In 1996, the public ranked the forestry industry as more environmentally damaging than oil, gas, coal, and mining. We—the renewable, carbon-storing sector—lost a perception battle to fossil fuels.

Here's what makes this worse: we operate in what I call the “open factory.” Unlike steel mills, chemical plants, or dairy farms, forests are open to the public. Anyone can walk through them. Form opinions. Feel emotions. Take photos. Every weekend, millions of people visit our “industrial area” (in some countries they are literally classified as such) without permission, without understanding what they're seeing.

A concrete factory can hide behind gates. We can't. Our work is visible, emotional, and constantly judged by people who don't understand forest management.

And for 30 years, we did nothing to explain it to them…

Most of us remember the 1990s and 2000s. We watched Greenpeace campaigns. We saw contracts cancelled. We implemented certifications. We improved practices. We managed forests better than ever in human history. And public opinion got worse.

This isn't about blaming anyone. It's about understanding what happened—so we stop making the same mistake. Because right now, EUDR implementation is costing us millions, driven by the same public distrust we failed to address decades ago.

The Timeline We All Lived Through

1992: Rio Earth Summit put forests on the global agenda. Environmental consciousness went mainstream. Public attitudes shifted. Yet most companies kept doing business as usual. We were managing sustainably. Replanting. Following regulations (and still do to this day). We assumed that would be enough.

1993: Clayoquot Sound (BC, Canada) became a battleground. Over 850 arrests blocking logging operations. Media called it “the War in the Woods.” Industry response? Technical explanations about sustainable yield. Press releases about replanting rates. Greenpeace showed up with boats and journalists. We showed up with forestry science. Guess which made better television.

1996: The wake-up call we ignored. Public perception surveys showed forestry was seen as more damaging than oil, gas, coal, mining, and hydro-electric industries. We were planting more trees than we cut. Our product stored carbon. We were renewable. The public thought we were worse than coal. We continue to do so, but unfortunately the public does too…

2006–2013: The decade that changed everything. Greenpeace launched coordinated market campaigns targeting consumer brands, not governments. McDonald's was forced to demand deforestation-free soy from suppliers after Greenpeace's Amazon campaign. Nestlé capitulated in eight weeks during the Kit Kat palm oil campaign. Major food companies including Unilever, Kraft, and Burger King suspended contracts with palm oil suppliers linked to deforestation. The pressure was relentless and effective.

Your company might have been affected. Or you lost a customer who was.
What was the industry doing? More certifications. More technical reports. More trade association meetings. We kept perfecting forestry while losing every single narrative battle.

The Greenpeace Playbook: A Business Case Study

They Hired Journalists, We Hired Foresters
Greenpeace was founded in 1971 by journalists and ecologists. Communication was their core competency from day one. By the mid-1980s they had 5 million supporters, celebrity endorsements from Sting and Elton John, professional PR staff, multi-million dollar budgets. How many companies at your last trade association meeting have dedicated PR staff? That gap explains everything.

They Told Stories, We Published Data
Remember the orangutans at Nestlé's shareholder meeting? Eight-week campaign. Nestlé capitulated. What was your industry association publishing that month? Probably a technical bulletin on sustainable yield.
Which one does the public remember?

Greenpeace understood: people don't make decisions based on data. They make decisions based on stories and emotions. We gave them FSC labels. They gave them baby orangutans. We lost.

They Coordinated Pressure, We Responded Individually
Greenpeace ran multi-channel campaigns: street protests, shareholder meetings, consumer boycotts, social media, investor pressure—all coordinated, all simultaneous. When they targeted a company, pressure came from everywhere. Industry response? Individual companies issued statements. Trade associations sent letters. Uncoordinated. Reactive. Defensive. We brought technical reports to a media war.

Why We Failed: The Uncomfortable Truth

We Assumed Being Right Was Enough
We were managing forests sustainably. Replanting more than we harvested. European forest area was increasing. (And we still do so.) We assumed these facts would defend themselves. They didn’t. Framing matters as much as facts. We had truth. We never framed it effectively. Environmental groups did.

We Didn't Explain What People Don't Understand
Here's the fundamental problem: people think forests are static. Where there's forest, it's been there forever. Cut it, and it won't grow back.
But we know about succession. Forests evolve and die in natural cycles. It's just too slow for human perception. We also have legal obligations to replant. We know this. The public doesn’t.

And there's another contradiction nobody explains: people love wood furniture. They also love birdsong and green forests. But they don't automatically connect these dots—that getting wood requires harvesting. We never told them. We assumed they understood.

We Let Engineers Do PR
Most people making communication decisions in forestry weren't trained in communications. We're foresters, engineers, biologists. We understand growth rates and sustainable yield. Those skills don't translate to public relations.
Greenpeace hired professional communicators. We promoted technical experts to communication roles. They didn't figure it out.

We Had No Coordinated Response
Forestry is thousands of small and medium operators. Coordination is hard. Getting everyone to fund central PR is harder. Greenpeace was a coordinated global network. One message. One strategy. In a PR war, fragmentation loses every time.

We Thought Products Spoke for Themselves
Wood is everywhere. Everyone uses it daily. It is present from cradle to coffin. We assumed this meant people understood where it came from and how forests were managed. They didn’t. Most people had—and still have—no idea European forests were growing, not shrinking. That wood is renewable. That forestry is regulated. That we replant more than we cut.
Environmental groups filled that communication vacuum: logging destroys forests. Period.

What It Costs Us Today

EUDR: The Price of Lost Trust
The EU Deforestation Regulation reflects decades of public distrust. It demands geolocation data with precision that's extremely difficult to obtain under dense forest canopy. GPS signals degrade significantly beneath tree cover—a technical reality every forester knows but policymakers overlooked.
The regulation treats legal European forestry operations with the same scrutiny as illegal tropical logging. Why? Because three decades of environmental campaigns created a perception that forests will disappear without strict oversight and that the greatest enemy of the forest is the forester.

Compliance costs vary widely—from tens of euros per ton for large operations to hundreds for smallholders—but the regulatory burden falls heaviest on those least able to afford it. Small forest owners are considering not harvesting rather than dealing with the complexity. This is what lost public trust looks like in regulatory form.

Every Regulation Is a Perception Tax
Look at recent forestry regulations. Harvest restrictions. Protected areas. Certification requirements. What drives these? Public pressure from environmental groups who won the narrative 30 years ago. We're not paying for bad forestry. We're paying for bad public relations.

The Greenwashing Trap
When Canadian forestry finally launched modern PR—“Forestry For The Future”—it was immediately labeled “deceptive propaganda” by environmental journalists and NGOs. That's what happens when you try PR after 30 years of silence. You're fighting entrenched distrust. The time to do PR was 1995. We're trying in 2025. The deficit is enormous.

The Path Forward

Accept the Reality
We face a 30-year trust deficit. It cannot be closed with a few campaigns. Greenpeace spent three decades building their narrative. Changing it takes time. Some damage may be permanent. A generation grew up believing forestry destroys forests. Changing that is generational work.

What Already Exists (And Why It's Not Enough Yet)
Good initiatives exist. The FAO Forest Communicators Network, established in the early 1990s, connects over 200 professionals across 40+ countries. Forest pedagogy programs operate across Europe. Companies do excellent local outreach. But they're fragmented. Underfunded. Not coordinated at industry scale. They're like bringing a knife to a gunfight where the opponent has artillery.

Learn from Unexpected Places
Think about what Elon Musk did with electric cars. He took something unsexy and marginalized—dorky electric vehicles nobody wanted—and made them aspirational. Cool. Something people are crazy about.
Can we do that with sustainable forest management? Make it not just acceptable, but actually desirable? Show the innovation, the technology, the environmental benefits in ways that inspire rather than defend?

Tesla didn't win by explaining battery chemistry. They won by making electric cars sexy.
Can forestry become sexy? Can sustainable management become aspirational?

What We Must Do Now

Individual companies: Invest in professional communications staff. Tell your sustainability story well. Be proactive, not defensive.

Trade associations: Coordinate industry-wide messaging. Fund professional PR campaigns. Train members in media relations. Create content for mass media, not just trade publications.

As an industry: Accept that this requires significant investment. Recognize coordination is essential. Be patient—this is long-term work. Learn from environmental groups. They won for a reason.

It's Not Enough to Be a Forester

In the modern world, it's not enough to be someone—a forester, a forest's guardian, a sustainable manager. You must also be seen as one.

We operate in the open factory. Everyone walks through. Everyone judges. Everyone forms opinions. And we left those opinions to environmental groups who had better stories, better communicators, and better coordination.

Every EUDR form you fill out, every certification audit, every regulatory constraint—those exist because we lost a public relations battle in the 1990s and 2000s. We won the forestry. We lost the narrative.

The question isn't whether we should have invested in PR three decades ago. Obviously we should have. The question is: what are we doing about it now?

Because the next generation of foresters will judge us the same way we're judging the generation that went silent in the 1990s. The industry is watching. The public is watching. Environmental groups are still out there, still professional, still coordinated, still telling their story.

Are we going to tell ours?

About the author:
Peter Hasulyó is a licensed forest engineer and founder of ForestryBrief, a European forestry intelligence service read by professionals across 15+ countries. With 25 years of experience in translation, journalism, and forestry, he specializes in the intersection of forest management, regulation, and industry communication. He previously worked as a journalist for Nimród hunting magazine and co-organized several industry venues. Last but not least: he is a contrarian thinker.

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LinkedIn: Peter Hasulyó | Email: peter@forestrybrief.com