Firewood - timber - biodiversity

The forests we see in Sweden today are the result of a century of forestry, forest policiy and forest industry development. To better understand the long-term consequences of today’s forestry, it is necessary to take a closer look at how Swedish forestry has evolved.

The 19th century left the Swedish forests in a sad state. The pressures from land clearing, grazing and wood consumption increased with the growing population. The widespread misuse of our forests lead to a serious shortage of wood in many parts of Sweden. Visionary people realised that the situation was getting out of hand.

This is the background to the adoption of the 1903 Forestry Act, which stipulated that forests clear felled had to be regenerated, and it prescribed control of livestock grazing in young stands.

The Act started a period of much activity. For instance by 1925, Regional Forestry Boards had supplied 500 tonnes of seed and more than one billion seedlings.
    
Securing wood supply first priority
A new forestry act was adopted in 1923, and remained in force until 1948. Selective felling dominated. Few areas were replanted, and a shortage of timber in some age classes was still noticeable.

During the recession of the 1930s forestry was used politically as a source of employment. Subsidies helped extensive areas to be ditched and the forest road network was established. The need for a central authority to co-ordinate the use of forest resources lead to the founding of the National Board of Forestry in 1948.
   
For a period lasting several decades, the forest industry was the single most important industrial sector of Sweden. Securing and increasing wood supply to industries was the first priority. The heritage of the 1960s and 1970s that today is most obvious to the eye are the large clear felling sites.

High wood production and rural development policies, took precedent over the economic interests of private forest owners when the Forest Policy of 1979 was formulated.

An anticipated drop in wood supply at the beginning of the 21th century lead to major investments in silviculture and regeneration. Poor producing forests were cut and replaced and unutilised grazing land was afforested.
   
The environment
Environmental awareness was far from strong. The Forest Policy of 1979 was strongly focused on wood production. Some environmental action had however been taken. DDT was banned in 1975, and restrictions had been imposed on the use of herbicides. 

During the 1980s research started to focus on the forest as an ecosystem. Within a decade, Swedish forestry evolved from being a purely production oriented activity to an activity where environmental aspects were considered to have equal importantance as production. 

The way had been paved for a new forest policy. The Forest Policy of 1993 places equal emphasis on environment and wood production.