Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Antti Kurvinen wants more information on the impact of logging on the collapse of the carbon sink. Climate Panel chair Markku Ollikainen proposed a simple rule of thumb.
– The impact of logging on this situation requires further investigation. There are indications that the issue is not the amount of logging, but how it has been done,” Kurvinen said.
– Apparently the problem is that the first thinnings are not done in time, but too late and too intensive. In other words, the forest should be thinned more often and less often,” Kurvinen said.
– There is an obvious link between logging and sinks. As a rule of thumb, if logging is increased by enough to release 1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, the sink is reduced by an average of 1.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide according to various models. Similarly, if logging is reduced, the sink increases by about the same amount,” Ollikainen said.
– Then, of course, it’s a different matter when we think about what is the right way to adapt to the challenge we have to raise these sinks back.
According to the data collected by the Finnish Natural Resources Agency, last year almost the same amount of forest was felled as in the peak year of 2018. At the same time, the growth of forests is decreasing, especially pine trees have suffered from dry summers and the forests are at an age where growth is not strong.
– It may be that we have to look at how the impact of logging on growth can be balanced in the next few years. But the basic starting point must be that we make the forests grow stronger, Mykkänen stated.
– Of course, we also need to see what the amount of sustainable logging is in Finland. Of course, there is no doubt that we cannot, for example, double the felling unless growth starts.
– If we start limiting felling here, wood-based products will be made somewhere else, Niemi stated.
*See Wednesday’s* *A-studio in its entirety here**.*