Matti Palo Coevolution of forestry and society in Finland: from preindustrial to industrial forestry © Matti Palo Finland is the second largest net exporter of forest 1. Forestry and society products in the world, but has the highest forest cover in Europe. How is this paradox possible? The purpose his article is a part of an ongoing global of this paper is to investigate the coevolution of the Tresearch project “Evolution and transi- Finnish forestry and society with the de jure and de tions of sustainable forestry in Costa Rica, facto transitions from preindustrial to industrial for- Finland, Japan and Korea: Case studies and estry since the 14th century until the 1950s. Finland comparative analyses” (Palo et al. 2004). Trop- had this change during the first half of the twentieth ical deforestation was estimated in 1980 as century based on the transitions to de facto and de 11 and in 2005 as 14 million ha/a. Deforesta- jure sustained yield of timber, and on the excess of tion has expanded in spite of multitude of the industrial use to the non-industrial use of timber. global, international and national political Unexpectedly, de facto transition took place a few efforts to decelerate it. The core issue here is decades prior to de jure transition. Therefore, it was the vague knowledge so far about the under- infered, that the Grand Land Reform and the increas- lying causes of deforestation. This project ing forestry incomes and real value of forests were aims to study ex post, how these four coun- the major factors causing this transition and not any tries have been able to stop deforestation specific forest policy. Wars, imports of technology and maintain their high forest covers and in and know-how and various other foreign impacts and this way to find out potential invariances by scientific paradigms have also played a role in the comparative analysis to facilitate effective transition to industrial forestry in Finland. The wars policy proposals for the tropics. have promoted privatization of forests and increased On per capita basis Finland is rich in forest demands for forest products. Private property rights resources, which implies relative economic are theoretically most efficient for sustainable man- abundance in forest resources. Finland has agement. Colonization of forests by land reforms and the second largest forest area in Europe after privatization of forests have been the longest trend Sweden. Finland has only 0.5 per cent of the in the history of the Finnish forestry. Accessible low- total global forest area, but its share of the value forests are mostly deforested and degraded but global exports of all kinds of forest products high-value forests sustained. The increasing forestry is 10% and 25% of the printing and writing incomes and the value of forests have also decreased paper. Next to Canada, Finland is the larg- poverty and decreased the opportunity cost for sustain- est net exporter of forest products in the able forestry. Public policies have been a necessary but world. (Peltola 2003) Finland has the highest not a sufficient condition in this transition. forest cover per land area in Europe (Fig. VUOSILUSTO 2004–2005 49 36. Iceland 35. Moldova 34. Netherlands 33. Denmark 32. Ireland 31. Belgium & Lux. 30. The Fyr of Maced. 29. Albania 28. Slovenia 27. Switzerland 26. Croatia 25. Hungary 24. Lithuania 23. Estonia 22. Slovakia 21. Bosnia & Herzeg. 20. Czech Rep. 19. United Kingdom 18. Serbia & Monten. 17. Latvia 16. Greece 15. Portugal 14. Bulgaria 13. Austria 12. Romania 11. Norway 10. Poland 9. Belarus 8. Ukraine 7. Italy 6. Germany 5. Spain 4. France 3. Finland 2. Sweden 1. Russia 5 10 15 20 25 Total forest area, mill. ha Fig. 1. Forest area map of Europe (data source: FAO 2005, design by Erkki Lehto). 1), which implies also relative environmen- policy and market instruments with support tal abundance in forest resources. How has from a number of other institutions. this kind of positive coevolution of forestry History of forestry in Finland has been and society been possible in Finland? In studied by a high number of scholars, e. most other countries along with population g. earlier by Meinander (1945), Helander and economic growth the forest cover has (1949) and Laitakari (1960) and a doc- declined. toral dissertation by Snellman (1996), and For a small country exports play a vital most recently the doctoral dissertations by role in economic development. Finland pro- Ruuttula-Vasari (2004) and Tasanen (2004). vides a unique case in the whole world, Michelsen (1995) published his “History where forest products exports have had a of Forest Research in Finland. Part 1. The key role in economic development for cen- Unknown Forest.” This is so far the widest turies (Åström 1978, Raumolin 1984a, Palo document in English about the history of 1988, Raumolin 1990, Kuisma 1993, Palo and forestry in Finland from the 1840s to the Uusivuori 1999). The forest resources of the early 1920s. While Part 1 described primarily country have been largely exploited in this the history of forestry, Part 2 was planned process. Until the middle of the 20th century to describe the history of forest sciences, this led to deforestation and forest degrada- but, unfortunately, it has not appeared so far. tion but later on to sustained yield of timber. These studies have been executed by follow- This development has required a mix of ing the traditional paradigm of descriptive 50 VUOSILUSTO 2004–2005 history studies with an emphasis on using The purpose of this paper is to study first original empirical information and data from the coevolution of the Finnish forestry and various archives. society in a long sweep until the 1950s with Kuisma (1993) adopted an international a particular reference to de jure and de demand-oriented approach in his compre- facto transitions from preindustrial forestry hensive study on Finnish forest industries and to industrial forestry. Second, an analysis forestry. Palo (1993) applied a forest policy of transition from preindustrial forestry to framework with political power application industrial forestry driven by wars, foreign into his study on the history of forestry in technology and know-how is given. Third, Finland since 13th century. Later on, Palo we analyse parallelly the transition from (2001) studied with similar but expanded preindustrial forestry to industrial forestry framework how forest resources had guided by describing the impacts of ecological con- the wars by G8 Economic Powers through ditions and markets as well as social, political centuries. Ollonqvist (1998) had an eco- and cultural institutions. Finally, a discussion nomic policy framework to analyse forest and some conclusions are arrived at. policy evolution in Finland since 1928. Björn We restrict our article here primarily on (2000) made a case study of two neighbour- the evolution and transitions into industrial ing municipalities in Eastern Finland with a forestry from 14th century to the1950s. By soft framework of preindustrial, industrial this time the paradigm of industrial forestry and postindustrial forestry. Rytteri (2002) became fully developed and the de facto applied a framework of environmental and transition was realized. In the 1960s a totally social responsibility in a case study of a new era of intensified national planning and leading forest industry corporation (Enso- mechanization of logging started in Finn- Gutzeit) in Finland. ish forestry as well as the first signs of the In Sweden Stridsberg and Mattsson (1980) appearance of the environmental non-gov- applied a framework of power relations and ernmental organizations to the forest policy causal changes in their Swedish forest his- arena took place. The theoretical framework tory project. In Denmark Fritzbøger (2004) of this paper is primarily based on Palo et studied the evolution of forest ownership al. (2004). The coevolution theory is a new- from 1150 to 1830 by applying a property comer in this paper. rights theory framework. So far, none of the numerous scholars We shall apply a theoretical framework in Finnish forestry history have specifically of political science, institutional economics focused on the transition process from and ecological economics, coevolutionary preindustrial to industrial forestry. However, approach and a case study method. Mostly Raumolin (1984b) has studied “The forma- secondary sources of empirical historical tion of the sustained yield forestry system in observations are used. Accordingly, in this Finland”. His study is more of a descriptive respect our approach is different from the one than an attempt to identify the causes first group of historians but has some simi- of the transition to sustained yield forestry. larity with the latter group. The framework Accordingly, there exists a gap of knowl- is a comprehensive and eclectic one. It is edge concerning the multiple factors, which not only limited to economic, sociological, have facilitated the transition in Finland political, ecological or silvicultural aspects. to industrial forestry. We aim to produce Rather an ambitious attempt is made here in novel findings in filling this gap. order to integrate these different disciplines (cf. Clawson 1973). We shall discuss the vari- ous reservations of this approach at the end of this paper. VUOSILUSTO 2004–2005 51 Using forest resources Box 1. The typology of preindustrial for- estry, industrial forestry and postindustrial forestry. Public means Private means Three development stages of forestry (Mather, A. 2001, Political process Markets, contracts, traditions Pirot et al. 2000): 1. Preindustrial forestry: subsistence; open access Laws, plans, budgets Pricing process – traditional knowledge – common property – closed access Public wants Private wants – colonization: state ownership–open access-defor- estation 1a. Traditional pre-industrial forestry: hunting, fishing, Human wants shifting cultivating, gathering of firewood, food, – wood – biodiversity medical plants, etc. – carbon stocks 1b. Agricultural forestry: clearing of forests for agricul- – water ture, agro-forestry, grazing of cattle, fodder, shelter – wildlife – range belts, other support to agriculture – wilderness 2.