“Sometimes I initiate the conversation, sometimes it is Anu. We have a good, close partnership and I feel I get good service as a forest owner,” says Pätilä. The forest owner also appreciates the electronic servic- es for forest holding management, which have developed by leaps and bounds in recent years. His most important tool for browsing the information available is a digital and map-based management and felling plan for his forests. When he is out in the forest, Pätilä uses the plan on his phone. He uses two different web services to manage his forests: Metsäverkko, a web service offered to forest owners by Metsä Group, and the free service Metsään.fi offered to all forest owners by the State of Finland. Metsään.fi is used by more than 100,000 Finnish forest owners. “Web services are really great tools for a forest owner. You can handle almost everything with electronic systems today.” Even the map system is 100 per cent reliable, says Pätilä. “It gives me my own location in the terrain and is so accurate that I can find the boundaries of the estate and the fixed landmarks in the terrain on my phone screen. It is impossible to accidentally make a felling plan on the neighbour’s land.” MARKET DEMANDS AND AUTHORITY SUPERVISION When a forest owner wants to sell and harvest wood from their forest, they must file a forest use declaration with the authorities. The authorities check the declaration to ensure that the felling will take place in an area where it is allowed. The declaration is an important part of Metsä Group’s information guidance system. Only after the forest use dec- laration has been issued and permission for felling obtained from the authorities does the system allow the forest special- ist to send felling instructions to the machine entrepreneur. The forest use declaration is part of Finland’s strong Forest Act, which defines how Finnish forests are used. Together with forest certification, which combines inter- national and domestic requirements for sustainable forest
management, the Forest Act sets a framework for forest management decisions by the owner. “Ultimately, the forest owner makes the decisions, but the law or forest certification guidance cannot be ignored,” says Rautiainen. Vesa Junnikkala , Director of Sustainability for Metsä Group, underlines the importance of market-based and voluntary certification systems. With these systems, the industry can demonstrate the origin of the wood it uses and that it originates in sustainably managed forests. Metsä Group uses a chain of custody based on two dif- ferent certification systems, FSC® and PEFC™, which can be used to trace the logistics chain of wood from the forest to the end product. The essential element of these systems is that an external third party ensures that the operation is run as promised. “The market expects these things. We could not operate as a player of our size without a chain of custody certifi- cate,” says Junnikkala. TAKING GOOD CARE OF THE FAMILY FOREST Striding quickly through the mossy forest, forest owner Antti Pätilä stops to talk about the origin of wood. Having toured the world during his career, he knows full well that the markets need information. This forest has been handed down from generation to generation and is very familiar to him. He has wandered, picked berries and hunted there since his childhood. This is also why he has such a strong emotional connection to it. As a forest owner, he tells what he would say about the Finnish forest industry to customers and how he provides wood for industry and the markets. He would give guests a tour of his forest, pointing out trees and citing the year in which he planted them or ex- plaining how long ago he thinned a young stand that has now know grown into big trees. “Forest ownership and wood production are like veg- etable gardening. Through good management, you can increase the yield and everyone benefits.” •
We know where our wood originates 100 %
The wood used by Metsä Group is 100 per cent traceable thanks to systems for recording wood origin. These systems are used in all the countries from which Metsä Group purchases wood. 79 % 79 per cent of the wood for Metsä Group mills was acquired from Fin- land in 2020. In addition, wood was acquired from Russia (7%), Sweden (7%) and the Baltic States (7%). 10 % Around 10 per cent of the world’s forests are certified, but 87 per cent of the wood used by Metsä Group comes from forests that have international PEFC™ or FSC® forest certification.
“It has always been clear to me that being a machine contractor is the job for me. You get to feel that the work is meaningful.” Janne Mutikainen, Forestry Machine Contractor
FSC® & PEFC™
“It is impossible to accidentally make a felling plan on the neighbour’s land.”
Metsä Group uses both the FSC® and PEFC™ tracing systems to certify the origin of wood. The sys- tems cover the supply chain of wood from forest to mill and all the way to the end product.
Forest owner Antti Pätilä
READ MORE ABOUT SUSTAINABLE FOREST MANAGEMENT
Vesa Junnikkala Director of Sustainability, Metsä Group, Wood Supply and Forest Services. Among other things, Junnikkala is responsible for forest certification and management of the chain of custody.
Anna Hyytiäinen Certification Expert, Metsä Group, Wood Supply and Forest Services. Hyytiäinen provided background information for this article and is responsible for management of the tracing system for wood used by Metsä Group.
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