By Jana Holz

This Plain Language Summary is published in advance of the paper discussed. Please check back soon for a link to the full paper.

How people relate to forests, how they care for them, or take care of them, matters for the future of forests and their role in sustainability transformations.

In this study, I explore how people in a Finnish forestry region relate to forests and forest use. My research focuses on Äänekoski, a rural municipality in Central Finland, where a large pulp mill plays a key role in the local economy. This mill is part of the growing bio-based economy, in which modern, industrial, high-tech, large-scale forest utilization plays a major role. The mill aims to combine economic growth, new technologies, and, at the same time, proclaims sustainability goals. However, this model has also been criticized for its intensive use of natural resources that puts strong pressure on nature.

The study is based on interviews I carried out between 2019 and 2021 in the region of Central Finland with forest owners, forestry professionals, entrepreneurs, and local residents. Analytically, the paper combines a “care” perspective with a qualitative sociological approach to understand how people describe their relationships with forests, and what we can say about their caring attitudes and practices towards forests.  

I identified four main ways of relating to forests:

  1. progressive management of nature;
  2. traditional utilization of nature;
  3. community-oriented views of nature; and
  4. pro-ecological appreciation of nature

The first two ways of relating to forests focus mainly on the economic benefits of forests and their use. The latter two often question current forestry practices but are usually held by people outside the forestry sector.

My findings suggest that practices and attitudes described as “caring” within industrial forestry can still contribute to unsustainable outcomes. More critical and ecological relationships and caring attitudes exist, but they currently have limited influence on how forests are actually managed.