Sustainable development, sustainable forestry, sustainable wood production (kestävä kehitys, kestävä metsätalous, kestävä puuntuotanto)

Sustainable development means that the activity of the present generations does not weaken, and preferably improves, the conditions of life for future generations. Sustainable development, or sustainability, is usually divided into three aspects: ecological, economic and social sustainability. Sustainability is not the sum of these three aspects, but their result: if the sustainability of one aspect is zero, the other two aspects will also fail to reach sustainability.

Sustainable wood production means that no more wood is removed from the forest than can be reproduced through growth. Sustainable wood production must be examined over a sufficiently long time period. If you look at a regeneration felling, then certainly more wood is removed than will be replaced by growth for a many years. On the other hand, if wood production is sustainable, the growth of the forest during its rotation period is at least as much as the volume felled. On the other hand, even over a long period of time cutting may not exceed growth, because wood is also removed from the forests in other ways besides felling. To determine the sustainable level, natural drain, felling losses and growth which cannot be felled for one reason or another, must all be subtracted from the growth volume. The volume thus arrived at is the upper limit of felling.