According to the researchers, the Inari community forest is a rare entity, even by international standards. The forest, owned by private landowners, is only partially protected.
The sides of old trees are surrounded by tortoiseshell bark. The forest is so old that it is too old even to be counted in your own time. According to scientists, it has been standing in its place since the Ice Age. By the standards of Finland and the world, the Inari community forest is a rare place.
It is still only partially protected.
Thousands of species sightings
If the land were not covered by a mantle, you would see here and there the decaying wood, the famous diversity of forests and the carbon that has crystallised in the ground over time.
And dwarves, covering the snow and the snow with the trunks of the evergreens would be a lot.
Even those that have already completely disappeared elsewhere in Finland.
A couple of years ago, Aalto spent weeks in the common forest of Inari. Together with other nature surveyors, he collected observations around the forest. Although the landscape is barren compared to the south, according to Aalto, according to Inari, it is well-grown.
– There is no other place like this in protected areas or outside protected areas, says Aalto.
On a scale of 0-46, the joint forest area collected a total of 32 points for the indicator fungi of old forests. It means \”very valuable, unique area\”.
The studies found 24 species to watch out for, nine endangered species and two highly endangered species.
According to Aalto, in terms of forest nature values, the joint forest area washes out, for example, the neighboring Hammastunturi wilderness area \”6-0\”. The upland area of \u200b\u200bHammastunturi is significantly more rugged and in many places there are signs of old logging, while the area of \u200b\u200bthe common forest is greener and, above all, untouched.
The state refused to protect
Founded in 1960, Inari Yhteimetsä has about 20,000 hectares of forest. The forest is the property of private landowners, and there are many of them, about 1,700.
They would like to sell logs and softwood from there, but the forest companies don’t want to buy it. The main reason is still not the age of the forest.
According to the risk assessment of the FSC certificate completed four years ago, in some municipalities of Lapland, such as Inari, wood procurement may pose a threat to Sámi culture and reindeer husbandry. It crippled the timber trade in the joint forest.
Lichen, a vital food for reindeer, does not grow in felled forests, according to the local authorities. At the same time, the felling also took away the lupo hanging and falling from the trees.
When the information about the risk assessment of the FSC certificate came out, the collective forest offered its primeval forests to the state for protection. The answer from the Ministry of the Environment was negative. According to it, there are already enough protected areas in Upper Lapland.
According to some calculations, more than 70 percent of the land area of \u200b\u200bInari municipality alone has been protected.
When the state did not agree to protect the lands, the collective forest sold part of its forest to the mining company AA Sakatti Mining, whose purpose is to make the area a private conservation area.
The sale still only solved part of the stalemate in the joint forest.
Lichen and hogweed do not grow in felled forests
The narrow forest road has been plowed clear of snow. It tells you that logging is going on in the area.
Last spring and autumn, the joint forest sold a total of about 150 hectares for conservation to Lapland’s ely center. Yhteimetsä has also offered its areas for temporary protection, but the response has been negative.
No more permanent protected areas are coming.
Protection mainly of dry grasslands
In all of Lapland, approximately 27 percent of forest and forest land is currently protected. The corresponding national figure is about 13 percent.
– It would be good to think about whether there will be some limit and sense to the protection requirements. What is the benefit of protection when there is already so much protected land? There has not yet been a business economy on the protected lands that would bring jobs or income to the area in the same way as from forestry
According to Aalto, the protected area is not the whole truth.
– Yes, a lot has been protected in Lapland, but quite regularly high and rougher areas, not more forested lands, says Aalto.
According to Aalto, there is also a lot of forest that has been cut down in some way in the protected areas, for example in the UKK park.
– I have casually said that from the point of view of forest nature values, at least the northern half of the UKK park should immediately be changed to the joint forest of Inari. In those forests, there is not even a tenth of the endangered number left in the area of \u200b\u200bthe joint forest.
*Listen as Vesa Luhta, a nature lover from Inari, former chairman of the Council of the Finnish Nature Conservation Association, tells what the everyday life of a nature conservationist in Upper Lapland is really like and what it has required of the conservationist on a personal level as well:*
*What thoughts does the story evoke? You can discuss the topic on 21.3. until 11 p.m.*