Finland is a well-known hotbed of developments in sustainable forest operations, the latest of which were showcased on a UBC Forestry-led delegation of 31 representatives from the BC government, forest industry, community forests and forestry associations that took place from September 24 to October 3, 2023. The expedition was organized and led by Faculty members Dominik Roeser, Assoc. Dean of Research Forests and Community Outreach, and Jorma Neuvonen, Asst. Dean of Professional Education and International Collaboration.
“There is a great deal of demand to find new forest management approaches to address some of the challenges facing the forest sector in BC right now,” states Dominik. “Finland is one of the world’s leading jurisdictions when it comes to active, sustainable forest management, which is why we decided to organize this delegation.”
The most densely forested country in Europe, Finland has long relied on a strong forest sector. Besides its traditional forest industry, Finland is known for its broad expertise in machine and equipment construction and exports. Around 60% of the country’s forested land is owned privately by local residents who run small-scale operations – many of which have been passed down over generations. Another 10% is owned by corporations, with the remaining approximate one-third owned by the state.
This land ownership arrangement contrasts with BC’s system of public ownership, where forests are parceled into tenures, with tenure holders often focused on maximizing timber access and near-term yields. The arrangement incentivized the buildout of higher-value monoculture tree plantations and fire suppression.
The negative consequences of these dramatically altered forest landscapes has included a reduction in forest resilience to the effects of climate change and pests, such as the mountain pine beetle that decimated over 50% of lodgepole pine forest in the province. BC’s forests have also become more vulnerable to catastrophic mega-fires, which have occurred with greater frequency and intensity. The four worst wildfire seasons on record took place within the past eight years, with the all-time record-breaking 2023 season resulting in 2,245 wildfires and 2,840,545 hectares burned.
“Not everything has gone well in Finland’s forest sector, either,” states Jorma. “We also wanted to learn from their mistakes so as not to repeat them, including the overly intensive forest management practices in Finland that have led to some biodiversity loss.”
“However, Finland has done an excellent job in many areas, including building up its bioeconomy and training foresters and forestry machine operators through university and college programs,” Jorma adds.
The Finland trip was organized to identify best practices and lessons learned that could be adopted in a BC context in order to seek solutions to some of the present challenges facing the BC forest sector.
Delegates on the Finland trip visited several forest operations in the country, and spoke with industry leaders. One of their first discussions was with representatives from Metsä Group wood supply and forest services, a co-operative owned by more than 90,000 Finnish forest owners, with an annual purchase of 24 million cubic metres of wood.
Members of the Metsä Group, along with many other forest operations in Finland, use forest thinning, also called selective harvesting, approaches in which wheeled harvesters and forwarders pluck individual trees, leaving much of the forest canopy and ecosystem untouched. This creates space between trees, improving stand vitality and resilience to pests and diseases.
The BC delegation was guided through the Nuuksio National Park near the capital Helsinki in the south of Finland to discuss park services, such as trails, amenities and visitor services, available there. About a 4320-kilometre-drive north-east of Helsinki, delegates visited the Arbonaut company’s head office in Joensuu to learn about its digital timber inventory, analysis and management services – used by over 30 companies around the world.
Also in Joensuu, the delegation toured the Joensuu Biomass District Heating Plant and future site of a biochar production facility. The Finnish government’s National Forest Strategy and Circular Bioeconomy Strategy support bio-based material industries, such as this, while also serving to align both the forest sector and government forestry staff around specific forestry goals and policies.
On the final day of the expedition, delegates visited the Metsä Group’s Bioproduct Mill in Äänekoski, located in central Finland, around a 275-kilometre-drive west of Joensuu. The mill uses 6.5 million cubic metres of wood annually to produce 800 thousand tonnes softwood pulp and 500 thousand tonnes of hardwood pulp per year, which the company transforms into raw materials used in paperboard, tissue, printing papers, and specialty products. The mill of around 250 employees is also 240% electricity self-sufficient, producing its own bio-based electrical energy, along with energy for the local community, and using no fossil fuels.
“Finland has solid forest monitoring systems that are helping them collect data and conduct inventory checks to inform decisions about which trees to remove, as well as all aspect of forest management, from timber yields to wildlife habitat, fire risk and biodiversity,” says Dominik. “Good monitoring can help us in BC, too, as we transition our operations to the new climate reality, and the reality that we re looking at more second growth trees over the next while to find value-added opportunities.”
At the close of the trip, several delegates put together the following suggested ideas for implementation in BC:
1. Develop a focused and coherent Forest Strategy that articulates BC’s vision and goals of linking First Nations values, resilient forests and a world-class forest sector.
2. Create and make publicly available detailed forest inventories using remote sensing, data science and forest inventory sources of information.
3. Incentivize investment and innovation in high-value timber objectives with clear, long-term strategies, predictability and cost recognition for a full growth cycle on a subset of forested land to be managed intensively.
4. Create best practices guides and training programs for intensive forest management by ecosystem/stand types.
5. Develop approaches to incentivize the increased utilization of all biomass at the time of primary harvest when it is economically reasonable to do so, e.g., in an intensive forest management zone.
6. Implement community heating systems for communities to create new markets for small diameter logs from thinnings and fuel treatments.
7. Develop a training school for specialized harvesting equipment operators.