Swedens forests in crisis
Article Type: News From: Management of Environmental Quality: An International Journal, Volume 22, Issue 4
The Swedish forestry industry is logging old-growth forests at an alarming rate, causing a biodiversity crisis in the country, according to a report by the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (SSNC).
Sweden’s forest management is often held up as an example of good practice but the country has replaced most of its old growth forest with less biologically valuable plantations, says the SSNC. There has been a similar debate running for years in Finland over conservation of old-growth forests in Lapland.
The SSNC is calling for an immediate moratorium on logging forests with documented conservation value and also wants the government to swap some of the forests it owns for others with high conservation value owned by companies and individuals.
With 90 per cent of Sweden’s productive forest areas already cleared or threatened with clearance, the government is going to be hard pressed to meet a conservation target agreed at last year’s UN biodiversity meeting in Nagoya, says the SSNC. Countries in Nagoya promised to preserve 17 per cent of their land area by 2020, but it seems less than 5 per cent of Sweden’s productive forest land is protected and there is little valuable forest left to help reach the target.
