How To Increase the Value Of The Forest … and What Tuska Festival Has To Do With It.

4 min readJul 2, 2024

Mikko-Pekka — The Scientific Lead, Ritu — The Witch, Lilli — The Folklorist, Ilmari — The Archeologist

Karhuoja Collective is using art and science to increase the value of the forest. The collective — Mikko-Pekka, Ritu, Ilmari, Lilli and Taika were first time presented to the world at TUSKA Festival 28.-30.6.

So how is art, Heavy Metal Festival and the value of the forest connected?

The forest IS the most valuable national asset here in Finland but we can do better. The forest industry, forest owners and the whole ecosystem has made great progress. Today the pressure to preserve and change the paradigm because of climate change is here.

The economical view and the current environmental protection view seems to be so conflicting — it is a paradox. The stalled dialogue and augmenting one way or another is preventing innovations and sustainable growth from happening. YES, YES everyone is trying but still we lack value creation of the forest that is in intangible assets — in stories, brands and design.

The reality is that the value of a tree and forest is still too low. We are burning the trees, making cellulose or paper, but the value creation can be better.

To explore and find solutions to the valuation challenge. We (Mikko-Pekka, Mirkku and Ghita) have started a Fornemus, A NGO to find out new innovations and explore and empower novel ideas and innovations. The exploration is ongoing and you can find more information from our website and instagram @fornemus

Early stage innovations and ideas are inspiring but they may be still too abstract for us to grasp. Therefore we (Mikko-Pekka, Ritu, Ilmari and Lilli and now Taika) have formed a Karhuoja Collective. A Pseudo scientific, Metaphysical art and storytelling project.

View from the Karhutunturi to the area of lost civilization remains.

We have found remains of the lost civilization from the remote forest in Eastern Lappland. In our explorations we have found out the culture (yet in definition) have had a special relationship with the forest ecosystem. We suspect that the culture has had some human features, but surely something more.

First exploration results. Fractions of bone structures found in the Kaaperinjänkä swamp. Diggins by Ilmari Wärri.

In our studies we have found out that the anthropological paradigm has the same patterns as in the pagan beliefs and ancient narratives of Finland. The biological and ethnographic and archaeological studies have shown that they in fact had really a resilient connection to nature and they used in their everyday life are in fact very similar that we today think of new innovations with the forest relationship.

Our stand had an obscure name — Mikko-Pekka needs help with his consulting language

But the ideas are not real if no one knows them. So Karhuoja Collective decided to open up the dialogue with the the world and we found out that the Tuska Festival with its philosophy of working with the shadows and experiencing the art of decay was just the right place for us.

T-Shirts, Remains, Spells, Books, Fragnances, Forest Rain Mist, Medical Mushrooms at the Karhuoja Stand.

To validate the hypothesis and get new ideas Karhuoja Collective had a exhibition stand at the TUSKA EXPO. During the festival we met with hundreds of people, talked a lot about the forest, sold 74 different piece of new innovations had plenty of fun. Here is the Karhuoja Team at work.