Forest legislation revised in the 1990s

The treatment of commercial forests is steered in many ways in Finland. Some of the regulations are binding, while others are indicative.

The Finnish forest legislation was completely revised during the 1990s. The process ensured that the legislation now complies with the decisions on sustainable development adopted by the UN's environmental summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, as well as with the principles of the Helsinki Process, created as the result of the Pan European Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe held in Helsinki in 1993, and with international conventions to which Finland is a party.

The revision of forest legislation means that the ecological and social sustainability of forestry are now of equal weight as its economic sustainability. Of these, ecological sustainability is responsible for more legislative content than social sustainability, since the content of the latter has not been adequately defined so far. Other important reasons for revising the legislation were the needs to decrease the cost of forest management, to increase the multiple use of forests and to protect the landscape.

The new Forest and Park Service Act came into force in 1994, the Act on Forestry Centres and the Forest Development Centre Tapio in 1996, the Forest Act, the Nature Conservation Act and the Act on the Financing of Sustainable Forestry in 1997, and the Forest Management Association Act in 1999. The revised Finnish Constitution also states that the responsibility for nature, its biodiversity and for the environment is shared by all.

Forest legislation applies to all forest owners, including the state and industry. Its implementation is monitored by the 13 regional Forestry Centres. The centres also manage duties linked to the promotion of forestry, in co-operation with the national Forest Development Centre Tapio. The supervision primarily consists of guidance and advice, though in the worst case, breaking the Forest Act can lead to a penalty under the criminal law.

The goals of Finnish forest policy have been defined in forest programmes, the first of which was adopted in the 1950s. The latest of these is the National Forest Programme 2010, which defines the goals of forest policy up to the year 2010.

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