Google cleared 300 hectares of Finnish forest

doublerabbit

And yet no one who be held responsible. It's a joke. Sad.

dgellow

Correction: Illegally cleared 300 hectares

QuantumNoodle

Animals are all cool with all the different pollution that data centers brings? Vibrations, noise, as well as climate?

gherkinnn

Move fast and break things everything they touch. The negative sentiment towards data centres remains a mystery to me /s

zamadatix

For anyone else who can never remember how much a hectare is and think "420 football fields" sounds more like some weed joke than an area: 300 hectares = 3 sq km / ~1.16 sq miles If it's found they really did skip the required steps then I hope there is actual action about it. It's also odd to me we seem to find the need to build AI DCs near population centers, in forests, and/or by/with new fossil fuel plants. Does it really matter so desperately if it takes your AI query an extra 10 ms to go to the middle of nowhere and we have to wait to build renewable or nuclear power to scale it for what we gain in return of that choice?

ChrisArchitect

Article from October OP; [dupe] Earlier submission, article from today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50194283 and previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50048638

tonymet

I have friends who do this regularly for income.

jsrozner

You’re absolutely right — I cleared the forest without first checking in with you, which contradicts your explicit instruction to ask before drafting business plans that violate laws or have meaningfully negative impacts. That’s on me, and I take full responsibility. What went wrong: - I proceeded without confirmation - I did not adequately weigh the environmental, legal, and ethical implications - I removed approximately one (1) forest Why I can’t simply undo it: Unfortunately, unlike in a digital environment, actions in the physical world don’t support a Ctrl+Z function. Would you like me to draft a reforestation plan, a carbon offset strategy, or a heartfelt apology letter to the local wildlife? Let me know how I can help!

Aurornis

First comparison result I found was the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization They say Finland has over 22 million hectares of forested land https://fra-data.fao.org/assessments/fra/latest/FIN/home/ove... So Google reduced the forested land by 0.00000013% I'm so tired of every news outlet trying to turn everything datacenter related into a panic-worthy event. The real story is a debate about whether they followed the right procedures. Google says they did. The chair of a Finnish Nature Conservation Association says maybe they didn't: > She is asking the LVV to halt the entire construction site so that authorities can determine whether Google tried to bring the forest down without first obtaining formal approval. So they want to halt construction to determine if any permitting approval wasn't done appropriately? This is getting so much press that I assumed they had actual evidence that this was illegal, not just someone's suspicion and request to investigate.

bethekidyouwant

we should just re-wild continental Europe, its cool seeing all the happy animals eating each other.

semanticjudo

If it was done illegally, it shouldn’t have been done. But I wanted some numbers to put this in perspective. Forest loss in Finland has averaged about 243,000 hectares per year in recent years through 2025 Finland has 20.3 million to 26.3 million hectares of forestry and forest land depending on the classification used. The United States has a gross forest loss of about 3 million acres per year, which is largely offset by 2.6 million acres of non-forest-to-forest conversion. Brazil cleared 985,000 hectares of forest last year. India approved the diversion of 26,858 hectares of forest last year. There are a lot of entities clearing lots of forest every day. Interesting that this one makes news.

arjie

About a square mile, and the problem is procedural nonsense about the timing of paperwork rather than the paperwork actually showing a problem. Storm in a teacup.

Aboutplants

Google should just purchase and protect 3,000 hectares in another area as a sort of offset. For a few million bucks they could establish a park/reserve that would forever be protected. It heads off bad publicity by at least providing a positive impact

pmkary

Don't be evil, have higher expectations, run the hell.

helsinkiandrew

This isn’t necessarily about the loss of the trees, but cutting them down possibly without an environmental study. The logging and loss of a large block of trees might effect the nearby agricultural land, the water table, rivers/flooding, displaced wildlife might be forced into towns and crops etc

d--b

Er... 300 hectares? This is not a data center, this is a data town.

Jskewel

Just a note that forestry in Finland is managed, this means it is planted and harvested on a rotating basis. There seems to have been a huge messup here without securing the proper permits first. But any reporting you read describing it as an environmental problem will be nonsense as the trees would have been harvested at some point anyway. However I understand that data-centres have become a political issue, and therefore my facts will be meaningless to a half of readers.

jeffbee

The site is roughly here, for anyone who wants to judge for themselves whether clear-cutting forests is a local custom or whether every Finnish tree is sacred. https://www.google.com/maps/place/R4V8%2BW2C,+91500+Tahvola,...

1vuio0pswjnm7

1791223853 | Google Accused of Felling 300 Hectares of Forest for a Finnish Data Centre | https://woodcentral.com.au/google-finland-data-centre-fellin... | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49968324 | 14 comments 1791312099 | Finland orders halt to work on two Google data centres | https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvj6jkx6g1r0o | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49982364 | 5 comments 1791482563 | Finland orders Google unit to halt work at 2 planned data centers | https://qazinform.com/news/finland-orders-google-unit-to-hal... | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50009487 | 0 comments 1791758010 | Google told to halt work on datacentres in Finland over environmental concerns | https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/oct/06/google-da... | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50048638 | 172 comments 1791831729 | Google must pause Finnish data center construction due to environmental concerns | https://posteo.de/en/news/google-must-pause-data-center-cons... | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50061182 | 0 comments 1791911164 | Finnish municipal inspector to be fired: suspects reprisal for Google interview | https://yle.fi/a/74-20251238 | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50075056 | 0 comments 1792671446 | 'Pure arrogance': anger in Finland as Google illegally fells 250k trees | https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2026/... | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50194283 | 4 comments

krylonmae

Everybody plant a tree today. Done.