“Metsän puolella” funding for nine new projects

The theme of power in forest-related issues is reflected in several of the funded projects.

In the fourth funding round of Kone Foundation’s Metsän puolella initiative for forests, nearly €1.6 million was awarded to research projects, art projects, and projects that combine both research and art. A total of 171 applications were evaluated.

“Metsän puolella aims to boost the sustainable use of forests and foster an understanding of the multiple meanings of forests. However, an obstacle to achieving this goal lies in the power structures that have evolved over decades, where political decisions override scientific facts,” says Mari Pantsar, the initiative’s Change Manager.

The power dynamics and decision-making in forest policy are the focus of Anna Kukkonen and their team’s four-year research project “Valuing forests, the use of scientific knowledge and the power network in Finnish forest policy”, which received the round’s largest grant (€481,400). This project aims to understand why public criticism and scientific research highlighting the environmental harm caused by increased logging and intensive forestry have had little impact on Finnish forest policy.

A case study will examine the national implementation of the EU Biodiversity strategy and Forest strategy and the related public debate, including controversies over the protection of primary and old-growth forests. The project will also explore the social network behind forest policy decision-making: identifying influential figures, their roles, and the competing groups they form.

Architect Seela Pentikäinen and their team’s project “Biodiversity city – Alternative plans for urban forest dispute areas in Finland” (€113,900) will create six so-called “shadow plans” as tools to help save urban forests that are valuable for biodiversity and well-being of residents. Resident-generated shadow plans are often ignored by urban planners on the grounds that they have not been drawn up with the necessary diligence. This project aims to mitigate this imbalance of power by creating carefully implemented alternatives that preserve nearby forests. Once completed, the plans will be presented to municipalities, with briefing sessions and site visits to facilitate dialogue between residents, decision-makers, and planners.

A project by the Silva Association for Continuous Cover Forestry (€300,000) will provide forest owners with information and practical examples of forest management that respects nature’s limits. Through peer-learning communities among forest owners, the project aims to implement sustainable forest management practices. By increasing forest owners’ knowledge and supporting them through a network, the Finnish forest sector is encouraged to operate within the limits of ecological carrying capacity.

Christian Subirà’s sound art project Signal Extraction (€17,400) in Sipoonkorpi National Park explores noise pollution from the perspective of inter-species communication. As the Earth’s soundscape constantly changes due to hyper-industrialisation, understanding its effects on ecosystems and managing sound frequencies inaudible to the human ear becomes increasingly important. The project highlights the need to listen to other species in a world where non-human entities are often marginalised by human activity.

Funding was also awarded to two documentary films, a youth theatre project involving six professional theatres, a community festival in Suomussalmi and a project combining education, art, and journalism.

Kone Foundation funds profound, insightful, and bold projects that cover a wide range of forest-related topics through the Metsän puolella (“In the Woods“) programme. The goal is to increase the multifaceted societal discussion about the various meanings of forests and highlight those nuances and voices that have not been heard in forest discourse.

The Metsän puolella grant call is open all year round. The last decisions for 2024 will be published in December. Applications sent by the end of September will be considered for this round.