world news - 18.12.2008

Finnish forest owners active in tending young forests

Subsidies for tending young forests on the basis of the Act on Financing Sustainable Forestry have been granted to an amount of 19 million euro. In total almost 51 million euro, 80% from granted funds, have been spent under the auspices of the Act. Last year during the same period the money spent was 43 million euro. These figures were obtained from the statistics collected by the Forestry Development Centre Tapio.

Tending young forests includes tending of seedling stands, juvenile thinnings and in that connection also removal of small diameter trees, which constitute an obstacle for harvesting. Tending young forests ensures future growth and develops juvenile stands to saleable size for first thinnings.

Ms Ritva Toivonen, director at Tapio, says that these positive experiences prove that there is much interest in forest tending. Due to insufficient funding many silvicultural measures cannot be realized. Estimates made in regional forestry programmes indicate that there is much more need for forest tending than the resources allocated under the Act.

In Southern Finland those subsidies represent 50% of calculated costs. In Central Finland the share is around 60% and in Northern Finland 70%. The remaining costs are paid by forest owners themselves. These subsidies are not taxable income.

www.nordicforestry.org

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