Silvicultural and forest improvement work 2022

Total investments in silvicultural and forest improvement work were EUR 233 million in 2022. The investments decreased from the previous year one per cent at nominal prices, and because of high inflation rate 18 per cent for the previous year at real prices (deflated using the wholesale price index, 1949=100).

• EUR 191 million of the investment costs were allocated to silvicultural work, and EUR 42 million to forest improvement work. Forest improvement includes fertilisation, ditch network maintenance, and basic improvement and construction of forest roads.
• The area of early and later pre-commercial thinning and improvement of young stands decreased by 13 per cent from the previous year to 148,000 hectares. The area of early and later pre-commercial thinning was 113,000 and that of improvement of young stands was 35,000 hectares.
• The area of artificial regeneration decreased by three per cent from the previous year to 94,000 hectares. Planting accounted for 75 per cent of the artificial regeneration area, and the rest was seeded. The share of planting in artificial regeneration decreased by two percentage points.
• A total of 1,900 kilometres of forest roads were basic improved or constructed. Ditch network maintenance dropped to 2,700 kilometres.

Information on the statistics

The statistics for silviculture and forest improvement include work carried out in private, commercial and state-owned forests. Since 2015, the statistics have not included work carried out independently by forest owners in their own forests, as this is not recorded in the statistics from the data collected from forest service providers.

Exceptionally, no statistics were produced for 2022 on repelling root-rot disease. This has been taken into account when comparing the total costs for 2021 and 2022.

The area treated with fellings are based on notifications of forest use and felling statistics by Finnish Foresty Centre.