A
very large majority of Finns – 86 per cent – wish to see more forest
protected, a fact reflected in many different studies.
The amount
of forest citizens think should be protected amounts to between 5–10
per cent of forest land. One Finn in five aged 15–74 visits a national
park annually at least once. More than half the citizens are prepared
to pay an annual fee for forest conservation and recreational use
of at least eight euros (currently there are no such charges). Equally
of note, a third of private Finnish forest owners support a reduction
in current logging levels if this is required for biodiversity to
be preserved.
In terms
of acquisition costs to non-governmental landowners the proposed forest
conservation programme in this volume would cost around 96 million
euros per year in 2003–2010 and 134 million euros in 2011–2020. As
a comparison, Finnish government support to the commercial private
forest sector in 2001 has been estimated at ca. 223 million euros.
Of this, only 4,2 million euros was for environmental works. Support
to the commercial forest sector should be phased out or environmental
support monies raised to the same level as commercial ones.
The proposed
forest conservation programme could be financed e.g. by a small biodiversity
levy on logged and imported timber. Currently virtually all biodiversity
conservation costs are borne by the state, while most of the problems
are caused by the commercial forest sector. Air and water pollution
issues have earlier been addressed with similar levies to pay for
the costs of mitigation.
Of forests
south of Lapland, 13 per cent or around two million hectares are on
average 100 years old or more.
Annual
logging and timber imports vs. employment in the Finnish forestry
sector 1970-2010. The employmnent forecast for 2003-2010 is by
the Finnish Ministry of Labour, the logging targets from the National
Forest Programme.
 |
A
= Current annual logging rate (2002)
B = Greatest estimated yield after full realisation of
the forest protection programme proposed in this volume
C = Estimated greatest annual timber yield in 2000-2030
with no additional forest conservation |
| |
Commercial
logging |
| |
Employment
total forest sector |
| |
Forestry
employment |
| |
Timber
imports |
Source:
Finnish Forest Research Institute
From an NGO publication Palaako elävä metsä? |
Partly
due to this reserve of mature forest, on a national scale the proposed
conservation programme would be unlikely to cause a dearth of timber
for industry before 2010, except to some sawmills dependent on local
quality timber supplies. In the longer term, when the whole conservation
programme has been realised, the greatest sustainable annual timber
harvest would gradually decline by an estimated 6–11 per cent. Annual
harvesting rates greater than currently practised would nonetheless
still be possible.
Automation
has rapidly reduced the labour force of the Finnish forest industry
sector, even though annual timber harvesting rates increased sharply
in the same period. Forest conservation effects on forest sector
job losses have been minimal. In contrast, the rapid rise of nature
tourism has demonstrated that in some cases forest conservation makes
good sense economically as well as ecologically. Recent employment
statistics and trends in the forest and tourist industries show that
the forest conservation programme proposed here, if appropriately
designed, would probably create more jobs than it forfeits.
Of particular
importance is to create in southern Finland more forested national
parks of sufficient size to be of interest to large numbers of visitors.
In addition to tourism, ecological restoration works within protected
forest areas can be expected to generate a significant number of jobs
for forestry professionals. Other important ways to improve employment
in the forest sector are to process timber further, and developing
the use of wood residues for power production. Particularly the
former measure, e.g. to export furniture and printed matter rather
than sawn timber and paper, has been neglected in recent Finnish national
forest sector development programmes. For example, Finland currently
imports twice times as much wood furniture from Denmark as it exports,
although the latter is totally dependent on imported raw timber.
[Excerpt
from an NGO-publication Palaako elävä metsä?]
