CCPR/C/83/D/1023/2001 Page 10 by the Herdsmen’s Committee is approximately 248,000 hectares, of which some 16,100 hectares of forests (about 6 per cent of the land areas administered by the Committee) are used for the purposes of forestry on State-owned lands. In fact, there have been very few logging operations in the area, the surface of the lands subject to logging amounting to approximately 1.2 per cent of the area administered by the Committee. The operations carried out in this territory between 1983 and 2001 amounted to 152 hectares per year, whereas the planned logging operations to take place between 2003 and 2012 would amount to 115 hectares per year. In view of the total surface of forest areas, both the logging operations carried out and the planned ones are less extensive than those carried out in private forests in the area. While reindeer owners have required the National Forest and Park Service to terminate forestry activities in the land areas administered by the Committee, they did not reduce their own logging operations. 7.6 The State party denies that any new logging operations have been planned for the Angeli area ( Pyhäjärvi and Kirkko-outa), nor have any such operations been carried out in or planned for the area of Kippalrova. The State party observes that as far as the admissible part of the complaint with regard to the Paadarskaidi area is concerned, the National Forest and Park Service mainly carried out increment felling (preparative cutting), in the area, amounting to approximately 110 hectares in 1998. 7.7 The logging operations in Pyhäjärvi in 1996 (170 hectares) and in 1999 (regeneration fellings over 60 hectares), as well as operations in Kirkko-outa in 1998 (regeneration fellings amounting to 70 hectares and thinning amounting to 200 hectares) were already taken into account by the Human Rights Committee on 22 November 1996. The Committee had considered the logging operations which had been carried out by the date of the decision, as well as planned future operations in the Angeli area. According to the decision, there was no violation of article 27 of the Covenant. It observes that the regene ration fellings (300 hectares) in the Angeli area constitute 0.8 percent and the thinning logging operations (200 hectares) constitute 0.5 percent of the forest, administered by the Muotkatunturi Herdsmen's Committee. 7.8 As to the effects of logging on reindeer herding, the State party notes that it has not been shown that the effects of the earlier logging operations were more than anticipated. Nor was it shown that logging operations would create long-lasting harm preventing the authors from continuing reindeer herding in the area at its present extent. It observes that the effects of forestry should not be examined in the short term or in respect of individual logging sites, but from a wider perspective. According to a statement given by the Finnish Game and Fisheries Research Institute on 31 January 2002, the operations referred to in the communication do not have any significant additional adverse effects on reindeer herding in the long term if the numbers of reindeer are maintained approximately at their present level. In view of the state of winter herding areas, the present number of reindeer is high. 7.9 The State party notes that because of the severe conditions of nature in the area administered by the Herdsmen's Committee, provisions for the purposes of preserving nature and the environment are included, among others, in section 21 of the Reindeer Herding Act, which provides that the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry shall determine the maximum number of reindeer that the Herdsmen’s Committee may keep in their herds, as well as the number of reindeer that may be owned by individual Committee members. In the determination of the maximum numbers of reindeer, the principle enshrined in section 21,