Leningrad Oblast Metsä Forest Podporozhye

We adhere to sustainable development principles.
Metsä Forest Podporozhye, a subsidiary of the Finnish timber industry Metsä Group has been involved in forest management in Leningrad Oblast since 2005 based on long-term contracts of the FMUs of the total area of 270k ha.
Within the development of sustainable management practices the company implements its own programs of development of forest infrastructure, intensification of forest management and conservation of biological diversity.

“Metsa Forest Podporozhye” LLC examines the costs of road construction and forestry as an investment to increase the value of the leased forests and to provide continuous and sustainable forest management in accordance with the sustainable development principles.

The availability of forest land is a prerequisite for sustainable forest management:

Twenty km of forest year-round roads are annually built and commissioned. This allows to effectively manage forest resources in short and long terms, including accessibility of forests to the public, connect the villages located at the borders of Leningrad Oblast with the Republic of Karelia and Vologda Oblast.

Intensive methods of forest management: from the demonstration projects to widely applied practice:

A responsible approach to the renewal of forest resources is being implemented by the company through an increase in the area of artificial forest regeneration, improved quality of soil preparation and the use of seedlings with closed root system that provides a gain in height of more than 20 cm starting from the first years after planting the forest cultures.
Intensive care of young stands creates conditions for the formation of commercially valuable plantations. The optimization of tree species composition and density results in the increase of target species growth and improved commodity structure of forest stands.

Assessment of the company’s activities by third-party experts:

The approach to forest management applied by “Metsa forest Podporozhye” LLC received approval from the leading international forest certification schemes. The company was the first in Russia (03.03.2010) to receive a forest management certificate under the PEFC system, and also became the first company that passed an independent audit for both current forest certification schemes in Russia (FSC® and PEFC).

Conservation of biological diversity based on a multi-layered approach:

The conservation of biological diversity is one of the key elements of sustainable forest management. The company, in cooperation with the leading experts in the field of nature conservation, has been working on the identification of rare species and valuable natural complexes. Since 2007 the habitats of over 60 species listed in the Red Data Books of Russia and Leningrad Oblast have been identified and described.
The company contributes to the organization of specially protected natural areas and specially protected forest areas to save valuable forest landscapes and individual forest ecosystems.
To maintain forest environment patchiness and biological diversity conservation at the level of forest communities and their parts the company leaves within the cutting site borders isolated valuable objects and such elements of heterogeneity of the forest environment as permanent and ephemeral watercourses, some wetland depressions, steep slopes, groups of undergrowth, etc.

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