The future of Finnish forest resources and forest landscapes

Because of an increasing world demand for paper and other forest products, the Finnish wood-using industries are expanding rapidly. This has raised serious concern about the future of forest resources. Clearing of land for agriculture has slightly decreased the forest area during recent decades. Today, however, the forest area is increasing, owing to peatland drainage and afforestation of surplus agricultural land. The growing stock of the forests has remained approximately unchanged during all the fifty years covered by repeated national forest inventories. Due to the present expansion of industry, however, intensive silvicultural measures are required to balance the increasing drain from the forests. Calculations show that, with feasible methods, by the year 2000 the annual increment of the forests could be raised by over 50 per cent, and measures have been taken to finance such a programme. Intensive silviculture (artificial reforestation, drainage, fertilization, etc.) will also change the forest scenery. In general, however, the changes will be small, as domestic tree species are favoured and rough terrain, rocky ground, and the Finnish type of forest ownership, prevent the establishment of large uniform monocultures. The biggest change in the scenery will be caused by the large-scale drainage of peat-bogs for forestry.