The proportion of women among Finnish forest owners is increasing. Statistics indicate that one third of forest owners are women. However, their real number is much higher when deceased persons' estates and their co-owners are included.Women show increased interest in tending their forests. Training courses intended for women have been initiated in many parts of the country in the last two years. For example, training programmes lasting for more than one year and divided into several short-term courses have been started in not less than three areas managed by forest owners' associations.
About 800 female forest owners participate. Pupils learn how to administer and manage their own forests. They are given information about where to go for advice and help in planning, what does profitable forestry imply, how to be successful in timber sales, how taxation works, what is the impact of land use planning etc. Courses are partly financed by EU. As a result of lively interest basic courses will be followed up by extended continued training next autumn.
In addition to management and administration, women are showing increasing interest also in forest work. For example in the province Pohjois-Savo a great number of one day courses have been arranged for women in the use of clearing saws. In this province alone one hundred women were instructed how to use clearing saws and teaching continues at the same pace also this year.
Learning forest administration and the art of tending forests has provoked interest also in commissions of trust within forest owners' associations. This phenomenon was evident in forest owners' associations' elections of representative assemblies last autumn. There were more female candidates and their proportion of officials elected was larger in areas where training had been arranged. However, the proportion of elected women still is considerably smaller than their proportion of all members.