From economic to environmental sustainability: the forest management debate in 20th century Finland and Sweden

Harri Siiskonen ()

Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, 2013, vol. 15, issue 5, 1323-1336

Abstract: The issues of sustainability, efficiency, and profitability in private forestry dominated debate on Finnish and Swedish forest policy throughout the 20th century. The management and utilization of private forests have been significant for these countries since more than half of productive forest land has been owned by families. Forests have also played an important role in Finland’s and Sweden’s national economies. There was however no consensus among forest owners and forestry experts—forest scientists and forestry authorities—about the methods of achieving forestry sustainability and profitability, particularly in the early 1900s. This article focuses on the types of argument on which perceptions of good forest management were based, and the reasons for their use. The article also explores how disagreements and occasional open conflicts between private forest owners and forest authorities were solved, and what kind of regulative means were developed to avoid such differences. There are three main reasons for making a case study of Finland and Sweden: Firstly, the forest sector has played an important role in their national economies, secondly, the objectives and content of their forestry laws are quite similar, and thirdly, the tradition of family forest ownership has remained strong. The debate on good forest management in this period revolves around the two silvicultural paradigms: even-aged and uneven-aged systems. The former concerns formal, scientific knowledge of forest management, and the latter takes a traditional approach. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Keywords: Forest management; Even-aged system; Uneven-aged system; Traditional knowledge; Formal knowledge; Finland; Sweden (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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DOI: 10.1007/s10668-013-9442-4

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