Tiina Sanila-Aikio cannot remember a warm summer. The months of midnight sun around Inari, in Finnish Lapland, were hot and dry. The needles of the conifers on the branches are orange when they should be deep green. The moss on the forest floor, usually swollen with water, has withered.

“I have spoken to many old reindeer herders who have never experienced the heat we have had this summer. The sun keeps shining and it never rains,” says Sanila-Aikio, former president of the Finnish Sami Parliament.

The boreal forests here in the Sami homeland take so long to grow that even small, stunted trees are often hundreds of years old. It is part of the Taiga – which means ‘land of small sticks’ in Russian – which stretches across the far northern hemisphere through Siberia, Scandinavia, Alaska and Canada.

It is these forests that have contributed to the credibility of the most ambitious carbon neutrality target in the developed world: Finland’s commitment to carbon neutrality by 2035.

The law, which came into force two years ago, means the country aims to reach the target 15 years earlier than many of its EU counterparts.

In a country of 5.6 million people, almost 70 percent of which is covered by forests and peatlands, many assumed the plan would not be a problem.

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For decades, the country’s forests and peatlands had reliably removed more carbon from the atmosphere than they released. But starting around 2010, the amount of land the country absorbed began to decline, at first slowly and then rapidly. By 2018, Finland’s bottom sink – the term scientists use to describe something that absorbs more carbon than it releases – had disappeared.

The forest sink declined by about 90 percent between 2009 and 2022, with the remainder of the decline fueled by increased emissions from soil and peat. In 2021 and 2022, the Finnish land sector made a net contribution to global warming.

The impact on overall climate progress in Finland is dramatic: despite a 43 percent reduction in emissions in all other sectors, net emissions are roughly at the same level as in the early 1990s. It’s as if nothing has happened for thirty years.

The collapse has enormous consequences, not only for Finland but also internationally. At least 118 countries rely on natural carbon sinks to meet climate goals. Due to a combination of human destruction and the climate crisis itself, some are now reeling and starting to see a drop in the amount of carbon they take in.

“We cannot achieve carbon neutrality if the land sector is a source of emissions. They have to be sinks, because in other sectors not all emissions can be reduced to zero,” said Juha Mikola, a researcher at the Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), which is responsible for producing the official government figures.

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“When these targets were set, we thought the land removal would be about 20 to 25 million tonnes and that we could achieve the target. But now the situation has changed. The main reason is that subsidence in the forest decreases by almost 80 percent,” he adds.

Tarja Silfver, scientific researcher at Luke, says: “It makes it very difficult to achieve the objectives. Really, really difficult.”

The reasons behind these changes are complicated and not yet fully understood, researchers say. Burning peatland for energy – more polluting than coal – remains common. Commercial logging of forests – including rare primordial ecosystems formed since the last ice age – has increased at an already brutal pace and accounts for the majority of Finland’s land sector emissions. But there are also indications that the climate crisis has become a driver of decline.

Rising temperatures in the fastest-warming part of the planet are warming Finnish soil, increasing the rate at which peatlands break down and are released. greenhouse gases into the air. Palsas – huge mountains of frozen peat – are quickly disappearing in Lapland.

The number of dying trees has also increased in recent years as forests are under pressure from drought and high temperatures. In southeastern Finland, the number of dying trees has risen rapidly, increasing by 788 percent in just six years between 2017 and 2023, and the amount of standing dead wood – rotting trees – has increased by around 900 percent.

The country’s forests, most of which were planted after the end of World War II, are also maturing and approaching the maximum amount of carbon they can naturally store.

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Bernt Nordman of WWF Finland says: “Five years ago, the common narrative was that Finland’s forests are a huge carbon sink – that they can in fact offset Finland’s emissions. This has changed very, very dramatically.”

Although these changes are expected by climate scientists, they are causing concern for policymakers. Finland is not alone in its experience of decline or disappearing subsidence. France, Germany, the Czech Republic, Sweden and Estonia are among the countries that have seen a significant decline in their land wells.

Drought, climate-related bark beetle outbreaks, wildfires and tree mortality due to extreme heat are devastating Europe’s forests, on top of forestry pressures. Across the EU, the amount of carbon absorbed annually by land has fallen by around a third between 2010 and 2022, putting the continent’s climate target at risk, according to the latest research.

Johan Rockström, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, says: “The reasons [for Finland’s shift] have not yet been fully investigated, but it is most likely a combination of unsustainable forest management and also dieback due to drought and extreme weather conditions. Similar trends are seen in Canada, mainly due to disease outbreaks, but also in Sweden.

“These are countries in the temperate north that have seen their carbon storage as a very central part of their climate policy,” he says. “It’s such a big risk for these governments.”

In Salla, Southern Lapland, Matti Liimatainen and Tuuli Hakulinen walk through the remains of a rare primeval forest. Black lichen hangs from the branches above huge, waist-high ant nests. On either side of the muddy path, dead gray trees stand in a sea of ​​green – an indication, the forest activists say, that this area has never been disturbed by humans before.

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But the road they are on has recently been cleared: a forest path where loggers can enter. Behind them lies a barren, barren stretch of land, littered with tree stumps and bare earth. The remaining trees will soon be processed into pulp.

Liimatainen, a forest activist with Greenpeace, and Hakulinen, a project manager at the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation, have traveled to the remote forest to document the rare species that live there, as part of a cat-and-mouse game with the forestry industry. By identifying the presence of endangered wildlife, they hope to prevent the mills from obtaining sustainable timber certification and grant the forest a reprieve.

“This was part of a huge primeval forest and was cut down last winter,” says Liimatainen, pointing to the clear-cut expanse.

Some of Finland’s forest is believed to be untouched and often found on or around peatlands, but there is little formal government protection. New areas are regularly cleared for pulp and lumber.

Researchers say slowing deforestation, better protection of intact ecosystems and better forest management could help restore Finland’s land sink. But the costs have led to resistance from the forestry sector.

The Finnish Ministry of Finance estimates that harvesting a third less would reduce GDP by 2.1 percent, which would amount to between 1.7 billion and 5.8 billion euros (between 1.84 billion and 6.28 billion dollars). per year would cost. Increasing forest protection would also cost the country hundreds of millions of euros, according to the Finnish Nature Panel. The state owns 35 percent of the forests, while private owners, companies, municipalities and various organizations own the rest.

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Finland’s top timber companies say the country’s forests still absorb more carbon than they release, while acknowledging the amount has shrunk dramatically in recent years. Fossil fuels, rather than forestry, pose the greatest threat to the climate, they say.

A spokesperson for Metsä Group, a cooperative of more than 90,000 forest owners, says that when forests are cleared, new trees are planted, meaning carbon sequestration can be increased in the long term.

A spokesperson for UPM, a Finnish forestry company, said the 2035 carbon neutrality target was too optimistic and that “too much hope for climate policy was pinned on the sinks of the land use sector.”

“Calls to limit logging often ignore the point that the state owns about a quarter of Finland’s forests. The government can limit harvests on its own land if it is willing to bear the significant direct and indirect financial consequences,” they say.

Under the right-wing government that was elected last year, much less emphasis has been placed on achieving climate goals. The Finnish government did not respond to The Guardian’s request for comment.

But researchers warn that rising global temperatures are likely to further degrade Finland’s soil well. Research shows that in all boreal ecosystems, the forest loses its ability to absorb and store as much carbon as possible.

“There are some very serious scientific scenarios in which, if climate change continues, the spruce in Finland will not survive, at least in southern Finland,” says Nordman. “The entire forestry system is based on this tree.”

For communities that have always lived in the Arctic Circle, the changes are already evident. As autumn approaches, Sanila-Aikio prepares for the return of the reindeer from their summer feeding grounds ahead of an uncertain winter.

If the drought continues, there will be no more mushrooms for the reindeer, she explains. “If they don’t fatten up, they will starve,” she says.