The root of the matter

Satu Lantiainen on her role representing the many Nordic families who own forest land.

Forestry is in the Nordic people’s blood, with most forests in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden owned by private families. “Every fifth Finn is a forest owner,” says Satu Lantiainen, the Brussels representative for the Bureau of Nordic Family Forestry. “So there is a forest owner in every family.”

Traditionally, male farmers owned the forests, but, in part because of demographic changes, an increasing number are women and city-dwellers, from stock market analysts to taxi drivers. “Urban forest owners are the new generation,” says Lantiainen, explaining that the land has usually come to them through inheritance.

It is this diverse range of people that Lantiainen, a Finn, represents to the European institutions. She is the Brussels contact point for four Nordic national organisations, which have co-operated closely since the foundation of NSF (Nordiska Skogsägarorganisationernas Förbund) in 1946 and have been represented in Brussels since 1995, when Finland and Sweden joined the EU.

A large part of Lantiainen’s job is monitoring EU policy on forestry-related issues and reporting back to her four bosses – one in each of the Nordic countries in the organisation. Topics vary from forestry protection to climate-change policy, from bio-energy issues to aspects of the Common Agricultural Policy. She regularly shares her members’ points of view with European Commission officials and members of the European Parliament.

“It is exciting because the things that are being discussed here will affect all EU countries. You see how it is formulated at the beginning, and how it is at the end,” Lantiainen says.

One of the Bureau of Nordic Family Forestry’s biggest achievements, in Lantiainen’s opinion, is the EU timber regulation, which aims to avoid illegally harvested timber and timber products being sold in the EU. “That was something that we did a lot of work on, explaining to MEPs and civil servants in the Commission all about the ‘chain of wood’, from forest owners to factory,” Lantiainen says. The legislation is still being implemented, so it is too early to make a final judgment, she says, but “the way we interpret it, it’s quite good”.

Russian studies

Lantiainen has a university degree in forest sciences, specialising in forest technology. She chose the subject as she was interested in economics and marketing but found those choices “too cold”. Forest sciences combined those areas with biology and the study of a natural resource. “It sounded like the perfect match,” recalls Lantiainen, who also has a degree in Russian language and literature.

It was her knowledge of Russian that secured her a summer placement with the large Finnish forest machinery company Ponsse, representing the company at a forest-technology fair in St Petersburg. Lantiainen enjoyed her time in Russia, noting that Russians never questioned the idea of a young woman working in forest technology, in contrast to many in Europe, including her native Finland. “Given Soviet history, when many women worked in all fields of science and became successful researchers, Russian people don’t question the fact,” Lantiainen says.

A different internship, this time in Brussels, proved to be a particularly important stepping-stone to her current position, as it gave her a taste of the world of EU policymaking. The placement was with the Confederation of European Forest Owners (CEPF), the umbrella federation of family forest owners throughout Europe, with which the Bureau of Nordic Family Forestry works very closely.

The job, though, is not limited to a closed world of specialists. The Bureau of Nordic Family Forestry also keeps its website up-to-date with news (in English) on issues affecting forestry in the Nordic region. Stories about the Danish government’s energy plans and the Norwegian transport ministry’s truck policy sit side-by-side with stories about storms damaging forests in Finland and rising moose populations damaging Swedish forests. With forests so much a part of Nordic life, it is a source of information for many who themselves own no tract of forest land.

Anna Jenkinson is a freelance journalist based in Brussels.

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