Overview
- Finland’s Licensing and Supervision Authority has required Google’s local unit Tuike Finland to suspend all environmentally significant preparatory work at the Muhos and Otanmäki sites until mandatory environmental impact assessments are completed.
- Investigative reporting and local sources estimate roughly 330 hectares were cleared at Muhos with about 250,000 trees cut and about 150,000 more felled at Otanmäki, bringing the reported total to roughly 400,000 trees.
- Regulators say work already done — tree removal, topsoil stripping, new access roads and altered drainage — has materially changed the sites and is precisely the kind of impact the EIA process is meant to assess.
- Google has apologized, said it stopped the contested activities after the LVV order, and proposed biodiversity measures including replanting about 130 hectares at Muhos while it cooperates with authorities, but it faces strong local protest and a large petition.
- The case could set a European precedent on sequencing permits, land clearance and environmental review for hyperscale AI data centers and may lead to fines, project delays or tighter rules as Finland balances big investment with local and ecological concerns.