Appeal: Protect Sweden's Old-Growth Forests

Motives:

1. Adopt a new area objective for the period 2010-2020, which is in line with leading nature conservation science, where 20 percent of Sweden's productive forest land is protected.

Motives: Today, only 3.3 percent of the productive forest area in Sweden is formally protected (of which only half lies below the montane forests). A few more percent is voluntarily protected for nature conservation purposes. Science shows that when the areas of natural habitats fall below 20 percent, the survival of many sensitive species is negatively affected. It is therefore reasonable to have an objective stating that 20 percent of the productive forest land shall be protected to preserve the biodiversity. The Environmental Advisory Council’s report 1997:97, 98 showed support for the long-term protection of 9-16 percent of the Swedish forest land below the montane region, provided that the environmental consideration in the managed parts of the forest landscape was good. Subsequent studies indicate that the Environmental Advisory Board underestimated the need of protected forest to meet the diversity objective. Therefore, it appears that 20 percent is a reasonable requirement in relation to the portal paragraph of the Swedish Forestry Act, which states that the production objective and the environmental objective should be of equal importance. The sector that affects the forest ecosystem the most, should, of course, be expected to take sectorial responsibility, based on recent scientific findings. The state should take its responsibility to formally protect 10 percent of the productive forest land and financially compensate private landowners. Forest owners should voluntarily set aside 10 percent of their productive forest land for conservation. The big forest companies should take an extra large responsibility towards the environmental objective in the forest. The voluntarily protected areas must be areas with the highest conservation values, and be public, mapped, and their contribution to achieve the environmental policy must be analyzed. 

2. Increase the budget allocated to forest protection for the period 2010-2020 to the level needed for long-term conservation of forest biodiversity.

Motives: The current level of funding allocated to forest protection does not give the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, County Administrative Board and the Swedish Forest Agency the necessary resources to compensate all private landowners and accomplish the mission to meet the environmental objective of the forest. Since the protection rate is so low today, many valuable forest areas are logged before they are protected. The authorities are forced to allow logging in high conservation value forest areas due to insufficient economic resources. In addition, the Swedish Forest Agency does not, in some districts, have the resources to visit more than 5 to 10 percent of the planned loggings in the field. The budget allocated to forest protection must be increased with what is required to maintain the biodiversity in forest. This is a long term investment, which can only be made now when the natural forests still remain. It will be much more expensive, more difficult and take much longer time to restore depleted forests and industrial plantations. If the Government increases the budget to protect forests with around 5 billion SEK per year over the period 2010-2020, Sweden would be able to achieve the environmental objective to safeguard its biodiversity. This corresponds to about 1/10 of what the Swedish people buy during Christmas time every year (the Swedish Retail Institute predicts 61.3 billion SEK 2009) or what annually is invested in traffic (over 40 billion SEK according to the Swedish Government’s budget proposition for 2010). Today, the budget allocated to forest land protection is about 600 million SEK, which is a very low level in this context. As a complement to increased funding, the stately managed production forests could be used more extensively as exchange lands to private owners who want it.

3. Favor a greater variety of forest management methods in the 80 percent of the productive forest land, which is still being managed.

Motives: The management of the forest ecosystem should be addressed towards a long-term sustainable timber production, where alternative forestry methods and continuous-cover forestry are favored. This is to encourage faster re-uptake of greenhouse gases, hunting, recreation, tourism, berry and mushroom picking, reindeer herding, and minimize the risks with monocultures. With the current uniform management practices, important ecosystem services are in risk of being seriously damaged. There is today an ecosystem change going on from mixed forests and naturally regenerated forests to monocultures of coniferous plantations and intensively managed uniform production forests. Further transformation should be avoided. Monocultures imply increased risk of various insect outbreaks and fungal diseases. The changes in forest management should include, inter alia, an increased intermixture of natural regeneration and continuous nature consideration during clearing and thinning. A greater diversity of management practices would create a larger diversity of forests and reduce the risks with a too stereotype forest management.

4. Mitigate climate change and promote increased carbon storage in forest soil by safeguarding the remaining older forests and modify the forest management methods in managed forests.

Motives: Old-growth forests contain large stores of carbon, and new research shows that they continue to store carbon in the long-term. The older the forest is, the more carbon has been stored in the forest during its lifetime. When the old-growth forest is logged, a certain amount of the carbon, which has been stored in the soil for centuries, is released. With the short rotation periods of today, it is likely that the carbon stocks in soil will not be restored before the next logging, i.e. the carbon stocks in the soil are continuously depleted. Forestry, which continuously preserves the tree cover, reduces the carbon losses to the atmosphere. It should therefore be investigated how such methods can be introduced.

5. Safeguard the montane forest. The boundary of the sub-montane forest should not be restricted.

Motives: Sweden has a responsibility to safeguard the largest intact natural forest areas of northwestern Europe. We presume that the proposal in the recently finalized report “Forest boundary report” (Gränsskogsutredningen), ordered by the Government, which concluded that the boundary of the sub-montane forest should not be redefined, will be implemented. The boundary will thereby persist as a significant marker for the importance of this area for nature conservation. Also, the preservation of these large natural forests is of great importance, mitigating climate change.

6. Better general consideration in forestry.

Motives: The current environmental consideration when different forest management measures are taken, are too often of low quality and too small-scale. The proportion of deciduous trees, old trees and dead wood need to increase significantly in the managed landscape. Today, the consideration to water environments is in many cases inadequate and must be regulated and improved considerably. Forestry is the cause of about 25 percent of the mercury concentrations in freshwater fish. According to the Swedish Forest Agency, 20 percent of the final fellings carried out by forest companies in 2007 violated the minimum requirements of the Swedish Forestry Act regarding general consideration. Concerning the small-scale forestry, the number amounted to 28 percent. Appoint an investigation to develop a proposal for sanction possibilities when the Forestry Act is violated. Today, the sanction possibilities are non-existent in practice when environmental consideration requirements are violated.

7. Initiate support for landscape planning.

Motives: Research has shown that the occurrence of species is highly dependent on how much suitable environment there is in a broader area and how it is distributed. When measures are planned in areas with many forest owners, little or no consideration is taken to the adjacent managed lands. In each landscape section, sufficiently large areas of biologically valuable natural forest habitats should be protected and restored to safeguard the species that depend on them. To make nature conservation more efficient and protected areas more useful, we suggest that the authorities be commissioned and receive resources to plan, in cooperation with landowners, making nature conservation effective. Then, also pastures with trees, which often house endangered species, should be included in the planning. Financial support to forest owners is required to accomplish effective planning to conserve biodiversity.

The initiator of the Appeal is the organization Protect the Forest
www.protecttheforest.se