Metsähallitus has paused logging at Kukkarojärvi in Pieksämäki, at least until endangered species in the area have been surveyed, after activists halted the work for a second day, according to Yle.
Logging in the 25-hectare area began on Monday, about four kilometres from Pieksämäki centre and next to the Tahinsuo nature conservation area, where a popular hiking trail runs. Activists from Metsäliike and Elokapina interrupted the work on its first day and again on Tuesday when the machines resumed. According to lansi-savo.fi, the work stopped when the activists calmly appealed to the machine drivers to spare the forest and talked with them.
Jouko Haatainen, regional manager at Metsätalous oy, which is owned by Metsähallitus, said the logging is now on hold. He said it is rare for activist intervention to interrupt logging in Eastern Finland. "If such a situation arises, of course we discuss it. In this case too, we will look at the next steps together," Haatainen said.
The survey will be carried out by activists from environmental organisations and by Metsähallitus species experts.
Earlier Metsähallitus surveys found two endangered lichen species at Kukkaroniemi, threatened because old forests are diminishing. Haatainen said the endangered species lie outside the logging area, so the planned felling has no direct impact on them. Ari Aalto, project coordinator of the Luonnonmetsä working group of forestry and nature professionals, said the Kukkarojärvi area is clearly more natural pine-dominated forest than its surroundings and meets the criteria of the Metso programme, under which the state pays private forest owners to protect their forests voluntarily.
"It is cheaper to protect existing forest than to restore it somewhere else," Aalto said. Metsäliike wants the whole Kukkarojärvi area protected. Elina Ilves of Metsäliike said the logging would fragment the area and weaken its nature values.
"On a southern Finland scale, this would be a large and valuable contiguous whole, because it would connect to the existing nature conservation area," she said.