Climate-smart forestry in a high-forest boreal production system : management trade-offs, peatland mitigation and implementation constraints in Finland

Abstract

Finnish forests play a central role in national climate mitigation and adaptation, yet the climate value of forestry depends strongly on management choices and associated trade-offs. This scoping review synthesizes current knowledge on climate-smart forestry in Finland, with particular emphasis on carbon sequestration, drained peatlands, harvest intensity, and management-related trade-offs. We reviewed literature published between 2015 and 2026 and synthesized 30 core studies selected from 297 records identified across major academic search platforms. The evidence shows that management choices strongly modulate carbon outcomes and can in some cases outweigh the modeled effects of climate change, although increasing climate-driven disturbance and uncertainty remain central constraints. Continuous-cover forestry on drained peatlands has emerged as one of the most promising high-leverage pathways, with studies indicating the potential to strengthen Finland’s forest carbon sink while reducing soil emissions relative to rotation forestry. Mitigation-oriented management can increase carbon stocks compared with business-as-usual scenarios, but typically at the cost of lower timber harvests, which highlights a persistent carbon–timber trade-off. Mixed-species stands, longer rotations, genetically improved regeneration material, and adaptive management approaches also show potential to support carbon sequestration and forest resilience under changing disturbance regimes. At the same time, regional variability, uncertainty in long-term projections, and the economics of private forest ownership complicate implementation. We interpret Finland as a high-forest boreal production system in which the main climate-smart forestry challenge is not forest expansion, but the redesign of management incentives, peatland practices and owner-level decision support within an already intensively managed forest estate. The strongest opportunities lie in peatland-sensitive management, harvest optimization and multifunctional approaches that integrate carbon, biodiversity, resilience and wood-use objectives. However, these pathways involve explicit trade-offs: higher in-forest carbon stocks and lower peatland emissions often require lower short-term harvest revenues, modified silvicultural systems or additional incentives for private forest owners. The Finnish case therefore provides transferable lessons for other high-forest production systems where carbon mitigation depends on aligning ecological potential, forest economics and practical implementation.