Google logged forests illegally for months before agency intervened

Google carried out logging and preparatory earthworks for months at its data centre sites in Muhos and Kajaani before the Permit and Supervision Agency intervened, Yle reported. The agency suspended the work on 6 October, citing Finland’s environmental impact assessment law.

Google cleared 330 hectares of forest in Muhos and 198 hectares in Kajaani. The projects’ environmental impact assessment procedures were still under way. The law requires an assessment for a large data centre project, and the permanent removal of more than 200 hectares of trees also triggers the requirement.

Google said it believed the logging was legal because it had filed forest-use notifications. For other preparatory work, the company said it had relied on section 109 of the Building Act. After the agency halted the work, Google’s country manager, Antti Järvinen, apologised for the company’s actions.

Environmental law professor Kai Kokko of the University of Helsinki said Google, as the project operator, was responsible. “Not knowing what the law says is no defence,” he said.

Kokko said municipalities, the Permit and Supervision Agency and the Finnish Forest Centre are responsible for monitoring compliance. The agency must intervene when an operator is clearly breaking the law, he said, using measures such as work stoppages and conditional fines. Courts can also decide on criminal penalties. The agency’s primary role is to guide and advise operators, he said.

Kokko said the municipalities should have directed Google to complete the environmental impact assessments before permits were issued, and that the zoning plans should have become legally binding. Muhos municipal manager Kimmo Hinno said oversight had failed and that every authority, as well as Google, should examine its role.

Documents obtained by Yle show that Google contacted the agency in the spring to ask whether an environmental impact assessment was needed. The agency said one would be required if more than 200 hectares of forest were to be permanently removed.

Google said an agency expert gave the go-ahead in June for preparatory earthworks, provided they stayed within the limits of section 109 of the Building Act and did not require a permit. Agency unit head Sari Myllyoja said the logging came to the agency’s attention in August. Satellite images show that this was months after extensive logging had taken place in Muhos.

Myllyoja said the agency urged Google to stop the work in October because it first needed to establish the facts. “The authority must have sufficient background information to support its decisions,” she said. She added that the agency’s guidance role in an environmental impact assessment does not remove the operator’s own responsibility.

Environment Ministry director-general Veli-Matti Uski said he saw no shortcomings in the agency’s oversight based on the information available to it. He said the agency acts on information provided to it, and that discussions about whether an assessment is needed are different from learning that work has actually begun. The law sets no deadlines for imposing compulsory measures, he said.

Tags: Google, environmental impact assessment, logging