Private individuals and families own slightly over half of the Finnish forests. There are almost one million forest owners in Finland, if we include all those who own forest holdings jointly. This means that nearly one fifth of the population are forest owners.
The forests owned by families and individuals pass from one generation to the next through inheritance; this is why Finns generally use the term 'family forestry'.
The state owns 34 percent of the Finnish forestry land, private industries eight and other bodies five percent. The state forests are mainly situated in the north of Finland, and 45 percent of them are under strict protection.
A couple of decades ago, the typical Finnish forest owner was a male farmer living in the country and with little formal education. Today it is no longer possible to define a typical forest owner. The factor with the greatest impact on the structure of the forest owner group is the ageing of the population, which means that the largest group among forest owners consists of pensioners.
The rapid urbanisation of forest owners is a subject of intensive speculation in Finland. Nevertheless, 60 percent of forest owners still live in sparsely populated areas, and only one fifth of them live in cities with more than 20,000 inhabitants. Half of the forest owners still live on their holdings. Only about one in every four forest owners is a woman.
Another important group of forest owners in Finland consists of the large age groups born after the second world war. The following significant change in forest ownership will take place in 15–20 years, when the baby boomers hand over their forests to younger generations born in cities and towns. The effect of this on the use of forests is difficult to predict.
Finnish forest holdings are small
Typically, Finnish forest holdings are small. The number of holdings above two hectares is about 440,000, and the number of those under 20 hectares 266,000. The average area of a private forest holding is 44 hectares. The share of holdings over 100 hectares is only 9%. On an average, the holdings owned by men are 15 hectares larger than those owned by women.
A forest holding often has several owners, which is why the number of forest owners is twice that of forest holdings. 16% of forest holdings are owned by the heirs to undistributed estates. Other types of collectives own 9%. Including all those who own a share of a forest holding, the number of forest owners in the country comes up to 900,000 which is almost one fifth of the population. About half of the forest holdings have been acquired through inheritance. A private forest holding changes owners every 23 years, on an average.
Finnish forests are classified as productive forest land, low productive forest land and other land area for forestry. The ownership of families and individuals covers 58% of productive and low productive forest land and that of the state, 29%. The share owned by forestry companies is 8%. The share of privately owned productive land is larger, since the forests owned by the state and partly also by the industry are mainly situated on lands of low productivity in East and North Finland. This is why the share of felling on private lands is clearly higher than their share of forest ownership, 85%.