The European Union has awarded the Forest Life project “Restoration of Boreal Forests and Forest-covered Mires”. This Finnish project was coordinated by Metsähallitus Natural Heritage Services, and the project steering group included UPM, WWF, University of Joensuu and the Finnish Defence Forces.

The Forest Life project partners restored 7,000 hectares of forests in Natura 2000 conservation areas – forests and mires that had previously been in commercial use. The budget for the five year project was EUR 3.7 million, half of which was funded by the EU. UPM participated in the Forest Life project as part of the national METSO forest conservation project in Finland.

”The project was also a part of UPM’s own biodiversity programme, based on international goals and action plans in different countries. One of the goals is to maintain and improve conservation values in protection areas, and this succeeded well in the Forest Life project. UPM’s lumberjacks also experienced something totally new through participating in this project,” says Timo Lehesvirta, Environment Manager, UPM Forest, North Europe.