Professor and Forest Warrior

Erkki Lähde was still a young researcher when he realised that Finland’s forestry industry was built on a lie. After the Second World War, Finnish factories were hungry for timber, and clear-felling, despite its devastating impact on nature, became the only accepted form of “forest management”. Now, Lähde is almost 90 years old and an emeritus professor, yet the need to fight for Finland’s forests has not gone away.

Jari Kokko’s documentary exposes the dark history of Finnish forest policy, in which researchers questioning clear-felling were silenced, dissenters labelled mentally ill, and forest owners who refused to clear-fell were taken to court to answer for their supposed sins. Trees were felled hectare after hectare, even though the wisdom of previous generations and scientific research already offered a more natural and profitable alternative for forest owners: continuous-cover forestry, in which the largest trees are harvested while the smaller ones are allowed to keep reaching towards the sky.

The forest war has changed shape, and continuous-cover forestry is no longer forbidden. Yet forestry-industry advertising in favour of clear-felling can rival the propaganda films of the post-war era in its sheer brazenness. There has been no wholesale reversal in logging practices, even as the loss of biodiversity accelerates. Lähde turns his gaze towards the young.

They have a future — whether it will be good or bad.

Ruusa Myllyaho (translated by Herman Tikkanen)