Northern Forest & Wood

Our Purpose

Northern Forest & Wood Association was founded in Koillismaa in 2019. We operate as a guardian of interests of the forest and wood industry and as an influencer working widely in various stakeholders and networks. We keep track of the public funding opportunities and use them to develop our operations. We inform our members of the new funding opportunities and participate actively in conversations between the regional operators to make sure that the developmental needs of the industry are documented in strategies and action plans in different levels.

We have actively participated in developing the field and the operational environment from the beginning. The forest and wood industry is a part of bioeconomy that affects people widely. This video introduces you to the current state and future visions of bioeconomy in Koillismaa.

Members of the Board

The executive director of the association is Tanja Koukkula. Members of the board include now:

• Mika Mankinen (Kuusamon EVO)
• Jarmo Korhonen (Kuusamon yhteismetsä)
• Arto Orjasniemi (Kuusamo Hirsitalot Oy)
• Ville Koramo (Kuljetusliike Kantola ja Koramo Oy)

Supplementary members: Markus Laatikainen (Posion yhteismetsä) and Kaarle Päivärinta (Kaluste Päivärinta Oy).

Our Operation

We congregate statutory at least twice a year. Our spring meeting is held between January and May and the autumn meeting between September and December on a date decided by the board. Additional meetings will be arranged if necessary. We inform the members via email, our webpage, social media, and other shared communication channels. We review current issues with our members every month via Microsoft Teams.

Action Plan

We have composed an action plan for the association for this season. The focus is to introduce the association and its operation to a wider audience. We also aim at finding new members in a larger scale. In addition to these, our goal is to define our procedures more specifically during the season 2021. We hope that we can soon start members’ trips to fairs and other tours, for which we have budgeted money for.

The communication plan includes enhancing the coverage of the association. We will use online and social media channels, media handouts, and various events. We have just recently applied for funding to a project that supports producing social media material of different phases of forestry and the field’s professionals.