Finland’s forests: Why leave the fox in charge of the henhouse?
13 November 2024
After a scandal revealed that Stora Enso logging operations had crushed IUCN and EU-listed critically endangered freshwater pearl mussels, the company temporarily suspended operations in areas protected under various Finnish laws until it could ‘reassess’ risks and harvesting plans. The scandal provokes a much larger question across EU Member States: With the biodiversity and climate stakes so inexpressibly high, why is compliance with nature protection rules left increasingly to the voluntary cooperation of private industry?
In late summer 2024, contractors working for Stora Enso drove logging machinery through a riverbed in Hukkajoki, central Finland, destroying more than a thousand rare mussels, Margaritifera margaritifera, a priority species under the EU Habitats Directive, and causing broad disturbance to their populations. The destruction was halted and exposed only when a biologist studying the mussels – a woman – asked the machinery driver to stop. (His misogynistic response appears to have sparked some women to send bras to Stora Enso, both to highlight that an attitude of disrespect often encompasses more than just nature conservation and to lighten the mood).
The situation, which local police are investigating as an environmental crime, caused widespread upset throughout Finland, especially as such environmental destruction occurs regularly (a similar river-crossing occurrence involving the same subcontractor occurred at about the same time, as did destruction of Siberian jay habitat).
After its own inspections of the sites, however, Stora Enso concluded that no irregularities had been found and resumed logging operations.
In the Hukkajoki case, the worker was dismissed. Locals in the nearby village were dismayed by the pearl mussel destruction in Hukkajoki, but feel also that the blame lands too squarely on workers, and too little on company leaders. Stora Enso has promised to pay to redress the situation – in so far as possible. The surprisingly long-lived (more than a century!) Margaritifera margaritifera may still be numerous in certain areas, but they have not successfully reproduced in many sites they occupy in decades; given their complex life cycle, it is unlikely that, once destroyed, their populations can recover.
FANC, a large Finnish environmental organisation, called for loopholes in the Forest Act to be closed so as to address forestry’s impact on water bodies, to expand obligations under the Water Act and to better integrate the EU Nature Restoration Law’s target of restoring 25,000 kilometres of river basin (FW 297). They especially underscore the need for better enforcement. Greenpeace Finland also emphasised the forestry industry’s continued opposition to enforceable legislation, and the overly cooperative relationship between companies and authorities when noncompliance is found.
Despite public indignation, the government chose to accept the company’s plan, and the environment minister held a joint press conference with industry representatives where they outlined a five-point plan of voluntary measures to prevent further destruction. The approach was severely criticised by the NGOs and private forest owners alike.
Finland is among the Member States whose forests are collapsing largely under the weight of over-harvesting (FW 270; FW 276). In Germany and Estonia, land-use sectors are now net carbon emitters rather than carbon sinks. A lax approach to anything resembling enforcement of environmental obligations is helping ensure that the EU will completely miss its 2030 climate targets and fail to rescue its freefalling biodiversity. Against the current backdrop of violent climate events, authorities continue to rely largely on company self-policing. Perhaps Finland’s local police will come to a less minimalist conclusion in the ongoing investigation (and others), but at present the only lasting result of the scandal appears to be that public confidence in the Finnish forest industry has been deeply shaken.
Image credit: Risto Sauso / Greenpeace
Categories: News, Forest Watch, European forests
