Visitors usually get to take part in ready-cut firewood in boxes that they can use by the fireplaces. But since last summer, national park manager Jonas Ekstrand has noticed that more wood than usual has disappeared.
What is even worse is that visitors have also started sawing off branches and entire trees.
— We caught a guy with a chainsaw a while ago who was sawing up trees we had cut down. He said he was going to burn it at home and thought he had the right to take it here, which of course he didn’t, Ekstrand told the newspaper.
He says that the park administration has been forced to employ more conservationists and guards. If you are caught red-handed cutting down trees, you risk being brought to court.
— It is considered an environmental crime and can result in a fine or, in the worst case, imprisonment. Similar cases have resulted in fines of up to SEK 30,000.
Biodiversity depends on dead trees being allowed to lie and rot, and it is therefore important to leave fallen twigs, branches and trees on the ground.