Forestry in Sweden

Per Hallgren,

Swedish Forest

Agency

1

Swedish Forest History – brief overview

• Forestry starts on a low level before 1500, and the first legislations concerning mainly oak is established

• 1628 Anders Bure gets the mission from the king Gustav II Adolf to develop ownership maps, and later to start the ”Lantmäteriet”, land survey authoritie

• 1647 the first real forest act, with some rules with the aim to secure forests for wood coal production to the ironworks

• 1700 – ongoing Disposal of private land to effective units,

• 1700 – 1925; Disposal of stateland (avvitring) to private owners and companies, most intense during the early 1800

• 1800 – the timber harvesting front reaches south of Sweden

• 1875 – intensive harvesting for timber export, the timber front in Norrbotten

2

Swedish Forest History – brief overview

• 1905 The first Forest Act

– Regulates mainly replantation and regrowth after harvesting

• In the Barents region, Västerbotten and Norrbotten only harvest regulations through dimensions

– Introduces the Regional forest authorities, with the main aim to provide

• guidance and knowledge

• forest plant and seed material

• Grants for different actions

3

Swedish Forest History – brief overview

• 1923

– Swedish Forest Agency works in parallell with the regional forest boards and the state forest authority ”Domänverket”

– Focus on increasing forest cultivation, and decreasing forest cattle browsing

– All land should be used for forestry, unless otherwise stated

– Dimensional selective cutting increases due to bad economy during the 1920s

• 1948

– Increase the restoration of forest land to increase production

– Government subsidizing forest operations:

• Road construction

• Drainage

– Bad economy during the 1960ths increases the size of clear cuts

4

Government subsidizing private and corporate forestry

5

8 M euro

4 M euro

Swedish Forest History – brief overview

• 1979

– Highly regulated law, with focus on production

– Environmental regulations, e.g. prohibiting insecticides, and herbicides

• 1992

– De-regulation and environmental considerations included in the forest act

• 2006

– The regional forest boards are completely incorporated in Swedish Forest Agency

6

Area with forest cultivation, seeds or plants

7

The development of the timber stock in Sweden

8

Laws in Swedish forests and forestry – currentlaws

• Swedish Forest Act

– Equal goals between production and nature considerations

– Focus on Regeneration Harvest and replantation

• The main tool is the harvest notification

• Thinning, harvest that is beneficial to forest stand development, rather unregulated

– Decisions may not influence the current land managment, without compensation

• Swedish environmental code

– Nature conservation

– Influencing areas with high nature conservation value

– System supervision

• Swedish heritage act

9

Authorities and organisation in Swedish forest sector• Swedish forest agency

– Responsible for implementing the forest politics and supervision of forest act and other laws

– 3 regions, a national forest department and administration

• Swedish environmental protection agency

– Responsible for nature reserves and national parks

– Wildlife and hunting

– Water management (together with HAV)

• County boards

– Supervision of environmental code, except some parts that belongs to other autoritäres

• Swedish university of agricultural sciences, SLU

– Research and higher education in forestry

• Sveaskog (Domänverket etc), own most of the state forests, 14%

• National property board

10

Swedish forest agency – working metods

• A large change the last 5 years

• Main focus is reaching out to the forest sector, especially forest officials

• Develop united actions through intercommunion in the sector

– Target images for natur consideration

– Intercommunion for increased forest production

– Intercommunion considering very high nature values / key habitats

• Effective supervision of the forest act

– Goals for amount of intervening decisions

• Guidance to groups of forest owners in important subjects

– Decrease forest damage

– Effective nature consideration

– Variation in management methods

• Increse the use of digital (virtual?) methods

• Paid services

11

12

Sweish forests

Decisions, prohibitions or orders, concerning nature considerations2017

13

Swedish forests

• Forestry cooexist with other

stakeholders and values

• 70% of the Swedes visit forests

regulary

• Rein deer hurding, 50% of the

land area

– 225 000 and 280 000

– 1000 companies and 2500

people

• Moose 250 – 350 000

14

Distribution of owners

15

State owned

State owned company

Other public owners

Private owned companies

Private owners

Other private owners

Unkown

Swedish Forestry

• 23,5 million ha productive

forest land

• 3150 million m3 standing

volume

• 39% scots pine, 41%

norway spruce

16

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

Annual increment1 Gross felling2

mill. m3 standing volume incl. bark

Uses of felled timber

46%

42 %

12 %

Sawn Wood 17 mill. m3

Energy 115 TWh

Pulp 12 mill. tonnes

Paper 11 mill. tonnes

Domestic 88 mill. m3

Import 7 mill. m3

Export 0.8 mill. m3

Source: Swedish Forest Agency

Forests and Forestry in Sweden

Current practice

• More than 95% clear cutting

• Most actions initiated by forest professionals at timber buying forest organisations

• Almost all forest organisations are part of sustainble forest certification system, FSC or PEFC

• High activity in forest regeneration (planting), thinning and regeneration cutting,

– low activity in cleaning

18

Current problems

• Very large problems with mamalian browsers, especially moose

• Low degree of consensus how to handle key habitats, areas with very high nature conservation values

• Unclear legal situation how to handle very high nature conservation values in north western mountain area, where the area of old growth forests are large, as are the conservation values but also the share of nature reserves

• Unclear legal situation concerning species and habitat directive

• The cost reduction of forest operations have decreased, thus the economic benefit from forest investments

• Difficulties to attract well educated labour to forest operations

19

Swedish forest politics and debate 2018-2019

20

• Is the ownership to forests threatened?

• Can we combine a growing bio economy in forests with

nature considerations and avoid negative effects on bio

diversity?

• Is the climate benefit from forests greater if the forest is

growing, is harvested or saved?