I'm actually a fan of 'tree farms': responsible forestry, specific areas of land dedicated to monocultures of useful tree species that are grown, harvested, replanted, and harvested again.
That's very different from what's seen in Estonia, where there's logging in national parks, and random plots of land in the forest are clear-felled.
Ten years ago you'd drive through the countryside and enjoy the trees, uninterrupted stretches of old forest. These days you drive and count the number of empty spots where someone has owned a plot and cleared it. This article talks about that: a village where beautiful, specific tracts of land with wonderful nature just -- vanished.
I’m not. Or, rather, not a fan of turning >100,000 km^2 of forest into tree farms, with another 100,000 being spared the fate simply because exploiting it is not economically viable.
I’m Finnish, and us Finns like to talk about our special relationship with nature, and how we haven’t turned all of our forests into ships, fuel, and farmland like the West Europeans have. And that’s true. 75% of the country is covered in trees. We industrialized too late to have done much of the former two, and the climate and soil types aren’t very conducive to the latter except in the south-western parts of the country.
But.
By and large, those trees exist because it’s considered economically important for them to exist. Over 95% of the forests in the southern half of the country are far from their untouched state – they haven’t seen a natural process of succession, or ecological diversity, in generations. They are tree plantations, not real forests.
The destructive practice of clear-cutting was literally the only legally allowed method of harvesting until very recently, and it’s still preferred by all but the most ecologically aware land owners because old habits die hard.
Finnish forestry practices are proudly being called sustainable – and indeed they are when it comes to raw yields and economic output. (That’s changing as well, though, as plantations are getting harvested younger and younger, for a quicker return on investment – as in, 50–60 years rather than the recommended 90–100!)
But for a long time, that very narrow economical viewpoint of sustainability is all that mattered, and indeed many forest owners (often including the state itself) cannot even fathom that their practices could be somehow unsustainable. The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has quite a bit of power, and there’s an obvious conflict of interests in having the double portfolio of both protecting natural land and exploiting it economically.
Many if not most Finns now think that managed forest is what forests are supposed to be like because they have never seen real, ecologically diverse woodland with ongoing natural succession. Sure, it still beats the alternative of having little forest cover, and broad freedom to roam rights mean anyone can use Finnish forests for recreation, whether privately owned or not, but as it becomes more and more clear that climate change simply cannot be tackled independently of the loss of biodiversity, but rather those two issues are deeply interweaved.
> The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has quite a bit of power, and there’s an obvious conflict of interests in having the double portfolio of both protecting natural land and exploiting it economically.
When writing the article, multiple people I spoke to said the same think about the RMK here in Estonia. I believe preservation and exploitation should be separated.
> they have never seen real, ecologically diverse woodland with ongoing natural succession.
Yes! And even I have only rarely. It only happens with time and care (often, to make it faster in terms of restoration of forests, specific caretaking/treekeeping actions) though. And the time is decades to centuries.
Estonian forests are not that old as you would guess.
The main land use changes in Estonia during the 20th century have been the
decrease in agricultural land from 65% in 1918 to 30% in 1994 and the
increase in forests from 21% to 43%, respectively.
True. That's still thirty years, fifty years, eighty years, up to a century... Estonia is very fortunate to have had such forest density, and it's rare among European countries. It is not something -- IMO -- to be casual about decreasing. It takes a long time to regrow that: decades!
> I'm actually a fan of 'tree farms': responsible forestry, specific areas of land dedicated to monocultures of useful tree species that are grown, harvested, replanted, and harvested again.
I'm not. Here in Australia they're planted on farm land, and taking that land out of food production. The growing of trees depletes the soil. They grow Bluegums, which are thirsty trees and deplete the water-table. Then the land is abandoned. The food still needs to come from somewhere! Which probably means more forest cleared elsewhere.
As the report on wood pellet production linked in your article mentions:
> Estonia is a forest-rich country; 51 per cent of the territory is covered by trees. Most forests in the country are classified as semi-natural, i.e. are composed of native tree species that have regrown after previous logging and have characteristics of undisturbed natural forests. Old-growth forests are rare in Estonia. About half of the forests belong to the State and are managed by the State Forest Management Centre (Estonian abbreviation: RMK). A significant share of the other half of Estonia’s forest that is in private hands is owned by large companies both domestic and foreign. Only 14 per cent of all Estonian forests is strictly protected meaning that no economic activities may take place in them. Various degrees of protection (e.g. limits to clearcutting) also apply to an additional 11.3 per cent of forests.
So only 14% of forests in Estonia are "completely" protected, and an additional 11.3% are partially protected (e.g. from clearcutting). Which means that around 75% are completely unprotected, even if they are semi-natural and have "characteristics of undisturbed natural forests". So these are actually "tree farms", just ones that have been left alone for slightly longer than usual. Of course, it's still painful to see them being cut down, but the real old-growth forest being cut down (or burnt) somewhere else (e.g. the Amazon rainforest) is far worse...
I have worked in forestry and and have planted 500 trees daily...
And there are laws that replanting must be started within 2/5 years of cutting.
If you look aerial photos of the area in article then you can see that this process is started. Cannot find exact spot but looking around in the village.
According to https://www.riigiteataja.ee/en/eli/ee/510022014001/consolide there are exceptions to that rule and it's 2 years. I only have information available to me, but I do not think this is a hard set rule. What if they were cut down for housing?
Author here. I'm actually sitting in a cafe in a town close to the village this is about right now.
I've visited many of the spots mentioned in this article. I haven't checked all of them, but all the ones I have checked have _no_ manual replanting to date, that I can see. (I'd expect a grid, with trees with those little fences protecting them, etc.)
What I do see is just natural growth of various plant species taking advantage of open ground, a mix of grasses, shrubs, birches, and others. There is no sign, that I have personally seen, of the ground being restored, or of systematic replanting. I write this noting I have not been to every site, so I can't definitely state there's been zero replanting. Some places were so lovely I just don't want to revisit :(
I picked a lot of wild strawberries on one of these plots of land just a couple of weeks ago. It used to be damp soil even in summer, lots of moss, mist commonly held between the trees (there's a photo.) Now it was baking hot with deep trenches from the machines. But hey. Hiding among the undergrowth there were strawberry plants.
_Something_ will grow back. Often in these things the replacement ecosystem is very different.
What you will see in Estonia - forest is cut down and then some kind of plow makes lines in the forest to prepare the ground for planting trees. The trees are planted and in the next few years there will be lots of new growth, bushes and small trees that have grown from seeds or didn't get any sun below the old trees.
The newly planted trees are sometimes hidden betwen the bushes and grass etc, but they are there.
Source: I go orienteering and have had to search for checkpoints on these former clearings or have made the mistake of trying to run through them.
Yep, no grids or fences in Estonia, at least not in typical state-managed forests. These just get replanted in furrows or on "turfs" (not sure about the correct English term). Newly planted seedlings can appear really tiny at first, though -- so tiny that even seasoned forestry workers who are later mowing grass around them occasionally fail to spot all the plants in the grass.
Source: have manually planted maybe ~300 000 trees in Estonia over the years, and also done the brush cutting work afterwards. I don't think clear cutting could be avoided entirely (among other things, we're maybe too spoiled as timber consumers for that), but it does feel way too extensive over here (emphasis on the word "feel" here -- as, despite some hands-on experience, my analytical understanding of the forestry ecosystem is very superficial). In place of confier monocultures, a small society like Estonia could maybe place its focus on heavily developing mixed forests instead, for a start. Abrupt forestry policy changes would likely backfire socio-economically (e.g. unemployment rise in rural areas). But those spruce-only or pine-only forests everywhere do look kind of... sad.
> a small society like Estonia could maybe place its focus on heavily developing mixed forests instead, for a start
Thinking aloud here, but I like this idea. It could also be signposted: one of the things that "feels" awful is just the constant gaps in forest: forest, clear, forest forest forest, clear, forest, clear. Or walking to areas you know and love and one day they're just gone. There seems no oversight and little protection.
Suppose you entered a region that was labeled: "In the next 10km, you will see managed forestry", at least you'd know it was deliberate, a large specific region designated for this work, rather than just a bunch of spots where someone who owned a plot of land decided to clearfell it and take the cash.
Because the corollary of that is areas that are _not_ managed (and not cut) and where, hopefully, forest would be allowed to grow into century-or-more old genuine wildforest. And you'd see that signposted too. Or you could plan to buy a house in the middle of that kind of land, if you valued it.
As noted -- I see what appears to be natural regrowth. That expectation (lots of trees with little fences) comes from what I've seen in other places, where I have seen huge areas of clearfelled land with systematic gridded replanting. You are right I am not a forestry expert. I'm only writing what I observe as best as I can.
That's very different from what's seen in Estonia, where there's logging in national parks, and random plots of land in the forest are clear-felled.
Ten years ago you'd drive through the countryside and enjoy the trees, uninterrupted stretches of old forest. These days you drive and count the number of empty spots where someone has owned a plot and cleared it. This article talks about that: a village where beautiful, specific tracts of land with wonderful nature just -- vanished.