Ukraine seeks Finnish expertise as war disables million hectares of forest

Ukraine is seeking Finnish expertise to map its forests and expand the use of wood-based energy, as more than one million hectares of forest have been put out of use by the war, Yle reports.

Viktor Melnychenko, head of the state company Ukrderzhlisproekt, which oversees forest inventories and planning, said the affected area represents about a tenth of Ukraine’s forests. The country’s forestry workforce has also been depleted as staff are sent to the front. Of 250 employees in his organisation, 16 are currently serving in the military and three have been killed, he said.

A group of Ukrainian forestry experts spent a week in North Karelia learning about Finnish forest mapping. The visit is part of a three-year cooperation project involving Finland’s Natural Resources Institute and Finnish Forest Centre, alongside three Ukrainian forestry organisations.

The project aims to help Ukraine plan how to inventory its forests using methods applied in Finland, and to increase the use of wood energy. Pasi Poikonen of the Natural Resources Institute said greater reliance on decentralised energy production could help ensure that damage to one energy plant does not interrupt heat supplies across society.

Melnychenko said Ukraine is particularly interested in remote sensing methods, including laser scanning, which is not yet widely used in the country. Aerial photography is currently not possible because of the war.

Ukraine has about 10.4 million hectares of forest, covering 16 percent of its land. Most of the forests are state-owned. Melnychenko said some continuous forest areas of up to 30,000 hectares have been completely destroyed, and their recovery could take hundreds of years.

The project began last year after delays caused first by the Covid pandemic and then by Russia’s invasion. Finland’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs is funding the work, which is worth about one million euros.