‘Pure arrogance’: anger in Finland as Google illegally fells 250,000 trees for datacentre
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2026/oct/22/finland-google-felling-trees-datacentreOpen linkView original on lemmy.zipSyndicated from the fediverse. Read and engage on the original instance.
View original on lemmy.ziphttps://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2026/oct/22/finland-google-felling-trees-datacentreOpen linkView original on lemmy.zip
27 replies
Problem:
Solution: fine them. How much?
13bn seems fair.
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.
Yeah, anything but allow the land to be commercially used
13bn + damage.
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.
I hope something like this will happen, it probably won't though.
You’re allowed to defend your land with force.
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.
Unfortunately, locals need to physically defend their forests and natural resources from these AI corporations. The law is much too slow.
They need a fucking chipko aandolan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chipko_movement
Didn't locals help transform those trees into lumber?
From the article "the illegally felled timber cannot be sold commercially."
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!
~250,000,000,000 per tree :3
Vote right-wing again, I dare you, Finland. Maybe then you'll learn what happens to your forests, just like the global south has.
Strange that no one google'd if Finland actually needed those trees. You'd think Gemini would say, 'Yeah, they need dem trees...' right?)
What's more important, the needs of a company with the wealth of a small country or... a small country?
If the trees are needed by Finland is irrelevant if they were taken down without permission.
Not excusing anything here but it's not like the Finns treat their forests with respect either. The entire country is a tree farm.
Source for this claim?
Satellite view
Can dig more sources for you regarding draining of ecosystems tomorrow
-- [ Wood consumption 2025 (provisional)]https://www.luke.fi/en/statistics/wood-consumption/wood-consumption-2025-provisional)
-- Forests of Finland 2019–2023 and their development 1921–2023
That leaves 20 million cubic metres of wood in tact in Finland.
Timberland is really not a healthy forest. Those are very different things.
Where are you getting that it's timberland?
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.