Finland, my home country, is supposedly famous for it’s forests. Finns are often seen as folk of the nature. This postcard image, however, certainly isn’t the whole picture. In fact, it is a very far cry from the truth. Even though there certainly are some national parks with majestic forests still left, the quintessential national landscape is actually a very different one.

The new national landscape

Let’s take a look at the typical finnish landscape. The truth is that there are very few old natural forests left in this country. True wilderness is long gone. We have very short logging cycles that don’t allow the forests to grow old, before they are wiped out. Finland is abundant with woodlands, but they are, for the most part, commercial woods that are, in the eyes of their owners, nothing more than property and financial prospects. Logging is a huge industry and the defacto model for turning forest into money is something called clearcutting.

Clearcutting means wiping an entire forest down to the ground. It is concidered to be the most economically profitable, and therefore the most common method of logging. It is often referred as forest management, which is a silly euphemism that tries somehow to justify the trail of it’s destruction. The thing is that forests don’t need any maintenance help from humans. They were here long before us and they would do much better with any artificial management. There are many etchical problems associated with clearcutting and I’m certainly not a fan of the practice myself. It is horrible for biodiversity and for the climate. Furthermore it looks awful, rendering this country to the polar opposite from the image that we try to convey. It is a sad state of affairs, coming from a nation that is supposed to be a nature loving country. A clearcut forest is our new national landscape.

”Undisturbed forests are crucial for a healthy climate, continuously taking carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it in trees, shrubs and soil. But logging can transform a swath of forest from a carbon “sink” into a carbon source, not only destroying CO2-absorbing trees but emitting tons of new greenhouse gases in the process. Clearcutting — the most CO2-spewing logging method of them all — is meanwhile devastating to wildlife, habitat and water quality.” (Center for biological diversity)

Loggers knocking on the door

About a week ago, I heard some sounds of heavy machinery. One look from the kitchen window revealed a beast of a forest machine, that started to take down the trees from a forest, just a stone throw away from our house. It took only few hours to completely reshape the entire view. I was very upset and I still feel sick looking at the devastation. I don’t recognise the landscape anymore and it doesn’t feel like home. It will take forever to get used to the demolished landscape.

Environmentalists, traditional owners, local residents and others have regularly campaigned against clearcutting. I’m certainly one of them as well, even though I feel powerless in doing anything about it. I cannot even begin to describe how shitty and upset I felt watching the forest coming down in front of my eyes. The only thing to do was to document the devastation and somehow express an opinion about it. I can only hope that the photos will do at least some justice.

Disregard for the wildlife

Forests aren’t property. They are habitats. Home for wildlife. This particular clearcutting exercise took place during the spring nesting season. It should be common sense that you don’t fell trees when there are birds nesting in them. Some people have absolutely no respect for wildlife. God knows how many baby birds got killed during this logging, not to mention the countless others that are taking place at elsewhere. The timing was unbelievably bad with total disregard of other living creatures. What kind of nature loving nation are we supposed to be? Finns love to brag about their special relationship with the nature, but there is a huge dissonance with the actions that we take and how we speak about ourselves. There are other logging models out there, such as selective logging, that are more environmentally friendly, but for one reason or another, it is a far rarer method. An entire forest shouldn’t have to be wiped down in order to profit from it.

Forests have other values than the financial ones. In fact, they should be the lowest priorities, but unfortunately economics seem to be the main driver.