Metsiensuojelun tavoitteita 2000-luvun suomessa - BirdLife Suomi

Summary: Finnish forests and their protection statusby Sini HarkkiFinnish forests have been used for centuries, but the most significant changes in their characteroccurred with the advent of industrial forestry after World War II. Intensive forestmanagement together with the construction of forestry roads and drainage by extensiveditching have altered forests and bogs drastically. Together they have also caused a biodiversitycrisis to species unable to adapt to the altered conditions; in Finland forests holdmore threatened species than any other habitat type.Less than five percent of Finnish forests remain in a natural or semi-natural state, mostof them on state land in eastern and northern Finland. About half of these old-growthforests have been protected. Especially in southern Finland nearly all forests have been significantlyaltered by forest management and seldom offer suitable habitat for species requiringnatural forest conditions such as high levels of dead wood or relatively unfragmentedforest cover. As much as a fifth of Finnish forest species are dependent on dead wood forfood or shelter.Approximately 4,1 per cent of Finnish forest land has been protected from logging.”Forest land” is defined as land attaining tree growth of one cubic metre per hectare ormore annually. Most of these protected forests are situated in poorly productive areas innorthernmost Finland. In southern Finland all forest types need more protection (see figure5.8), while in northern Finland gaps in the protection network concern mainly old-growthforests important to species diversity, as well as some important for cultural heritage andlivelihoods such as reindeer herding. In northern Finland the forest protection networkcould still be improved with natural or semi-natural old-growth forests, whereas in southernFinland protection will need to be accompanied by widespread restoration works of habitatsalready heavily affected by forestry.Even a well-planned forest protection area network needs to be supplemented by measureswithin the surrounding commercial forests. Such measures were initiated in Finlandin the 1990s. The Nature Conservation and Forest Act were reformed in 1997, the latternow defining seven types of forest key habitats to be preserved when carrying out timberremoval. Some habitats worthy of inclusion were left out, however, and the law does notencourage retaining sufficient buffer zones around the key habitats (the average forest keyhabitat in Finland averages considerably less than one hectare in size). Also, a great numberof forest key habitats are still cut or damaged during logging operations. Forest managementguidelines have also been modernised to include e.g. recommendations on leaving retentiontrees when clearcutting, but recent research has questioned the ecological efficacy of thesemeasures.55