The Forests Dialogue gathers forest sector leaders in Finland

1 September 2014

An international Dialogue on Food, Fuel, Fiber and Forests (4Fs) took place in Finland on 2-5 September. International forest sector leaders were familiarized with the Finnish forest sector and they discussed the co-ordination of various stakeholders’ land use needs, ecosystem services and the bioeconomy.

This is the first time the event was held in Finland and aimed to increase international influencers’ knowledge about the Finnish forest sector as well as to present the Finnish forest sector’s national success factors in integrating different land uses in forest landscape.  Experts in forest, biofuel and agriculture sectors taking part in the event came from, for example, the US, Brazil, Vietnam, Zambia, Cameroon, Indonesia and Europe.

Finnish forest industry operations in Eastern Finland were presented to the members of The Forests Dialogue group during their visit. On Tuesday 2 September, the group visited Lappeenranta, Joutseno and Imatra to learn more about the production of wood-based bioenergy as part of the bioeconomy. On Wednesday 3 September, guests found out more about the Finnish forest economy on a visit to Puumala and Sulkava and they will discuss forest ecosystem services.

The Forests Dialogue, established in 1998, is a global forest sector co-operation forum with a secretariat hosted at Yale University in the US. Its events have been attended by 2,500 leaders from the forest industry, the forest economy, environmental and other NGOs as well as the public sector. The Forests Dialogue’s objective is to support an open, multi-stakeholder dialogue in order to solve disputes related to forests and land use.

The event in Finland was organised by Metsä Group, Metsähallitus, the Finnish Forest Industries Federation, the Central Union of Agricultural Producers and Forest Owners (MTK), Stora Enso, UPM and WWF Finland.

The event was supported by the Metsämiesten Säätiö Foundation and the Finnish Forest Foundation.

For further information please contact: Jukka Halonen, Manager, Trade Policy, the Finnish Forest Industries Federation, tel. +358 50 591 1090