Hard times ahead for forest owners and industry? The settlement increases the number of rounds in logging requirements

No statistical error. No malice on the part of researchers. Instead, science works as it should: it corrects itself when it is noticed that the original assumptions are not true.

This is how you could sum up the outcome of the forest drain debate that has excited Finns in recent years, when the research professor Annika Kangas analyze reliability of greenhouse gas calculation at the request of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.

Still, outwardly, the problem was clear. The constantly changing and long-standing information about the number of sinks, for good reason, aroused deep suspicion towards the entire sink calculation. Was there a mistake in communication or was the reason simply that there was not enough information about soil processes or material suitable for modeling.

The constant changes caused a squirrel-wheel effect that eventually began to eat away at trust in computing. Uncertainties can be reduced through research, but they will never disappear completely.

Therefore, the greenhouse gas calculation for forests and soil has been done appropriately with the information that has been in use.

The biggest informational uncertainties are related to the assessment of the soil carbon stock of peatlands, especially how global warming, changes in the groundwater level and forest management affect the development of the carbon stock. Uncertainties can be reduced by increasing research and measurements, but they can never be completely eliminated, Kangas emphasized on Monday.

According to Kanka, how to make the carbon sink calculations uniform across all EU member states is impossible. The situation of the member countries in the calculation varies too much.

For example, in Sweden, the soil calculation of mineral soils is based on a long measurement time series, and in Finland, on modeling, because there is no similar measurement data available in Finland. In order to achieve similar measurement methods, the collection of data would have to start immediately, and even then Sweden’s level would not be reached until the 2050s.

According to Kanka, it would be essential to examine the development of each member country in relation to their own international and national goals. The differences in measurement accuracy have already started to be taken into account in the lulucf calculation in the EU, and Finland has also benefited a little from that. A more accurate measurement shows up as easier goals.

However, there are plenty of problems. It is now known that the Mela model, developed in the 1970s and used to predict the growth of forests, has a bad sampling error that overestimates the growth of forests. This further increases the uncertainty of forest carbon sink predictions and the pressure to reduce logging.

According to detailed forecasts, the growth of trees will decline to less than 100 million cubic meters per year, unless felling is reduced to around 60 million from the current level of just over 70 million cubic meters. On the other hand, a permanent reduction in felling would weaken tree growth in the longer term.

Calculating felling volumes would reduce the added value of the forest sector by around 100 million euros per million cubic meters. In practice, even a temporary reduction would hit both forest owners and the forest industry hard. Alternatives for the economic use of forests are needed very quickly, for example to create a comprehensive sink market.

However, it is already clear that Finland’s own 2035 carbon neutral goal will not be realized with current measures. Whether to stick to the target year is a political choice. In Sweden, the target year is 2045, and in several European countries it is 2050 according to the EU climate law.