ANP
NOS News•
Since energy prices have risen, more and more wood is disappearing from the forests across the country. This is reported by the Royal Dutch Association for Nature Surveillance, which, among other things, directs the so-called green boas, the special investigating officers charged with supervision and enforcement of nature legislation.
“We see people who pack backpacks and prams with wood blocks. And if you do that a few times a week, you will have a cubic meter of wood lying around,” says chairman Rolf Overdiep.
It mainly concerns wood that can go directly into the stove. The wood has been bought and already chopped and split and is in piles waiting for the owner to pick it up. “But then it’s already gone. People sometimes even come to a forest or estate with a trailer to take it away. It’s just theft.”
Overdiep attributes the increase in wood theft to the energy crisis. This also influences the price of wood: it has now risen from around 75 euros to 300 to 400 euros per cubic meter. “It’s just very lucrative to take it away.”
A lump of wood
In Drenthe, too, they see that more wood is being taken from the forests. Manager Joop Hellinga of the foundation Het Drentse Landschap can be very angry about it.
“Recently, a few cubic meters of oak wood was stolen here, probably with a large tractor. It picked up that lump of wood here and drove away with it,” he says in the NOS Radio 1 Journal.
It was not about a few dead trunks, but about thick sawn oak trunks. But fallen wood or dead wood is also increasingly being taken along.
It suddenly got paws.
Loek Hendrikx of Limburgs Landschap has the same observation. In South Limburg, fallen wood often disappears quickly, he says. “It suddenly got legs.”
Sawn wood also disappears more often than in previous years, especially wood that is located next to a bicycle path or road and is therefore easily accessible. In addition, more illegal logging is also reported in Central Limburg, says Hendrikx.
At Het Geldersch Landschap they see that “manageable wood” is taken from the forests a little more often. But not to such an extent that alarm should be sounded, says a spokesman.
Nature organization Staatsbosbeheer also sees no reason to sound the alarm. “In winter, the number of people who bring wood from the forests always increases slightly and we are now at a level that is comparable to previous years,” says spokesperson Imke Boerma.
According to Drenthe nature manager Hellinga, it is difficult to track down the thieves. “We are now going to hang more cameras, because tractors now also have a number plate. I have heard that in Germany they have already started hiding track-and-trace chips in the wood, so that they can follow the thief and in the grab collar.”
Red-handed
Rolf Overdiep of the green boas also sees something in this, but the organization is not yet actively involved in this. For the time being, the main focus is on more surveillance, especially during the night hours. The advantage of this is that you immediately get involved in other offenses as well, he says.
“We are now regularly in the woods for hours, so you also take those poachers or trailers full of stone dust and broken toilet bowls that are dumped.”
But it works best to post at the entrances of estates where processed wood is located. Then the wood thieves are arrested on the spot. “Then you have a red-handed and you can immediately seize the vehicles and trailers.”
