Metsähallitus has paused logging at Kukkarojärvi near Pieksämäki at least until endangered species in the area are surveyed, after activists halted the felling, Yle reported, according to lansi-savo.fi.
Logging in the shoreline forests at Nikkarila began on Monday and stopped the same day when activists from Metsäliike and Elokapina arrived and calmly appealed to the machine drivers to spare the forest, Länsi-Savo reported. On Tuesday the machines resumed work and the situation repeated, with activists stopping the 25-hectare site again. The area lies about four kilometres from Pieksämäki town centre, next to the Tahinsuo nature reserve, and a popular hiking trail runs through it.
Jouko Haatainen, regional manager at Metsätalous oy, which is owned by Metsähallitus, said the logging is now on hold and that activist intervention interrupting felling is rare in Eastern Finland. "If such a situation comes, then of course we discuss. In this case too we look together at what the next measures are."
The survey will be carried out by activists from environmental organisations and by Metsähallitus species experts. Earlier surveys by Metsähallitus found the lichens jauheneulajäkälä and salonyppyjäkälä at Kukkaroniemi, endangered because old forests are diminishing. Haatainen said they lie outside the logging area, so the planned felling has no direct effect on them.
Ari Aalto, project coordinator of the Luonnonmetsä working group of forest and nature professionals, said the area is pine-dominated forest clearly more natural than its surroundings and meets the criteria of the Metso programme. "It will be cheaper to protect the existing forest than to restore it somewhere else," he said. Metsäliike's Elina Ilves said logging would fragment the area and weaken its natural values.
"In the scale of southern Finland this would be a large and valuable contiguous whole," she said.