70 years old | “The forest will grow by itself if it is not disturbed,” says researcher Timo Pukkala

As a forest investor Timo Pukkala started only ten years ago. Now there are four plots of land in North Karelia, three purchased and one inherited. There are 120 hectares.

Pukkala has made his career studying and modeling the dynamics of forest growth. The studies have produced results that question the mainstream of forest management. With his own columns, he began to apply his research results in practice.

“The experience of my own forests has not brought the need to change my computational analyses.”

Pukkala jumps into the snowy forest at Ylämylli in Liper. He made his first felling eight years ago in this young pine forest of dry cloth.

In Finland, the sturdier wood is cut as supports for the manufacture of sawn timber, and the thinner wood is cut as pulpwood for pulp mills. The forest owner is paid more than double the price for logs compared to pulpwood.

If traditional instructions had been followed in the felling, the smallest trees would have been thinned out of the forest, and mostly fiberwood would have been sold. Pukkala did the opposite. The biggest trees were cut down from the plot, the smaller ones were left to grow. And they began to grow rapidly.

“The value of trees left standing increased by 70 percent in five years.”

Among forestry professionals, there is a stubborn notion that pine, which requires a lot of light, can only be regenerated by clear felling. However, the bright spots created in the previous felling in the Pukkala forest are full of pine seedlings, the most fertile of which have already grown taller than the forest owner. The forest grows in different structures and produces wood evenly. Clear cutting is not required.

Timo Pukkala was born in Joensuu but grew up in Ilomantsi, where his father worked as the director of an agricultural college. Father was interested in forestry and bought a couple of plots of land to farm. Pukkala was also there as a teenager with a trowel and a trout planting hoe.

The nature-based study path first took me to the Pieksämäki forest school and from there to the University of Helsinki. Pukkala has made his career as a forest scientist in his native Joensuu.

“Finally, when I started doing financial calculations and optimizations in the late 1990s, I started questioning the prevailing doctrines. All my opinions are based on my own analysis – I have not taken anything directly from anyone else.”

For decades, the prevailing doctrine has been under-thinning and evenly structured forestry. Pukkala's research results support forestry with different structures.

“The most economical solution is top thinning. This is true in different countries and with different growth models, from China to Spain.”

Timo Pukkala has questioned many prevailing doctrines in forestry. “All my opinions are based on my own analyses,” he says. Picture: Matti Vassinen

For expertise has been enough to export around the world. In 2020, Pukkala was based on the Scopus publication database by comparison one of the world's most cited forest scientists. He has worked as an expert in various projects in more than 15 countries.

In addition to research projects, Pukkala has consulted, for example, investment funds that own forests. They seek the best possible return on their invested capital.

“For a forest owner, the most important thing is not how much wood comes from the forest, but how much profit there is.”

In Pukkala's opinion, the forest management method is determined by the trees in the area.

“Sometimes clear cutting can also be justified. I support freestyle forestry. It's the most profitable because it doesn't rule out any option.”

With optimization models, which Pukkala has developed, can also evaluate, for example, carbon sequestration. According to him, there are as many absolutes and misunderstandings in the discussion about carbon sinks as in the discussion about the continuous growth of forests.

“The most common misconception is that forests should grow quickly. Growth is of no use if the carbon stock is not increased at the same time.”

Growing wood for pulp boilers or for energy cannot be justified by carbon sequestration, because in that the carbon only circulates from the forest to the atmosphere and back. Carbon sequestration is the addition of trees. According to Pukkala, the amount of wood in Finland's forests could be doubled without reducing wood production much.

By buying five hectares of young forest and clearing it from logging, anyone can offset the climate emissions of their entire life.

“The forest is a machine that removes carbon from the air. It will grow by itself if it is not disturbed.”

Work There would still be more available for Pukkala than there is time to do. In addition to domestic work, he has, for example, a work contract with the Catalan Forest Research Center. He also helps Iceland in developing its own forest planning.

Pukkala thinks he will be doing research work for another ten years. “My wife is still at work – I have to be, too.”

• Born 1954 in Joensuu.

• Forestry engineer, Pieksämäki forestry school 1977. Master's degree in agriculture and forestry 1981, University of Helsinki. Doctor of Agriculture and Forestry 1988, University of Joensuu.

• Professor of Forestry Planning, University of Joensuu / University of Eastern Finland 1992–2007 and 2009–2022.

• Director of Research and Development, ForEco Technologies (Spain) 2007–2008.

• Expert positions in international forest projects, e.g. In Spain, Portugal, Syria, Lebanon, Bolivia, Laos, Armenia, Malawi, Kenya, Turkey, Sudan, Nepal and Ethiopia.

• Partner of Arvometsä Oy, which provides forestry services.

• Lives in Joensuu. Married, five grown children, one grandchild.

• Turns 70 on Thursday, February 15th. Celebrates the anniversary “as inconspicuously as possible”, probably in a split stove.

What would you say to your 20-year-old self?

“Do what makes you happy.”