The article examines the role of public participation rights in the Finnish forest planning system and considers the need for improvement, with a particular focus on private forests. Public participation is approached here as one of the tools for achieving social and ecological sustainability in forestry. The paper shows that public participation rights are very limited in the forest planning and management schemes in Finland. Among other things, access to environmental information is restricted, which is exceptional in modern environmental and natural resource law. The article concludes that there is a need to strengthen the participatory elements in forest planning if the aim is to improve environmental and social sustainability in forestry.