Ancient Finnish forest to disappear?

Conan O'Brien had a great bit several years ago where he attempted, alphabetically, to insult every country in the world, in the hope that it would reveal to him where his show is broadcast, through receipt of hate mail. His joke about Finland was, "2000 years of history and still the most famous Finn is Huckleberry." C'mon, what about Teemu Selänne? (Side note: Conan is actually quite popular in Finland, based partially on his resemblance to President Tarja Halonen.)

If Conan wants to keep it up once he gets to Los Angeles, he'll have something else to hold against the Nordic Europeans, as environmental organizations have recently slammed Finnish paper company Stora Enso for logging forests in northern Finland that contain ancient and unique trees. Environmental groups Greenpeace, Luonto-Liitto and (I swear I did not alter the spelling of this group at all) Suomen Luonnonsuojeluliitto argue that the forest should earn protected status.

The area was owned by the state and sold to Stora Enso, which says that the average age of the trees in the region are 80 to 200 years.. One fifth of Finland's exports come from logging efforts, so it's unrealistic to expect the forestry business to simply go away, however environmental groups have mainly focused their energies on ancient woodlands in the country's north. All state-owned forests are managed by an organization called Metsaehallitus. Talks between environmentalists and Metsaehallitus in the past few years, however, have been largely fruitless.

Has anyone reading ever been to Finland, or more specifically, visited the ancient northern forests? Leave your comments. Personal touches to these stories are always appreciated.