This is awful, and we should expect stuff like this to happen more often...

I would have liked the article to be a little more specific on the details of how the law was broken though.

The only way they'll stop is if the land gets seized to be converted into a park and they have to pay for it to be reforested.

If they just pay a fine and get to keep going, it's a cost of business

Make them have to start over, and they'll stop doing it.

Unfortunately, locals need to physically defend their forests and natural resources from these AI corporations. The law is much too slow.

Strange that no one google'd if Finland actually needed those trees. You'd think Gemini would say, 'Yeah, they need dem trees...' right?)

Not excusing anything here but it's not like the Finns treat their forests with respect either. The entire country is a tree farm.

I hope something like this will happen, it probably won't though.

Source for this claim?

What's more important, the needs of a company with the wealth of a small country or... a small country?

Didn't locals help transform those trees into lumber?

Vote right-wing again, I dare you, Finland. Maybe then you'll learn what happens to your forests, just like the global south has.

Satellite view

Can dig more sources for you regarding draining of ecosystems tomorrow

You’re allowed to defend your land with force.

In 2025, roundwood consumption in Finland totalled 78.9 million cubic metres, representing a 3% increase from the previous year. Forest industry production accounted for 84% of the volume, while the remainder was used for energy production.

-- [ Wood consumption 2025 (provisional)]https://www.luke.fi/en/statistics/wood-consumption/wood-consumption-2025-provisional)

Compared to the previous inventory, forest resources have continued to increase but the average annual increment has declined from 107.8 M m3 to 103.0 M m3.

-- Forests of Finland 2019–2023 and their development 1921–2023

That leaves 20 million cubic metres of wood in tact in Finland.

If the trees are needed by Finland is irrelevant if they were taken down without permission.

Problem:

Google illegally fells 250,000 trees

Solution: fine them. How much?

Muhos and Otanmäki are part of a €13bn AI infrastructure project by Google

13bn seems fair.

13bn + damage.

Force them to replant 👌

Tragic thing is that sticking trees back in the ground does not replace what’s been lost. Ecosystems take decades if not centuries. I think they should be paying for replanting, biologists and arborists oversight for a couple decades, and a crew to maintain and care for them.

The loggers may not have been local but I dont think you drop 250k trees without a shit load of people noticing. The data center as a whole project will swell workers and trade jobs in the area during the construction for a facility large enough to warrant that much clearing.

I think many in the local area were fine with it while opponents are getting good coverage now.

Fine them a million euro's a tree!

Yeah, anything but allow the land to be commercially used

From the article "the illegally felled timber cannot be sold commercially."

Timberland is really not a healthy forest. Those are very different things.

~250,000,000,000 per tree :3

Where are you getting that it's timberland?

They need a fucking chipko aandolan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chipko_movement

Where do you get this is anything else? Let alone the possibility that anyone would try to build on one of those extremely rare spots of remaining "wild" non-managed forest? This is all timberland just like almost all area with trees in all of Europe.

So, you don't know whether it's timberland and are making an assumption. Good to know.

Nothing else would make sense. Here a source confirming this.

Could you please quote where in the article it says it's timberland? And even if it were timberland, that doesn't mean that almost all areas with trees in Europe are timberland.

which sold Google four parcels of mostly commercial forestry land at Muhos and Kajaani as raw land nearly two years ago.

Does it make sense to go on? Timberland is VERY different ecologically from a natural forest.