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Side
event: Sweden's
"Greener Forests"
The Swedish
Government hosted a presentation on Greener Forests: Extension Services
and Training for Sustainable Forest Management in Sweden. Astrid
Bergquist, Deputy Director of the Ministry of Industry, Employment
and Communications (left), opened the event with an overview of
the state of forests in Sweden and the Greener Forest campaign.
She said the campaign is targeted at forest owners and others who
participate in forestry and focuses on how to combine high economic
and environmental returns to achieve sustainably managed forests.
Gunnar Nordanstig,
Head of International Affairs, Swedish National Board of Forestry
(center), provided details of the Greener Forest campaign. He said
the forest sector is the second largest source of employment in
Sweden and forest products are the most important export of Sweden.
He highlighted extension and training services provided by the National
Board of Forestry and stressed the value of using knowledge as well
as a sense of responsibility and freedom to foster SFM. He highlighted
the National Board of Forestry's tradition of "giving good advice
in every situation and taking advantage of every opportunity to
do so" and tradition of extension campaigns. Since 1990, the focus
has been on ecology and nature conservation and will most likely
be on production, multi-use and social values in the future. Noting
that approximately 50% of forests in Sweden are owned privately,
he said a new challenge is that many forest owners no longer live
on their land and are no longer dependent on forestry and agriculture.
Nordanstig
explained that the philosophy of the Greener Forest campaign is
to bring the right measures to the right place for the optimal combination
of economic production and nature conservation and said the campaign's
objectives include practical implementation of environmental goals,
forest management at the stand-estate-ecosystem levels, and training
and field-demonstration. He identified the target groups for the
campaign as new owners, female owners, contractors (harvesters),
the international society, the forestry administration staff, and
the general public. He drew attention to extension materials including
a text book, maps, thematic pamphlets and the internet (http://www.gronareskog.nu)
 RealAudio
Excerpts of Mr. Nordanstig's presentation: Part
one Part
two
Kirsten Worm,
Head of National Forest and Nature Agency Forest Policy Division,
Danish Ministry of the Environment and Energy, (kwo@sns.dk,
on the right) briefed participants on a Joint Nordic Initiative.
The goal of the Initiative was to gather information on the results
of practical implementation of SFM since the 1992 Rio Earth Summit,
including implementation of the Forest Principles and the IPF proposals
for action. She noted that despite the Nordic countries forestry
differences, the participating Nordic countries, Denmark, Finland,
Iceland, Norway and Sweden, are inspired by one another's work.
For more information, visit the Initiative's website: http://www.norden.org.
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