaics and reduces fuel continuity. Reducing woody thickening and dead timber fuels Prescribed burning reduces woody thickening, a widespread issue in long unburnt forests. Thickened understorey increases fuel mass, reduces visibility, lowers canopy base height and increases ladder fuel density. It also reduces dead timber fuels generated by intense bushfires and by eucalypt decline associated with long term fire exclusion. Prescribed burning reduces quantities of dead timber fuels from intense bushfires and from decline processes driven by lack of regular, mild fire. These dead fuels significantly increase fire intensity, smouldering duration and suppression difficulty. Fire behaviour moderation and safety benefits In conclusion, prescribed burning moderates fire behaviour across all key dimensions, including intensity, severity, duration and rate of spread. By reducing fine fuels, simplifying structure and breaking continuity, prescribed burning lowers flame height, reduces ember production, limits crown fire potential and improves firefighter safety. Prescribed burning remains the only practical, scalable mechanism for reducing fuels, moderating fire behaviour, improving suppression effectiveness and reducing the likelihood of megafires.

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Forty-three Forest Fire Management Victoria (FFMVic) firefighters have deployed to the United States to support crews battling major wildfires, bringing specialist skills developed fighting fires in some of Victoria’s most rugged and remote forests. Source: Timberbiz The contingent is made up of highly trained and experienced firefighters from across the state, equipped to directly attack and contain fires in challenging conditions. “The situation across much of North America remains serious, and our crews are ready to put their skills and experience to work alongside local firefighters,” FFMVic Chief Fire Officer Chris Hardman said. Firefighters across the United States are currently working to contain 94 large fires. This is the third international deployment of firefighters and incident management staff from Victoria since July. “Our arduous firefighters are among our most experienced and physically capable personnel. They will make a big difference,” Mr Hardman said. “They bring resilience, practical skills and a deep understanding of fire behaviour developed through years of responding to some of Victoria’s most devastating bushfires.”

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  New Zealand’s Gisborne council is commissioning an independent assurance review of its forestry consenting and compliance system. Source: Timberbiz The Hon Christopher Finlayson KC has been confirmed to chair the independent review panel, with environmental and resource management specialist Dr Marie Doole confirmed as a panel member. Further specialist expertise is currently being finalised. Gisborn Council Chief Executive Nedine Thatcher Swann said the council initiated the review to independently test whether its current approach is fit for purpose, proportionate to Tairāwhiti’s environmental risks, and clear and workable in practice. “Tairāwhiti’s highly erodible land, steep terrain, severe weather exposure and downstream risks mean our regulatory approach needs to reflect the realities of our region,” she said. “Council has significantly strengthened its forestry consenting, monitoring and enforcement capability since 2018, and we have also been working closely with the forestry sector to improve our processes and standard consent conditions. “That work has been constructive, but concerns continue to be raised about consenting requirements, compliance settings, costs and processing timeframes. Rather than continue debating those issues from different positions, we want them independently tested against the evidence.” The focused review will examine a representative sample of consenting and compliance files and selected consent conditions, and test concerns raised by the sector against processing records, operational examples and other relevant evidence. It will consider whether requirements are proportionate to risk, whether conditions are clear and practical, whether processes are efficient and consistently administered, and whether improvements could reduce unnecessary cost or uncertainty while maintaining strong environmental outcomes. The review will also distinguish between matters council can address itself and issues that may require cooperation with the forestry sector or clearer national direction. “This is about independently testing what we are doing, confirming what is working well and being prepared to change what needs improving,” Ms Thatcher Swann said. “The review will give us a clear evidence base for any subsequent improvement work. “We want a regulatory system that protects our environment and communities, gives responsible forestry operators greater certainty, and supports appropriate, sustainable forestry and land use across Tairāwhiti.” Council will provide the information and access required for the review but will not direct the panel’s findings. An initial findings report is expected within six weeks of the panel’s formal appointment.

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