Published: Just now
Almost 40 percent of the young forest in northern Sweden is damaged according to a survey from SLU. Now LRF Norrbotten is alerting about a future shortage of wood.
Forests that suffer from several different types of damage at the same time, so-called multi-damaged forest, have become a major problem in northern Sweden and risk becoming an even bigger problem in the future, reports SVT Norrbotten. LRF Norrbotten believes that the county’s forest owners must address the problem of fungal attacks.
According to a survey carried out by the Swedish Agricultural University, SLU, on behalf of the Swedish Forestry Agency, 40 percent of the forest in northern Sweden is multi-damaged. The worst hit is the pine, where around 48 percent is affected.
– We need to fix this now, otherwise it will have major consequences. Partly for the forest owner when a lot of forest dies and the land loses value. But the big problems are in the long term where we risk having a timber shortage when the forest that grows up today is ripe for felling, says Jenny Karlsson, forest owner and chairman of LRF Norrbotten to SVT.
Historically, she sees several reasons why the damage has become so great in the forest conservation policy that has been carried out. Among other things, cod-infested pines have been saved to be a nesting place for birds. And they turned out to be great spreaders of infection.
A total of 1.4 million hectares of young forest has been mapped by SLU. Game damage, where moose and other deer have grazed on the pine, dominates among the causes of damage, but fungal attacks are also common.