The emphasis should move to maintaining commercial forests if Finland is keep up its work on protecting biodiversity, according to Finnish Forest Research Institute director Dr Jari Parviainen.
He said the amount of protected forest in the country has tripled over 30 years and that protecting biodiversity had become a key target.
“The emphasis should lie on the maintenance of commercial forests,” he said.
“It must be ensured that the additional logging of wood for bioenergy production does not harm forest biodiversity and the long-term nutritional balance of the forest soil.”
Finland has 713,000ha of strictly protected forests, equating to 3.2% of its forest cover Dr Parviainen added.
