In Finland, Google cleared forest with municipal approval

June 5, in Muhos

On 5 June 2026, the building control office of Muhos, a municipality in northern Finland, writes to a company called Tuike Finland. The message boils down to one idea: the preparatory works described in section 109 of the Building Act are possible. Felling, digging, blasting, everything you do before pouring the first foundation.

Eighteen days earlier, on 18 May, another body had written to the same municipality, which had consulted it. Finland's permitting and supervisory authority, the LVV, explained that no permit should be granted to this project before its environmental assessment was finished. So the municipality left on hold an application for a landscape-works permit, filed in late March for works linked to the same project.

That permit is still pending. The works, though, happened. On 6 October, the LVV asked Tuike Finland to stop them. To see how it got there, you have to look at what each desk was allowed to say.

Tuike Finland is Google

The two acts the LVV published only talk about Tuike Finland Oy. But they're addressed to a google.com email address, and in the Finnish trade register the company has also carried the name "Google Technology Finland" since 2010. Its declared business: computing infrastructure and hosting.

The projects are two data center campuses. At Muhos, nine buildings on a site of about 571 hectares, cooled with water from the Oulujoki river. At Kajaani-Otanmäki, eight buildings on about 405 hectares, connected by a 400 kV overhead line. Each plans more than 300 MW of backup generators, and both acts flag the same gap: the total backup capacity isn't in the assessment programme.

According to AFP, Google announced in September a 13 billion euro investment over two years in the country's digital infrastructure, and presents its Finnish projects as its biggest investment in Europe. That's a lot of weight to throw around against residents who, elsewhere, often say no to a data center near their home.

Two laws, two doors

The Building Act (751/2023) allows, under section 109, preparatory works ahead of the construction site itself. The Forest Act asks for a use declaration before felling. Tuike says it did both and told the municipalities in advance. In its 25 September reply to the LVV, it states that its works didn't require a permit.

The Environmental Impact Assessment law, YVA, works differently. It cares less about whether a given action is authorised than about when: before or after the assessment. And the assessment for both sites, launched in summer 2025, isn't finished. Its report is due at the end of 2026.

Picture a building with two doors. Building control guards the first and checks that you're allowed to fell trees. The LVV guards the second and checks that you've first measured what you're felling. Tuike went through the first. The 6 October act answers that a municipality's opinion doesn't exempt anyone from the YVA law: each administration is competent for its own law, not for its neighbour's.

What the hectares really say

The press has repeated "more than 300 hectares", a figure given to AFP for the Muhos site by Hanna Halmeenpää, chair of the Finnish nature conservation association. The LVV's press release gives no area at all.

The acts give two figures, and both come from Tuike. Its felling and pre-preparation zone covers about 330 hectares at Muhos and a little under 200 at Kajaani, roughly 530 in total. That's the work zone the company declares itself, not an area of cleared forest that anyone has measured. Tuike describes topsoil stripped away, site tracks, storage areas, reworked ditches and retention basins.

One passage in the two acts says more than the numbers about why timing matters. Tuike acknowledges that the no-project scenario, for ecology and watercourses, no longer looks like the one presented at the start of the assessment. It keeps it as the comparison point anyway, calling it a worst-case scenario. And it adds that if you started from an already cleared area, the impacts would look smaller. That's exactly the trap the YVA law is meant to prevent: a "before" photo taken once the site is already underway.

Kajaani, where the city sees no problem

At Kajaani, the pattern is even clearer. Tuike filed a building permit application there on 17 May for a data center, announcing preparatory works under section 109. Building control approved them. City services also issued a favourable decision in August on the noise from blasting and crushing.

The felling, according to the city, was done in line with the forest declaration, before the local plan was adopted. The city's conclusion: no reason to step in. The LVV, for its part, says it learned the works had started at a site meeting on 27 August, then from the public broadcaster Yle on 17 September.

Order or exhortation?

AFP headlined its story "Finland orders halt". The Finnish word in the act is "kehotus", an exhortation: the step that comes before compulsion. In its press release, the LVV writes that it first seeks voluntary correction. If Tuike doesn't comply, it will consider administrative enforcement, with a penalty payment if needed.

The text itself is worded as an instruction: it prohibits starting or continuing works that alter the terrain, and it even refers to an order to suspend. Put it this way: it's the last step before compulsion, not yet compulsion.

Google against its own file

Two voices complicate the reading of a case that looked in order. Environment Minister Sari Multala told Helsingin Sanomat, as quoted by AFP, that the law hadn't been followed in this case. And Google spokesperson Sondre Ronander told AFP: "We understand the concerns and have fallen short of our own high standards in this instance", while saying the company acted in good faith. He announced 130 hectares of replanting at Muhos.

The reply sent to the LVV on 25 September said something else: no permit required, declarations made, and even selective clearing decided after discussions with the municipality and with the LVV itself. Both messages can coexist, because they aren't about the same law.

October 14

Tuike has to reply in writing by 14 October, saying among other things whether it intends to comply. Works that alter the terrain must stop by 23 October at the latest. Studies, measurements and soil surveys remain allowed.

For Muhos, the act goes further than a dispute over timing. According to the LVV, the preparatory works are so extensive, and could run so long before construction, that they would need an environmental assessment of their own. What was supposed to come before the project has become a project in its own right.