site.bta"People Cannot Count on Firewood for Decades," Expert Tells National Radio

"Demand for wood by high-quality product manufacturers will yet be increasing, and people will be unable to compete with the factories and afford the high prices, so they should better switch to an alternative heating fuel," environmentalist Alexander Dountchev said in a National Radio interview Monday morning. "People can't rely on using firewood for decades to come," he argued.

Dountchev, who formerly headed the Executive Forest Agency, explained that before the COVID crisis forestry farms survived by cutting the production of firewood and increasing its export, responding to a gradual decrease in demand from users who opted for natural gas, pellets or electricity.

"Now that the prices of gas and electricity have surged, everybody rushed to stock up on firewood. This spike in demand clashed with the orders of factories, which have invested in capacity building and job creation," the expert pointed out.

He described the ban on export as "totally pointless" because nobody can stop the truckloads of wood being resold and reach Greece or Turkey.