That sounds ridiculous though, no? Look at how much forest the country has. Making it a national news story seems out of proportion.
The British isles where once covered in forest, too. Then they decided to build a big fleet. Then came the industrial revolution. Now they're down to some 13% of forest...
Yes, Finland might be one of most forested countries in the world (by percentage of land area) now, but history shows that can change quickly if one is not careful about it. Death of a country's forest by a thousand cuts, if you will :)
To an outsider this might sound like an overreaction, but it has to be taken seriously - keep in mind that Finland is one of Europe's premiere locations for grand scale datacentre buildout. Cool climate, lots of available land, politically stable, easy access to cheap and clean power; many very good reasons to assume that this will not be the last datacentre being built there. So yeah, stories like this concern people.
They (Tuike Finland, the Google subsidiary, not a contractor) even asked the authorities if they could skip doing the assessment, were not exempted, and they still continued to log.
Google (or really it's contractor) failed to get the permit, a permit which would have been approved anyway.
This is not about a permit. It's about doing an environmental impact assessment. Google's Finnish subsidiary started logging the forest in March. Then right at the end of April, Tuike Finland (Google) asked the national regulators if they could get a case-by-case decision on the need for the environmental impact assessment, wanting to not have to do it for their permits. Then they got an answer on May 22nd, clearly saying that the environmental impact assessment is required. And Google continued logging until August.
This is Google themselves not following the law, asking for exemptions, not getting one, and then continuing to not follow the law.
But please, feel free to post your source if you have contradicting evidence. Here's mine: https://www.hs.fi/politiikka/art-2000012304991.html
The issue is the media response vs the scope of the violation. It's a small misstep that happens constantly in construction.
But yeah, sure. Show me how often the YVA is being ignored in Finnish industrial construction. Better yet if you have examples of companies asking the regulators for a case-by-case exemption, failing to get it, and continuing to log.