NGOs including Protect the Forest say that clear-cutting leads to forests managed as monocultures, where one type of tree is planted like a farm and which do not replace the many ecological functions of a diverse forest.
"We have seen what total devastation that the "swedish model" with clear cuts has lead to in the forests of Sweden (same thing also in Finland), and it would be terrible if the same thing would happen also in Russian Karelia," Rutschman and Nordström added.
A large-scale mapping project undertaken by NGOs and universities in Russia and Finland is now being released to demonstrate that areas being logged are, indeed, forests of high conservation value.
The petition from Protect the Forest lists five demands, including that IKEA/Swedwood stop logging sensitive forests as well as more general imperatives to “Be a positive political force for environmental sustainability, instead of repeating old colonial patterns” and “Speak the truth!”
[For the record: 8:50 a.m, June 4: Protect the Forest and FSC representatives replied to requests for interview after publication, and were added. Also, a previous version of this story stated the the Global Forest Coalition was the source of the petition against IKEA, but that petition is actually coming from Protect the Forest.]
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