Forest Protection Blog

The Finnish are not touched by the recession.
It seems neither by their nature.
No more Nokia for me.
The pricture shown is very young pine growth.

There is a need to establish World Parks all over the planet where humans cannot go unless they go in light footprint way, some call no piston heads allowed.
In Canada, that would be the Arctic, the Rockies and all coasts and rivers for a start..
If we could pull humans back into a reserve area of say 10% of the planet, it might have a chance.
rb

Marc,
If you look closely at the picture, on the bottom, you see all the big pine trees have been cut and are lying there waiting to be picked up. These are high Arctic forests and not very productive to begin with, but they are ancient with hundreds of year old trees and natural structure, function and floristic composition. Here are several photo galleries which may capture this better:

* Photo galleries of unprotected forests in Upper Lapland
http://picasaweb.google.com/inariforests

* More photo galleries from the logging sites & the eight
largest unprotected old-growth forests in Forest Lapland
http://picasaweb.google.com/forestlapland
Glen

This is not from yesterday.We,as dutch people hollidaying in Scandinavia a lot,have driven in the late sixties in the north of Finland where the landscape was only existing of dead trees,kilometer after kilometer after kilometer.And in Sweden people told us in the south of Sweden trees didn't grow,but also didn't die,and the course was acid rain.Keep up the good work!

Hello,

I just signed a petition against the clearing of the forest in Lapland, and briefly read a Greenpeace report. I haven't found any mention of the possibility of filing a complaint against Finland before the European Commission for non-compliance with the 1992 Habitat directive and perhaps even with the 1979 Wild birds directive. With all the information in your possess it should not be a problem to get the Commission moving, although the procedure will be quite long.
Do you know if anything has already been done at all in this regard?

Thank you,

Mattia Fosci

Here is Stora Enso's reply:

Dear Stakeholder

In response to your e-mail, I would like to tell you about Stora Enso's position on old-growth forests and update you on Metsähallitus' loggings in Finnish Forest Lapland.

We are committed to protecting and restoring old-growth forests and have supported many multi-stakeholder processes to do so in Northern Finland since 1996. We do not buy wood from forests which have been defined as old-growth in a national stakeholder process, and this is clearly stated in our wood procurement principles.

Some Finnish environmental organisations have called for further protection in some areas where Metsähallitus has been logging. Metsähallitus has recognized these demands of the environmental organisations, and carried out further inventories in these areas last year. Some of these areas were reclassified as valuable old-growth in autumn 2008 and have been left out of commercial loggings. The other areas remain classified as normal commercial forests where loggings can be carried out.

Metsähallitus has no plans for further logging in the areas defined by the environmental organisations in Forest Lapland this winter.

Stora Enso's position is that we can receive wood from the areas as they meet FSC Controlled Wood requirements. Audits carried out by Stora Enso Wood Supply Finland in the logging areas confirm this.

Stora Enso is open for further dialogue with different stakeholders. We have recently discussed the matter with Greenpeace and Metsähallitus, and would like to continue this dialogue face to face, and preferably not through thousands of e-mails.

Yours sincerely

Jouko Karvinen

Well, Jouko Karvinen, I would be happy to discuss this matter with you face-to-face if you would pay for my flight. Since I breate the air on this planet I am particularly concerned that it remain sustainable to all life, including mine. I believe saving forests is the surest way to protect our planet.
For the Earth,
Iona Conner, Publisher
"The Order of the Earth: News, Views and Musings"
www.TheOrderOfTheEarth.com

Dear Dr Barry - only too happy to help. Is it not sad that one could spend the whole day signing petitions or writng letters to try and stop destruction of our precious Earth? I am currently writing to the Brazilian Justice Minister about the AWA tribe which is being destroyed by ranchers, loggers and settlers - only 300 left! Yours - Mr Greer Hart, Glasgow

Just looking at this reply - it looks like an invitation to a meeting with them?! - your 'thousands of emails' worked...

Do you have any registered Finnish members who are active and who could attend a meeting on EI's behalf??

Speak soon,

Jonathan

Seems you can buy a share of the company and support this proposal at the AGM.
I think it is not big news that StoraEnso has enough staff to meet with environmental groups. I would still encourage forests.org to meet with their rep atleast, which should cover a wide area through the sales network. A meeting face to face of 10 persons in different countries could make a big difference, maybe as big as 500 000 e-mail messages that could get filtered and automatically replied.

Greetings from Finland and thank you all for your concern! So far there is no breakthrough in sight but the pressure is on! Here are some comments on Mr Karvinen’s disappointing answer letter:

1. Stora Enso admits buying wood from Old-growth and virgin forests and is committed doing so in the future also. All the forests in NGO maps are reportedly valuable old-growth forests, most of them completely untouched by forestry. Metsähallitus has not made any inventories whatsoever on the natural values of these forests. No inventory report exists, they have merely published maps of the areas they want to log. Metsähallitus maps (http://www.metsa.fi/SIVUSTOT/METSA/EN/TOPICAL/FORESTLAPLAND/FORESTLAPLANDSITES/Sivut/ForestLaplandsites.aspx)
are severely false but even according to them virgin forests are being logged and will be logged in the future. They have now even logged areas that are told to be set aside (class 1).

2. Metsähallitus definately has further plans to log these areas, some being already marked for logging. At their webpage they clearly state their interests in exploiting almost all the productive forest land on the NGO maps. The major buyer is Stora Enso. Without SE buying the wood the logging activities would most likely come to an end.

3. FSC controlled wood. Stora Enso claims that the wood from Forest Lapland´s old-growth destruction would fullfill FSC´s requirements for controlled wood. Stora Enso tells that company´s own field audits confirm this. However, as is the case with any certification systems, it is not up to company itself to do the FSC-audits. According to FSC´s rules, audits can only be done by independent especially authorized auditing companies. Thus, the Stora Enso´s claim on FSC requirements is ridiculous. Furthermore, as Stora Enso speaks a lot about transparency in their corporate communications, Greenpeace has requested Stora Enso to be transparent and present the audit reports from Forest Lapland. However, Stora Enso has refused to do this. Just what kind of audits Stora Enso has made, when they do not even want to show them to their stakeholders?

4. There is no real dialogue between Stora Enso and the stakeholders. Stora Enso is willing to meet the NGOs only to be able to mention the words "stakeholder dialogue" in their PR, not to improve their environmental performance. Greenpeace forest campaigner met Stora Enso two weeks ago. Stora Enso representatives did not show any interest in changing their wood procurement policies then. Of course diplomacy is

that iz mind blowing..from this site i came to know abt the info of forest..

Ich denke, dass das Umweltbewusstsein langsam besser wird. Außerdem wird die Marktlücke Umweltschutz immer grösser, da ja auch der Bedarf steigt. So nimmt die Entwicklung auch langsam einen positiven Verlauf. Desweiteren sollte man auch die Wirtschaftskriese als Chance sehen, denn wenn alte Strukturen vernichtet werden, werden neue Strukturen wachsen. Wie die Natur so will wenn etwas Neues entsteht kann um weiten besser und moderner sein. Lass die Politik nur machen, die wollen alle nur Ihr Geldwelt retten und nicht unsere Umwelt. In der Politik geht’s nur um Macht und nicht um Idealismus.
Hier ist auch ein Tipp für euch zum Posten.
Soll kein Spam sein- Ich finde diese Seiten interessant
Umweltschutz im Bog
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Mit nachhaltigem Gruß
Heinz