The Swedish government wants to have more knowledge on sustainable forestry

The Swedish Government writes in a pressrelease that they have decided to give the Board of Forestry and Environmental Protection Agency to draw up a platform of knowledge about what it takes to achieve a higher effectiveness in terms of sustainable forest management.

The project will describe the performance of today's forest management in relation to targets relating to nature conservation and environment in the forestry and environmental policies and to describe the causes of identified deficiencies. Suggestions on how the deficiencies can be remedied will be declared.

The assignment will be done in close dialogue with the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Administrative Board of Blekinge, Environmental Objectives Advisory (M 2010:04) and other relevant agencies and other organizations.

In the pressrelease from the agricultural and environmental department they write that all forest needs to be managed in a sustainable manner. Swedish forestry aims high in terms of both production and environmental aspects. Swedish forests has been growing rapidly and landowners play an important role for biodiversity in forest management. Despite this, follow up on some shortcomings and they write that compliance with the Forestry Act environmental regulations need improvement.

Eskil Erlandsson, Minister for Countryside comment:
- Our forests will be managed without being consumed, so we have ambitious goals for both production and environment in the forest. Follow-up studies indicate that there are some shortcomings in how well forestry reach the established objectives. It is important to investigate what is the reason for this, and we have therefore asked the Board of Forestry and Environmental Protection Agency to look into the matter.