And there are laws that replanting must be started within 2/5 years of cutting.
If you look aerial photos of the area in article then you can see that this process is started. Cannot find exact spot but looking around in the village.
https://www.globalforestwatch.org/dashboards/country/EST/ appears to suggest that within the past decade tree loss has doubled. While the population has been flat. So it does suggest that what you are saying is not happening.
I've visited many of the spots mentioned in this article. I haven't checked all of them, but all the ones I have checked have _no_ manual replanting to date, that I can see. (I'd expect a grid, with trees with those little fences protecting them, etc.)
What I do see is just natural growth of various plant species taking advantage of open ground, a mix of grasses, shrubs, birches, and others. There is no sign, that I have personally seen, of the ground being restored, or of systematic replanting. I write this noting I have not been to every site, so I can't definitely state there's been zero replanting. Some places were so lovely I just don't want to revisit :(
I picked a lot of wild strawberries on one of these plots of land just a couple of weeks ago. It used to be damp soil even in summer, lots of moss, mist commonly held between the trees (there's a photo.) Now it was baking hot with deep trenches from the machines. But hey. Hiding among the undergrowth there were strawberry plants.
_Something_ will grow back. Often in these things the replacement ecosystem is very different.
What you will see in Estonia - forest is cut down and then some kind of plow makes lines in the forest to prepare the ground for planting trees. The trees are planted and in the next few years there will be lots of new growth, bushes and small trees that have grown from seeds or didn't get any sun below the old trees. The newly planted trees are sometimes hidden betwen the bushes and grass etc, but they are there.
Source: I go orienteering and have had to search for checkpoints on these former clearings or have made the mistake of trying to run through them.
That is not how forest replanting works. That is how you do a garden.
That says a lot. You have zero experience in forestry :)
Source: have manually planted maybe ~300 000 trees in Estonia over the years, and also done the brush cutting work afterwards. I don't think clear cutting could be avoided entirely (among other things, we're maybe too spoiled as timber consumers for that), but it does feel way too extensive over here (emphasis on the word "feel" here -- as, despite some hands-on experience, my analytical understanding of the forestry ecosystem is very superficial). In place of confier monocultures, a small society like Estonia could maybe place its focus on heavily developing mixed forests instead, for a start. Abrupt forestry policy changes would likely backfire socio-economically (e.g. unemployment rise in rural areas). But those spruce-only or pine-only forests everywhere do look kind of... sad.
As noted -- I see what appears to be natural regrowth. That expectation (lots of trees with little fences) comes from what I've seen in other places, where I have seen huge areas of clearfelled land with systematic gridded replanting. You are right I am not a forestry expert. I'm only writing what I observe as best as I can.
And what level of automation do you think can take this x10 ?
