Authority probes Google over flying squirrel route at Hamina data centre

Finland’s Permit and Supervisory Authority has launched an urgent investigation into whether Google subsidiary Tuike Finland breached conservation law at a data centre expansion site in Hamina, Yle reports.

The authority previously asked the company to suspend work after the Southeast Kymenlaakso branch of the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation raised concerns that construction may have cut off a flying squirrel route. The group warned that continuing the work could cause irreparable harm to the local population.

The association says a wooded corridor used by the squirrels may be at risk across a 50-metre-wide stretch, and suspects trees felled at the site have already broken the route at one point. Such corridors allow flying squirrels to move between areas.

The authority is examining how the squirrels’ routes have been taken into account. It has begun by asking Tuike Finland for its account and will then decide whether to inspect the site.

Google told Yle it is responding to the authority’s questions and is ready for open dialogue. The company says it has taken measures to protect the squirrels’ habitat, including annual surveys of nesting trees and routes, and installing nest boxes since 2016. It says a 30-metre-wide wooded route has been reserved for the animals through the site.

Google has operated in Hamina for about 15 years and is building its eighth server hall there. In October, it emerged that Tuike Finland had illegally felled flying squirrel resting trees and routes in Hamina during expansion work in 2018 and 2019.