Yesterday @guardianeco & @newscientist ran this story based on a @nresearchnews article - alarming headlines based on "satellite data". No-one involved in these stories or research seems to have checked to see if these findings made sense ... (thread)

If timber harvesting had increased by 49% (by area) - then there should be roughly,
49% more timber
49% more timber trucks on the road etc
Someone would notice these things - right ?
The EU collects stats on "roundwood production" - https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Wood_products_-_production_and_trade#Primary_wood_products

What the official data shows is that "round wood production" has increased by 21% between 2000-2018 - the @newscientist wrote that the increase was 69% between (roughly) 2012-2017.

It's worth looking at specific countries - For example, the researchers states that the area harvested in Italy increased by 125% but the official round wood production data shows a decline of 35% - yet no-one at @guardianeco @nresearchnews or @newscientist thought this strange

Timber harvesting has increased significantly (above EU average) in a number of countries - Poland, Germany, Czech, Austria, Sweden etc - i would guess this is mainly due to outbreak of Bark Beetle, exacerbated by recent droughts -

However the @nresearchnews thinks its due to increased international trade, and seems to dismiss bark beetles. I chat fairly regularly to foresters in central Europe, they are all clear that it is the beetle that is driving up harvesting & "salvage logging"

For clarity
I'm not a scientist, i've not analysed or checked sources.
I've simply compared the headlines, with EU data & used google.
I could well be mistaken &/or the EU data is fake but ...

... when writing forestry articles, its generally worth chatting a few foresters