Works. Jewelry. Antiques. Maybe cars. Here are some of the things that come to mind when you hear the word auction. In the minds of very few, this process is connected with firewood. And yet, before the firewood ends up in the barns of merchants or in the fireplaces of consumers, it is sold at auction. Demand for firewood is stronger than ever this year, K is told in a market that would have gone unnoticed if the energy crisis hadn’t brought it to the fore.

The process of buying and selling firewood is specific. In the spring, forest management studies are completed on what and how many trees will be cut down in each forest, whether public or private. Further, the Forestry Workers’ Cooperatives (DASE) are responsible for cutting down trees, which those who spoke to “K” say is done year-round, although it usually stops in the winter, as they cause rain and snow. Access to forests is difficult, and consumers, logically, prefer dry wood. As soon as the trees are cut down, the workers of the cooperative take the firewood to the road. They are then auctioned off and bought by merchants.

“Research determines which forests and which trees will be auctioned,” Forestry Secretary General Konstantinos Arabosis told K. “Where there is no office, lumberjacks make a table of cuttings,” he adds. Since the process has remained the same, what has changed this year?

According to Yannis Sakellarakis, president of the Attica Solid Fuel Merchants Association, the reasons why firewood prices have risen so much this year vary. One of them is the impact of the war in Ukraine, as demand is much higher due to the energy crisis.

The war in Ukraine led to an energy crisis, production costs rose, as did demand, which led to a significant increase in prices.

“There has never been such a demand,” Dimos Eleftherakis, a firewood merchant in Florina, tells K. “Prices have risen because the cubic meters that we have reduced have remained the same, but demand has increased, people have started using stoves and fireplaces because electricity prices have risen,” said Antonis Lechos, President of DASE Ano Stavrou at K Thessaloniki.

“We have had work every year,” adds Dimitris, a member of DASE Katalonia in Katerini, “but this year is three times more than last year.” He himself, a co-op distributor who he says is also a retailer, stresses that demand was so great that it took until mid-November to deliver orders placed by customers in early August. “Everything that was cut out remains,” he says.

At the same time, firewood imports, which were mainly from Bulgaria, but also from North Macedonia, Albania and Romania, says Mr. Sakellarakis, have decreased by a lot, by about 80%, as well as their own domestic demand for firewood. rose. “The more limited supply is due to imports that have declined due to the war,” emphasizes Mr. Arabosis. Thus, not only is there less timber on the market (although last month a ban was announced on the export of timber from Greece to other countries until March 1 with a prison term of one year for violators), but cooperatives have almost a monopoly of timber this year. for sale to merchants. “Taking advantage of the increased demand due to the energy crisis and the lack of imports, manufacturers have raised prices,” Mr. Sakellarakis told K. But opinions differ.

“Prices have risen a little more, but daily wages are less,” Dimitris Gerasis, a DASE worker in Livadi, Thessaly, tells K. He points out that they themselves held an auction this year, which was attended by less than five bidders – it was at this auction that the price per cubic meter was about 15 euros more than last year. However, he notes that this year – again because of the war – their spending is higher due to higher prices for gasoline, as well as for animal feed, as they need both vehicles and animals – “at we have 130 animals in the cooperative,” he emphasizes. – go up the mountain, chop wood and carry along the road.

“The paddocks won, lost, those who suffer in the forest”

Antonis Lehos, DASE president Ano Stavrou, told K that they reduced the area by 1,496 cubic meters this year, last year and the year before. Last year, at the last auction held in October, a cubic capacity was sold for 42 euros. In October last year, one cubic meter was sold for 77 euros. “The auction price went up because they wanted wood,” he says, adding that at the first auction they held this year, at the end of August, 12 traders came and agreed to take all the wood at that price and share it among themselves. . it’s between each other. The fact that imports have practically stopped this year is positive for them, he stresses. “For us forestry cooperatives, it benefits and helps us,” says Mr. Lehos. “And the price rises a little, and we work harder – this year, when we stopped importing wood from abroad, we get a decent living wage,” he says.

“We benefit from increased demand,” notes Dimitris Gerasis from Livadi, Thessaly, “but the state does not see us anywhere as loggers – the last time they gave a subsidy for machinery and animals was in 2004.” He emphasizes that until the wood reaches consumers, the price will rise even more, because the costs of traders have also increased. The municipality of Eleftherakis also emphasizes the same, stating that it was not the reduction in imports that affected Florina – “they did not go to Florina, here we only have Greek wood,” he tells K, but the rise in fuel prices. “Last year a truck drove uphill for 150 euros to dump firewood, this year for 300 – it’s a huge mistake that consumers say that prices have risen only because of demand,” he says, adding that they themselves raised price of about 10 euros per cubic meter. “Demand has grown,” he notes, “but the whole problem is fuel – since they have risen, even truck insurance premiums have become 30-40 euros higher in half a year.”

Jordanis Bozatzidis, a retailer in Thessaloniki, told K that his own company also did not buy imported wood and that prices have increased by 30% this year compared to last year, which Konstantinos Kehagias, also a retailer, agrees with. Thessaloniki. However, Mr. Bozatzidis emphasizes that the situation has begun to normalize, as the weather is good. “The paddocks are full of firewood,” he says to “K.” “The auctions are already empty because the market is crowded and the weather is not helping, not cold enough to burn a lot of firewood,” adds Mr. Lehos. “It was a bubble that got such a boost in firewood,” he adds, “and we’ll be back to the same.”

But not all wood is cut down in state forests. “Most people here in the villages more or less cut themselves,” says Yannis Doukas, president of the Kalyvian Mantoudi Forestry Cooperative in Evia. “We don’t have auctions here, we export the wood ourselves as a cooperative and sell it ourselves, we also sell it to traders,” he says, emphasizing that their own forest is privately owned, but this does not mean that everyone cuts where they want. The forest is divided into stands, residents who have a plot turn to the forestry, which indicates which pine to cut down and which to leave.

As in the rest of Greece, the year started with a lot of demand, but the weather brought it to a halt. However, he emphasizes that since they had an abundance of wood due to burnt forest land, he sold 10 euros less cubic meters this year than last year. “Prices are raised in the corrals – whoever suffers in the forest is the loser,” he says to “K”, “the rest cook prices.”

For his part, the general secretary of the Forestry, Konstantinos Arabosis, told K that this year the state has stepped up checks on the phenomenon of speculation in the firewood market. “Some traders were piling up unsold quantities and creating an artificial scarcity—it artificially pushed the price up,” he says. He also emphasizes that this year an increase in compensatory prices for DA.SE loggers has been established. by 15%, and that they gave 4.5 million firewood free of charge or for a nominal fee. “We have instructed to give timber free of charge and to enable mountain dwellers to cut down trees in an organized or individual way,” says Mr. Arabosis, “we have strengthened this opportunity.”

Meanwhile, in a house in Athens, wood is burning sparingly in the fireplace. The merchant informs the owner that he has no firewood to deliver for the next two weeks…

⇒ News today