In the following, the Discursive Institutional Conflict Management
Analysis (DICMA) framework is applied to a case study looking at
old-growth forest conflicts on public land in the county of Kainuu in
north-eastern Finland. Forests have played a central role in the nation
building, economic development and politics in Finland, which is still
reflected in today's forest policy. Kainuu county, where the state owns
44% of the forests, has been even more dependent on forestry and forest
industry than most other areas. It has a population of 96000 inhabitants
in an area equivalent to the size of Belgium. Until the enlargement of EU
in 2004, it was one of the poorest regions in EU, and has in recent years
had an unemployment rate of over 15%. At the same time, it has also
hosted some of the last unprotected old-growth forests in Finland,
which is why both official conservation programmes and even more
so local, regional, national and international environmental groups
have created pressure – and succeeded – to exclude forests from timber
production. As a result, Kainuu has for the past 15–20 years been a central
scene in a classic ‘conservation versus jobs’ conflict in Finland.