Best Practices for Sustainable Forest Management in Finland
Responsible forestry means that the forests are tended and used in ecologically, economically and socially sustainable ways.
The development of Best Practices for Sustainable Forest Management in Finland has been carried out by Tapio(external link) for several decades. The primary target of these Best Practices is to support management decisions among private forest owners.
The Best Practices are continuously updated in order to reflect the most recent scientific knowledge and societal values among the key stakeholders as well as the main targets set by the Finnish national forest policy. The development work related to the Best Practices is financed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.
The Finnish forest legislation allows a wide range of regimes to be applied to different forest management goals. The challenge to a forest owner is the plethora of options available. This is where the Best Practices come to help decision making. The Best Practices also serve the needs of different forestry professionals and entrepreneurs by providing a tool and support for forest management planning and related extension services.
Development of the Best Practices
The Best Practices are developed in a multi-stakeholder process where the actors represent forest, environment and climate sectors and the issues discussed are selected based on their relevance and the availability of new research data.
The work is overseen by a high-level management group and steered by a group representing the different interests broadly are all involved in the process. The outcome of the process is a unique synthesis of research results, practical knowledge and stakeholder values.
The Best Practices aim to demonstrate the ways and means how to manage and use forests in a sustainable way – taking into account all aspects of sustainability, economic, ecological and social – the latter including also cultural sustainability. Economic impacts, biodiversity impacts as well as impacts on landscape level are all described in the Best Practices.
The Best Practices are freely available in Finnish and in Swedish on this website. They are also made available through an interface (API) for organizations who wish to include parts of them in their own services.
See also: Q & A, Best Practices for Sustainable Forest Management in Finland
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