A professor from the Finnish Forest Research Institute who has disagreed with mainstream opinions about forestry during his career has won an award for his contribution as a debater.

Professor Kari Mielikäinen, who won the Metsän etunoja award, is known to disagree with standard opinions on mixed-species forests, forest damage and the principle of continuous forest cover siliviculture.

His opinions have been expressed in his radio and newspaper columns in both the local and national press.

He courted major controversy in the late 1980s when the media reported that extensive areas of forest were being damaged in central Europe due, it was thought, to air pollution.

At the same time Professor Mielikäinen embarked on a test project to find out how forests were growing in Continental Europe.

The results showed trees were growing faster than before, due to nitrogen fallout, which was functioning as a fertilizer. Both the professor and his scientific colleagues were accused of made-to-order research paid by the coal and automotive industries.

He also attracted earlier criticism when he suggested selective thinning was a profitable method in tree stands of homogeneous age, at a time when selective thinning was regarded as forest destruction and prohibited by law.

But his results affected silvicultural advice, with today’s thinning guidelines focusing on what is left in the forests after a thinning, not on what is removed.