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Contents:
1.
The amount of old-growth forests
2. Conservation situation
3. Legislation and old-growth forests
4. Forest ownership
5. The future of old-growth forest species
6. Logging
7. The debate on old-growth forests
8. Action needed
1. The
amount of old-growth forests
Old-growth
forests (i.e. virgin forests, natural forests, and semi-natural forests)
have become rare in Finland. Estimations on the exact amount of these
forests vary between 5.5% and 8.7% (about 1,740,000 hectares) of the
total forest area in Finland.
In southern
Finland, the situation is even worse. Because of the different history
of land use it is more complicated to estimate the amount of old-growth
forests in southern Finland than it is in the northern part of the
country. However, it is obvious that in southern Finland less than
1% of the total forest area is old-growth.
Most
Finnish old-growth forests are located on state-owned land near the
Finnish-Russian border. These sites are pieces of the so-called
'Green Belt of Fennoscandia'.
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2. Conservation
situation
It has
been calculated that only 3.6% of Finland's forest
land is protected. This figure rises to 6.6% if scrub land is
also included. However, scrub land has scarce forest cover (sometimes
even treeless) and is usually of little value for forest conservation.
In southern
Finland, the amount of the protected forests will be just over 1%
of the total forest area once all protection programs are complete
(today the figure is only 0.3%). It is important to note that most
of the protected forests in southern Finland are young forests and
really cannot be categorized as old-growth.
In
summary, only half of all natural forests in Finland are protected.
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3. Legislation
and old-growth forests
The Finnish
Forest Act as well as the Nature Conservation Act have recently been
renewed. Among other things, the acts included lists of protected
habitat types. However, old-growth forests are not included in these
lists. Thus, new legislation does not help to protect old-growth forests.
In addition, new forest management recommendations are of little help
for conserving such valuable forests, despite the slightly softer
management methods (e.g. green-tree retention and smaller logging
areas).
Within
the EU Habitats Directive, boreal old-growth forests ("Western taiga
forests") are a priority habitat type whose natural state must be
maintained or restored. The conservative status of a natural habitat
listed in Annex I of the Habitats Directive is favorable when:
- Its
natural range and the area it covers within that range are stable
or increasing.
- The
specific structure and functions that are necessary for its long-term
maintenance exist and are likely to continue to exist in the foreseeable
future.
- The
conservation status of its typical species is favorable.
None
of these criteria are fulfilled in the case of Finnish old-growth
forests. This was stated in the EU authority meeting held in Sweden
on April 1999, where the conservation of old-growth forests was recognized
as being insufficient by the Finnish Natura 2000 proposal. The EU
is now waiting for a complementary proposal.
All
existing natural forests in Finland should be preserved either as
reserves defined by law or as protected forests defined by the Finnish
Forest and Park Service.
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4. Forest
ownership
Most
Finnish forests are privately owned (around 54.2%). However, in the
most important old-growth region of eastern and northern Finland,
nearly all old-growth forests are state-owned. These state-owned
forests are managed by the Finnish Forest and Park Service.
Even
in southern Finland a remarkable share of these valuable forests are
owned by companies, church, cities, municipalities, and forest commons.
Some of the unprotected old-growth forests in southern Finland are,
however, situated on the lands of ordinary private individuals - which
may make protection of these forests more complicated.
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5. The
future of old-growth forest species
Due to
the fragmentation of old-growth forests and a decrease in their total
area, a great number of species characteristic to old-growth forests
have become threatened or already extinct. A total of 727 forest-dwelling
species are classified as threatened in Finland. An estimated 15-20%
of the species within a few well-known groups of old-growth specialists
(e.g. beetles and bracket fungi) are already listed as being extinct
or very close to extinction.
However,
the most important threat to these species is the so-called 'extinction
dept' - The disappearance of old-growth forests has mostly taken place
during the latest few decades and in the last old-growth fragments
living species which will become extinct as time passes still exist.
The long-term survival of these species is not possible in small fragmented
forests. It has been estimated that 1,000 forest species will become
extinct in Finland within the coming decades-centuries even if all
current old-growth forest areas are protected. If the logging of old-growth
forests continues, the wave of extinction will be even greater. A
corresponding extinction trend is also taking place in groves, swamp
woods, and other wooded habitats.
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6. Logging
All unprotected
old-growth forests in Finland are acutely threatened by logging. The
logging plans of some of these forests have already been drawn on
paper, while others are being logged at this very moment. During 1997-1998
the Finnish Nature League reported
dozens of old-growth loggings on state-owned land by the Forest and
Park Service. Several ready-planned, marked-on-field loggings are
known for the winter of 1999-2000. Wood from these loggings travels
to Finnish and foreign markets mainly through StoraEnso,
UPM-Kymmene, and Vapo.
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7. The
debate on old-growth forests
Finnish
environmental NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) have demanded
a moratorium for the last remaining old-growth forests, which would
include refraining from forest road construction, logging, and logging
plans until inventories of these areas have been completed and the
valuable areas protected. In January 1998, Finnish NGOs provided the
Forest and Park Service and representatives of the forest industry
with maps of the most valuable state-owned old-growth forest areas.
However, the forest industry has refused a moratorium for Finnish
forests, despite having joined the corresponding moratorium in Russia.
The Finnish
Forest and Park Service performs so-called 'landscape ecological planning'
on state-owned land and advertises that these plans will protect the
natural values of the unprotected old-growth forests. However, landscape
ecological planning has not stopped the logging of old-growth forests.
When studying the published plans, it is to see that only some of
the old-growth forests are protected (mostly as small, dispersed islands),
while most remain in logging plans as managed forests.
Logging
of the last old-growth forests in Finland has also drawn the attention
of customers. For example, six
major Dutch companies that spend roughly 600 million FIM a year
on Finnish paper (5% of the total export of Finnish forest products)
have twice questioned the practices of the Finnish forest industry
and demanded that the logging of old-growth forests stop. "In the
future we may buy less paper from Finland", said member of the board
L.J. de Graauw from Wegener Arcade on January 17, 1999.
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8. Action
needed
To prevent
the threats discussed within this paper from coming true, the following
measures must be taken:
- Old-growth
forest areas designated within the moratorium maps published by
the Finnish NGOs in January 1998 must be protected. In addition,
the named but not mapped old-growth forest areas located in southern
and central Lapland must be protected.
- The
need for forest conservation within the forests of Lapland must
be examined and logging must be stopped until clear results have
been obtained.
- A
systematic inventory of the forests in southern Finland must be
carried out within state-owned as well as private forests and all
forests with old-growth characteristics must be protected.
- Larger
restoration areas must be created around the old-growth forests
of southern Finland, particularly on state-owned land. The tree
cover of these areas needs to be left untouched, and in some cases
actively restored.
- Landscape
ecological planning must be discontinued until serious problems
with the planning procedure have been corrected.
To reach
these goals, the following political decisions are necessary:
- The
profit goal of the Finnish Forest and Park Service must be considerably
reduced. State-owned forests in southern Finland must be divided
into
1) areas to be restored and later
protected, and
2) areas to be used in exchange for
protecting private forests.
Commercial use of these forests has no grounds.
- The
short-term, socio-economic impacts of the additional protection
of old-growth forests in eastern and northern Finland must be addressed.
- A
clear financing program must be compiled for the protection of privately
owned old-growth forests, perhaps following the Swedish example.
This program must make possible the protection of around 100,000
hectares of old-growth forests in the near future.
- Both
the criteria and application of the Forest Act must be changed to
better protect the natural values of wooded habitat types. For example,
old-growth forests with abundant dead wood must be added to the
list of valuable habitat types.
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