Finnish forest owners have been urged to undertake more prescribed burnings in order to promote biodiversity and improve the quality of the country’s forests.
Lauri Saaristo, an ecology and forest nature management expert at the Forestry Development Centre Tapio, said that a controlled increase in the amount of charred wood in Finnish forests would help grow the populous of species in commercial woodlands that rely on nutrients generated in the process.
In addition, prescribed burning can help forests regenerate with new-growth and allow better use of forest resources through thinning and the burning of retention tree groups.
State funding for prescribed burning is to be overhauled in 2008, with forest owners reimbersed the full cost of the opeation, which Mr Saaristo describes as a “serious responsibility” where “the risks are big”. Currently, Finnish forest owners are offered a fixed sum for every hectare burnt, which is often dwarfed by the actual cost of burning large areas of timber.
According to the Finnish Forest Association, the level of prescribed burnings has fallen from 15,000-20,000ha a year in the 60s to 1,000-2,000ha burnt each year in the last decade.
