No time was wasted in jumping right into day 3 at the Hyytiala Forestry Field Station. After a filling breakfast with coffee we got to meet Tiina Hakkarainen.
  Ms.Tiina is a customer service manager for Metsahallitus. Metsahallitus manages, operates, and develops 1/3 of Finland’s land and water. In 2016 the state was able to make €93 700 000 in profit with € 96 000 000 in state revenue contribution. Wow that is amazing sense all that money goes right back into the 40 National Parks, 6 hiking parks, 12 wilderness area, and 19 strictly regulated areas. So of course once you learn all this wonderful information about the very national parks that surround you, you of course have to go hike one! We choose Helvetinjavi National Park aka “Hell’s Hole”.

Now let me tell you a bit of advice if you have never been to a Finland National Park, it is a bloody must! On top of all National Parks being free of charge, the beauty of the National Park will blow your socks right off.

So after our goodbyes we climbed back into the vans and headed towards our next adventure, Stora Enso logging site. We learned about Finland’s logging practices and two different types of logging machines, the harvester and the forwarder. Both machines were Komatsu. The harvester was a mid-grade 911.5 model, perfect for a second cut site. The operators showed us how the machines worked and even let us get up into the cab of the harvester. Overall, a truly neat experience!

Check also the Stora Enso website: https://www.storaensometsa.fi/kansainvalinen-kesakurssi-tutustui-harvennukseen/. Sorry, it is in Finnish though.

We once agian said our goodbyes and last questions over coffee and a pulla (pastry). From here we climbed back into the vans, this time exhausted. We slowly made our way back to Hyytiala for some dinner, sauna, Lake Swim, and barbecue. What a fun filled day it was! Learned, hiked and saw so many unique and new things. A day I don’t think any one of us 8 will ever forget.

-Kaleena Jones

It is on, first day of our summer school course Managing Sustainable Forest Landscapes.

Professor Markku Kanninen introduced the objectives and some guidelines of the course and we were telling that we are trying to focus on big picture when talking about forest landscapes. Overall I was very glad to see you guys eventhough we had only half an hour time for introduction.

First day of the Helsinki Summer School 2017 is officially on when students, coordinators and HSS staff gathered together in University Main Building when opening ceremony started. We heard some interesting stories about history of Universities of Nordics by Vice-Rector Anne Mauranen who is also one of the summer school teachers.

Mr. Stuba Nikula told some jokes about Finnish holiday tradition and how people in Helsinki are a bit dissapointed when they need not to guide tourists holding citymaps next to street corners.

The day was all about introducing every course of the summer school and there were so many of them. And it felt like people all around the world were present. So many nationalities and great moments, it was a great opening ceremony. Hope that every one of you will find your way to Viikki tomorrow morning when we are beginning our field trip to Hyytiälä Forestry Field Station.

#HelsinkiSummerSchool

Helsinki Summer School course starts soon. Many tasks have been done and for me as a coordinator every day has been a learning process.

Hello, dear HSS comrades,

All good things must come to an end. We have a great pleasure to say goodbye to you all. We have had a bunch of amazing events organized for us since we arrived here in HSS apart from studying as a priority number one. We really enjoyed the course and had an experience of a lifetime together and it is now time to say goodbye and part ways and go back to our home country and practice what we have been taught here in HSS. Once more we grasp this noble opportunity to say Asante Sana! Kiitos!!

HSS Managing Sustainable Forest Landscapes students on class session

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It is almost the end of our Summer School!! Of course we are a little bit tired after almost three weeks of rich discussions and experience exchanges… but there is always time for more!

Today we changed place and our ‘family’ grew up: we are ready for sharing our ideas at the “Public Seminar”, part of the Summer School program.

The central theme of the seminar is Green Economy, and a panel of experts will follow the three presentations. The challenge of the day is to discuss which is the best way to go with Green (or Bio) Economy.

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This Tuesday we presented our group work about the six different landscapes all over the world. Each group had to analyse one landscape concerning Biodiversity, Ecosystem Services, Ecotourism and Carbon.

Locations of the landscapes

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The day commenced well with Saska Lohi the course coordinator introducing the lecturer of the day i.e Adrian A. monge monge. He also introduced himself more as holder of Bsc in tropical forestry(costa lica) and a msc in forestry economics(finland).

Adrián talking about risks

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The day began with the Kenyan folks arriving very early, prepared to start the day! Saska Lohi, the programme coordinator made some initial remarks and presented the activities for the day. Day was fully dedicated to understand carbon; both in theory and practice, through the lecture in the morning and a workshop in the afternoon.

Docent Markku Larjavaara, working in VITRI, revolved around carbon in five sections; carbon in forests, global biomass variation, impact of global change to forest carbon, carbon workshop and concluded with how money and carbon are linked!

Docent Markku Larjavaara delivering a lecture on carbon

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First we had the pleasure to listen to Dr. Markku Kanninen’s lecture about plantation forests. The learning objectives covered the purpose/management objectives of plantations, global trends in plantation forestry, and plantations as a part of laandscape. The FAO definition of forests and plantations was used as a base for the presentation.

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