Rural development in Finland: revival of a natural resource sectors perspective

Cumulative economic forces drive societal structures toward centralization, more intensive primary production, and unbalanced regional development. Ongoing structural change has accentuated the disparity between lagging and prosperous Finnish rural areas and altered the role of natural resource sectors. Along with their primary task of providing society with food, renewable energy, and raw materials for construction, alternative forms of products and services, as well as improving attractiveness of rural areas as places of residence, work, and recreation, can be exploited in securing rural viability and in attenuating disparity among rural areas. This article reviews the development in Finland in the light of available statistical data. The potential of the natural resource sectors to contribute to endogenous rural development is discussed in the context of rural policy and natural resource strategies and by paying attention to the differences among rural areas.