The forests in Finland have turned into a storage source for CO2 into carbon polluters. This remarkable observation was made with fresh research by the country’s Natural Resources Institute (Luonnonvarakeskus (Luke)). Overall, growing trees can no longer absorb CO2 fast enough, as the Finnish forestry cuts them faster than they the forests can recover. The results are matching other findings from, e.g. Germany, and are an easy read in Peter Wohlleben’s 2015-book “The hidden life of trees”.
“The net carbon sink in the sector has decreased since 2010, and the sector turned into a source of emissions in 2018. The transformation of the sector from a net sink into an emission source can be explained by increased harvesting, higher carbon dioxide emissions from peat forest soils and the depletion of the carbon sink in mineral forest soil. According to the most recent inventory, the sector was an emission source of 11.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (Mt CO2 eq) in 2023,” a press release by the Luke scientists Tarja Tuomainen, Juha Mikola and Tarja Silfver reads.
Warming rays of sunlight
In his book “The hidden life of trees”, German forester Peter Wohlleben describes the results of many production forests for the CO2 emissions in the world. “Forests are constantly being cleared, thanks to modern forest management practices (aka logging). As a result, warming rays of sunlight reach the ground and help the species living there kick into high gear. This means they consume humus layers even deep down into the soil, releasing the carbon they contain into the atmosphere of gas. The total quantity of climate-changing gases that escapes is roughly equivalent to the amount of timber that has been felled.” (Translated by Jane Billinghurst in English)
The new Finnish results that confirm earlier Finnish reports from three years ago are a bit of a shock to concerned Finns that thought their vast forests were helping them to become a carbon-neutral country. | © 2025 Marcel Burger, nordicreporter.com. Featured photo of a Finnish forest by Sante Riviinamäki (CC)