Sweden and Finland ask to cut more forests, reason revealed
Sweden and Finland seek to increase logging (Illustrative photo: Getty Images)
Sweden and Finland have asked the European Commission to review its approach to climate policy, noting that restrictions on logging are affecting their economies, reports Bloomberg.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo sent a joint letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
In the letter, they stated that reducing logging could hinder the development of industries dependent on timber, including pulp and paper production and bioenergy.
“A much decreased harvest would entail dire consequences for our economies as well as labor markets and it would severely affect the supply of timber and forest biomass in the whole EU,” Kristersson and Orpo wrote in their letter.
Sweden and Finland are the EU countries with the largest forest areas. Their governments have repeatedly argued that EU-wide regulations overly impact their national interests.
In their letter, the Nordic leaders asked von der Leyen to reassess the role of the forestry sector in achieving the EU’s climate goals.
Previously, RBC-Ukraine reported on the environmental damage in Ukraine caused by the war and how long it will take to restore the forests.
Forest ecosystems are the most vulnerable — restoring destroyed areas will take at least several decades, and in some cases over a century, said ecologist Tetiana Tymochko, head of the All-Ukrainian Environmental League.
Over 11 years, the war and occupation have affected three biosphere reserves, 14 nature reserves, 19 national nature parks, dozens of regional landscape parks, hundreds of wildlife sanctuaries, natural monuments, protected tracts, as well as botanical gardens, dendrological parks, zoos, and historical garden-park landmarks in Donetsk, Luhansk, Kyiv, Sumy, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions.
