Google's contractors cleared more than 300 hectares of forest in Muhos, northern Finland, for a new data center, an area the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation puts at about 420 football fields. According to the association, the trees came down last winter, long before Google announced the project and before the environmental review the law requires was done.
Finland's supervisory agency LVV is now examining whether Tuike Finland Oy, Google's Finnish project company, began permanently converting the land before completing that assessment. It is an inquiry, not a ruling, and no legal finding has been made.
Why Conservationists Say It Broke the Rules
In Finland, clearing that permanently removes more than 200 hectares of forest needs an environmental impact assessment first. The association says that did not happen here, and that the zoning plan for the data center was not legally in force yet either.
Hanna Halmeenpää, who chairs the association, says satellite imagery shows that four areas marked as nature sites in the local plan were bulldozed. She called it either gross incompetence by Google's project company, gross disregard for Finnish law, or both.
The association has asked regulators to halt the project under threat of a fine until it complies with the law, and to check whether Google did the same at its sites in Kajaani and Vaala.
Google Says It Followed the Rules
Google says the tree felling complied with Finland's Forestry Act, that ecological surveys were carried out before work began, and that areas of high environmental value were protected during the clearing.
That leaves LVV to decide whether following forestry rules is enough when a separate, broader environmental assessment for the same project is still open, or whether the land conversion had to wait for it.
Part of Google's Biggest Bet in Europe
Muhos is one of four Finnish locations in the at least €13 billion that Google announced in September for AI infrastructure through 2028, alongside Hamina, Kajaani and Vaala. Google calls it its largest single investment in Europe, and the same announcement included a dedicated fund to support local biodiversity.
The reaction online has been blunt. One Reddit user summed up the mood: "The planet is burning and we keep cutting down trees so we can enjoy dancing cat videos."
Whatever LVV decides, the clearing at Muhos is already done. What the ruling will settle is whether forestry rules alone are enough for a project this size.
Photo: OutreachPete via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
