Hirsilinna hirsitalot ja hirsimökit

Here in Finland a landmark legal case is brewing about forest treatment. Single forest owner is being accused of mismanaging his forest.

According to the government dictated forestry regulations, one can only cut as much as sustainable development requires. What do you think that means in practise?

It means that if the owner wants to leave the forest into natural state, owner is allowed to do that. However, if the owner wants to cut trees, owner must follow the law about forest treatment. The law states very clearly, how many trees there must be left standing and how big they should be. After this comes whole slate of different treatment measures. This bureaucratic system leads into forest cultivation, is that sustainable development?

In this case, the enforcing forestry official says that the area, which was cut, should have been cut almost to the bare bones, then treat the soil and plant pine trees instead of firs that used to be dominant tree on the location.

Government now demands 10 000 euro from the forest owner, because he cut only the biggest trees and left everything else on natural state. Owner now wonders the rigid practise, because he has been managing his forests in the same traditional manner for over fifty years and they all grow just fine.

Any cumbersome laws limiting forest management on your area?

BEETLE PROBLEM
Title has those magic words that spell the reason for cheap Canadian lumber. Warm winters and dry summers have set favorable reproducing conditions for beetles and beetle population has grown out of control. Now those beetles are out there and wiping out forests.

PROBLEM SOLUTION
The weapon that Canadian forestry authorities can use against the beetle is clearcutting. Other plans are in the works and scientists are experimenting on products that could use beetle-felled trees as their raw material (burning is always possible, but might not be as profitable as something else). Time is of essence here and product development is unlikely to come to rescue. All this results in rising piles of trees, which need buyers. This in turn results into sinking lumber prices and rising U.S. lumber tariffs.

WHAT ABOUT LOG HOMES?
On the log homes and cabin front, Denim Pine is already using beetle-killed pines as raw material for log homes. Firstly such an idea doesn’t sound too appealing, because we all try to keep our log homes free of any dubious growth, but let’s take a moment to study the matter. That will be the topic for my next post though.

Picture and various information of this otherwise cute beetle can be found here. Read detailed article of mountain pine beetle infestation.