Google's Illegal 400,000-Tree Clearing in Finland Draws Wolves and a Stop Order

Finnish authorities have ordered Google to stop all preparatory work on its multibillion-euro data-center expansion after the company illegally cleared roughly 400,000 trees across about 1,300 acres of forest — and wolves started showing up in nearby villages.

Google's Finnish subsidiary, Tuike Finland Oy, felled an estimated 330 hectares (815 acres) near the town of Muhos and nearly 200 hectares (about 494 acres) near Otanmaki before completing the environmental assessments Finnish law requires. The clearing pushed wildlife out of its habitat and straight into human settlements.

"We had wolves coming into the village because all the wild animals moved out of the forest," Anni Ranta, a resident of Otanmaki, told The Guardian. "They fled."

What does the stop order actually cover?

The Finnish Licensing and Supervision Authority directed Google to halt preparatory activities at both Muhos and the Otanmaki site near Kajaani. The suspended work included removing trees and topsoil, constructing access roads, and making other changes that could significantly alter the environment ahead of the required assessments.

"In our opinion, the measures in question will change the environment and cause impacts, the identification and assessment of which are among the key objectives of the EIA procedure," Tommi Muilu, Head of the Environmental Department at the authority, said in a press release.

In plain terms: no more groundwork until the environmental impact assessment process runs its course. For a company racing to build AI capacity, that's a schedule risk on one of its flagship European projects.

Google's response: replanting less than half

Google says it acted in "good faith" under Finland's Forestry Act and did not intend to cause environmental harm outside the country's statutes. It has also announced plans to replant trees across 130 hectares at Muhos — which covers less than half the area it cleared at that site alone.

"We understand the concerns and have fallen short of our own high standards in this instance," a Google spokesperson told CNBC. "We acted in good faith under the Forestry Act, and ran nature surveys and put in place measures to protect high-value areas. As we continue our long-term work in the region, we are advancing our landscaping and biodiversity plans, which include tree planting across 130 hectares at Muhos."

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fortune.

Part of a €13 billion bet

The clearances are a piece of Google's planned €13 billion (about $15.1 billion) investment in Finland, announced in September, to expand data-center infrastructure as demand grows for cloud computing, digital services and AI workloads.

"Google is supporting clean energy projects, and dedicated nature and community funds to support local biodiversity, education, research, and workforce development," the company's press release read.

Finland worked hard to land the project. Prime Minister Petteri Orpo appeared in Google's September announcement, saying: "Finland is an attractive destination for investments, and attracting further investment remains a top priority. Google's decision is a clear testament to our strengths."

The country's pitch rests on cool climate, low-carbon electricity and available land. Google has run its Hamina data center there since 2011, using seawater from the Gulf of Finland for cooling. To power the new buildout, Google partnered with grid operator Fingrid and funding agency Business Finland on site selection, and in September signed a 22-year deal with Fortum to extend the life of the Loviisa nuclear plant — a facility Google says employs about 580 people and supplies roughly 10% of Finland's electricity, and which could not have operated beyond 2030 without the investment.

The bigger so-what

The European Commission flags data centers as a growing environmental and climate challenge due to their electricity and water consumption. But it also notes that "sustainable, flexible and well-designed data centres that can adjust their electricity use to the grid conditions, can help lower the overall cost of the electricity system, improve grid stability, and integrate more renewable energy."

The Finland episode shows the permitting risk now attached to even the most welcomed hyperscale projects. As AI buildouts accelerate across Europe, cutting first and assessing later is a mistake that costs regulators' trust — and, in this case, brought wolves to the village door.