Ecoblogi – A Blog by Daniel Elkama

An employee of the forest giant Stora Enso probably committed a gross nature conservation crime when he drove a heavy forestry machine several times over a stream inhabited by extremely rare and endangered river pearl mussels. Apparently thousands of mussels, ”raakkus” in Finnsh, died. A couple of years ago, the necessary law on gross nature conservation crimes came into force. In the EU, the so-called the ecocide law, i.e. the law on gross natural destruction, which is comparable to genocide. Often the word of the law and the establishment of protected areas are the best ways to protect nature. When the rights of nature and other species are protected by law, those who violate them can be brought to justice and compensation can be demanded. In the raakku case, the culprit is probably either a forest worker or Stora Enso or both.

The raakku case is part of a larger global problem, i.e. that nature has not been valued or the value of nature is seen as low. Nobelist Elinor Ostrom and others have talked about how there is a danger if nature is so-called ”common pool” resource. ”Common pool” resources are the so-called ”common resources”, which are drawn as much as you like from a pool. Water is used huge amounts in business and pollution is socialized and dumped into the air and sea. And no one pays anything or almost nothing. Ostrom saw specifically capitalism and, on the other hand, communism as a problem, where ”common resources” are wasted and used up. The USA is the Mecca of capitalism and there is a huge amount of garbage and emissions, the most per capita. In the same way, in the Soviet Union environmental standards were not cared for, and resources were wasted in the name of socialist geography in pursuit of a socialist utopia. As a solution, Ostrom presents a local democratic model, where local residents have the most decision-making power over their own environment and their resources. The use of resources is governed by common rules and their use is monitored. Local residents often have the greatest motivation to protect the environment in which they live. Almost everyone prefers to live in a healthy, safe and comfortable environment. Another Nobel laureate, Ronald Coase, previously proposed that the ownership rights of the local people to the air they breathe, the water they use and the land they cultivate must be defined. In this way, abuses are avoided or at least the perpetrators have to pay compensation.

Nature offers us numerous ecosystem services for free, e.g. pollination of plants, air purification and water circulation. These ecosystem services, biodiversity and ”common pool” resources should definitely be valued, and this work has already been done to some extent. This way, for example, the consumption of water and soil can be curbed, when you have to pay for them, and you can no longer use them as much as you want. However, it is difficult to convert nature and its services, which are intrinsically valuable or infinitely valuable and necessary, into a monetary value. A long time ago, the so-called Pigou’s nuisance tax, or the ”polluter pays” principle. If someone destroys or pollutes nature, he should pay for this. Emissions trading regarding climate emissions was also achieved in the world’s most important economic region, i.e. the EU region. Often, however, until now, the polluters and destroyers of nature have gotten away like a dog from a corner. For example, after the Talvivaara mine destroyed numerous nearby lakes with poisons, CEO Pekka Perä was fined a measly €240 when he was found guilty of gross environmental damage. If nature were to be valued much higher monetarily, the threshold for destroying nature or overusing resources would also increase considerably. The global annual value of ecosystem services has been estimated at up to 54 trillion euros, which is more than global GDP.

Finland is a special country in that most of our forests are privately owned. Often, forest ownership is a burden due to taxes, ”maintenance” of the forest, etc., and forest owners are easily driven to sell the forests they own at ridiculous prices to forest giants. Many forest owners don’t even know that, for example, giving their own forest to the state forest protection program Metso for twenty years for protection can generate much more money in the wallet than clearing the forest. Many people also don’t know that in the long run, you can get up to twice as much money from a forest managed with the model of continuous cultivation, i.e. continuous forest cover, than with open felling. Today, forest giants prefer clear-cutting because they are easy for them and bring short-term profits. From these profits, the forest owner is left with a little money. Clear-cutting destroys the entire forest ecosystem, killing a huge number of birds and mammals along with the felling. Clear-cutting should be defined as ecocide in EU legislation. The soil that is milled in open felling also makes the forest a source of carbon for the next 30 years, when the rains and wind take the carbon from the soil with them.

When the EU established its necessary restoration and biodiversity regulations to save Europe’s dwindling nature, forest owners and big business often interpreted this as the socialization of forests. This development of forest socialization is indeed necessary in order to save the few forests, their biodiversity and the ecosystem services they provide. The forest is basically not the private property of a person or a company. A forest is an ecosystem populated by different species and communities. If someone claims to own all life in this ecosystem, this is comparable to slavery and colonialism. All these creatures of the forest: trees, owls and flying squirrels would then only be wooden cubes, commodities and slaves owned by the owner. This would not be ethically correct. No one can claim to own all the life in the forest. The law should increasingly socialize the forests of Finland and the entire world globally. According to research, the best way to protect species and biodiversity is to protect their habitat, such as forests. The biggest cause of global wildlife loss is land use, such as logging and clearing fields.

RFAccording to the Finnish constitution, all land areas in Finland, including all forests, belong to the Finnish people. We can see that forest ownership is like a kind of lease agreement for forest land, the Finnish people, i.e. the state, in a way owns all forests, but an individual person can ”own” a forest by having the right to use it and paying property taxes. Nature in the forests therefore belongs to the state, not the landowner. There are problems here too, and for example the Finnish government was initially in the EU against the restoration regulation and the ”socialization” of EU forests. The nature of the EU region can be seen as belonging to the whole of Europe, and not just to an individual nation state. It can be said that the earth’s nature belongs in common to all of humanity and equally to other species, whose rights and independent value should be recognized in all legislation. The Earth is our common home planet, a limited one. No one can own the land alone. Nobody can own nature. The Bible sometimes talked about man’s role as a good Steward who cultivates and protects the land carefully. This is humanity’s job. To take care of ourselves and other species. No other species can do this, so it is our honor to take care of planet Earth and its inhabitants.

Daniel Elkama