Metsähallitus ends the dialogue process on Finnish old-growth forests
(June 13th 2005) Claims on agreement with NGOs are false.
Helsinki, Finland. The Finnish State logging company Metsähallitus announced today that it will put an end to the dialogue process with WWF Finland and Finnish Association for Nature Conservation (FANC) on North Finland's old-growth forests by a one-sided decision. The process began in early 2003. The aim was to find a common solution on the protection of ecologically valuable old-growth forests in North Finland as a part of Metsähallitus' landscape ecological planning.
Metsähallitus decided to end the negotiations when a common decision has been reached in only a third of the areas included in the process. Metsähallitus made its decision unilaterally NGOs were not even informed in the last meeting that the process is going to end. Next meeting has been scheduled to be held tomorrow.
FANC is extremely disappointed in Metsähallitus' decision. The result of the process was dictated one-sidedly by Metsähallitus. Any additional protection will be determined on the basis of which areas were agreed on first, not on ecological consideration. Many of the most valuable areas are left with no decisions on their future. These include large old-growth forests that have been agreed by all negotiation parties to be in their natural state, such as Peurakaira in Sodankylä and forests South of Pulju wilderness in Kittilä. Old-growth forests with hundreds of verified habitats of threatened species are omitted by the decisions.
FANC believes that an ecologically reasonable result accepted by all parties could have been reached in this process. Unfortunately it seems that Metsähallitus was not looking for a common decision after all. Metsähallitus claims in their press release that 2/3 of the areas have been agreed on with NGOs. This is not true. FANC has not accepted the decision and the old-growth forest question remains open.
Metsähallitus has ended the negotiation process abruptly and as a surprise to us. FANC can not accept a decision that omits many of the most valuable forests and has been done unilaterally without us, ignoring all rules of conduct, says FANC nature conservation manager Ilpo Kuronen.
We don't understand why Metsähallitus ended the process in this way. We have been working on a common decision for two years, and we certainly could have reached it. Now Metsähallitus gives a slap in our face and ends the process without warnings, says Sini Harkki, FANC forest specialist who has been involved in the negotiations since the beginning.
We have put a lot of time and effort in these negotiations. Together with WWF we have delivered over 10 000 verified coordinate points of habitats of threatened and near threatened species to Metsähallitus. We could have reached a decision acceptable to all parties but now we have to return to the starting point: open conflict on old-growth forests. Two years of work will be wasted, adds Kuronen.
FANC hopes that the Finnish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry will ask Metsähallitus to return to the negotiation table and continue the search for a common solution.
More information:
- Sini Harkki, forest specialist, FANC, harkki@sll.fi , tel.+358-50-582 1107
