Wednesday

6th Dec 2023

Opinion

The EU Commission got its forest strategy wrong

  • Nordic forests need a different kind of strategy than the one for the rest of Europe. (Photo: Wagner T. Cassimiro "Aranha")
Listen to article

The EU Commission recently published its new controversial forest strategy. The strategy, if it comes into force, will have negative implications for Nordic forestry.

Among many aspects of forestry discussed in the strategy is the matter of how to best harvest the wood.

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Become an expert on Europe

Get instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.

... or subscribe as a group

The Commission seems to advocate continuity forestry, without regeneration felling (which is when the greater part of a forest is felled where most of the trees are fully grown) and by doing so ignoring the complex biology of the Nordic forests.

Recent experience of such an approach to forestry, as advocated by the Commission, has had clear negative consequences, however.

Forestry without regeneration felling, or continuity forestry, means that the largest trees in a forest are successively harvested. New trees are expected to regenerate among the remaining trees.

This model was applied on a large scale in Sweden from around 1920 to 1950. The labour cost was low and the large trees were more valuable.

The high cost of creating new forests was avoided. Many of the forestry administration's leading representatives also advocated this type of forestry.

But the result was catastrophic. The remaining trees were unable to form new productive forest areas, and instead enormous areas arose that were sparsely grown with mainly spruce and birch.

It was the often-brutal dismantling of these residual forests in the Northern parts of Sweden that created the giant clear-cut areas that in turn sparked the debate about the regeneration felling and Swedish forestry.

Learning from failure

Why did the continuity forest management - or close-to-nature forestry - work so badly? There were several reasons.

The level of felling was excessive. The remaining stock of trees were not enough to act as a base for new forests. The genetic quality was impoverished by consistently removing the best trees.

There was harvesting in cold areas with poor fertility where leftover tree remains did not decay, but were instead left behind in an increasingly thick layer where new forest plants could not establish themselves.

The necessary nutrient circulation that occurs, for example, after a fire or a regeneration felling did not get started and the ground was depleted. Light-loving tree species, mainly pine, could not be regenerated among the remaining trees.

Today we know more. It is possible to run clear-cut-free continuity forestry but only locally. You have to stick to tree species that can grow up in shade, primarily spruce and beech.

The forest that is left must be able to sustain production. The soil should be so fertile that the necessary nutrient circulation can take place without the soil being laid bare or burned.

Learning from history

Historically, we have always had bare forest land in Sweden. Before human influence, it was fires, storms, and insect infestations that created these bare areas, which in turn allowed pine and birch to establish themselves.

Later, forests were felled for mining, shipbuilding and housing, while more and more land was used for cultivation and grazing.

In today's sustainable Nordic forestry, the active establishment of new forest and consequently regeneration felling is an important component.

The foundation for our modern forestry was already laid around the year 1800.

At the time, Heinrich Cotta of the Academy of Forestry in Tharandt, Germany showed that an analysis of the effects of forestry must encompass the entire forest, i.e. bare-forest areas, newly planted forests, young forest, middle-aged forest, and older forests at the same time.

If you only look at a bare clearing, no forest grows and the clearing leaks carbon dioxide by leaving parts of the felled trees to rot. But if you look at the forest as a whole, rejuvenation is absolutely necessary to revitalise the forest and keep the growth rate up.

And it is the effect of forest management on the entire forest that is crucial for growth and carbon sequestration.

The art of harvesting

Over time, you theoretically achieve the highest growth, and thus the highest carbon bound in an entire forest, by harvesting each stand when its average growth rate (total volume produced divided by age) starts to decline.

This normally occurs a few decades after a typical harvesting age today.

The fact that harvesting takes place earlier is partly due to the fact that the risk of damage - storm, rot and insects - rises with increasing age, and partly because in many cases it is possible to increase growth by replacing the existing stock of trees with new ones that grow better.

For example, replacing spruce on weak, dry soils with pine. In the current situation of climate change, it is also important to be able to build new forests with a plant material that is better suited to the conditions than that which is locally available.

Continuity forestry means that you harvest less trees but more frequently, maybe 10-20 percent of the volume every 10 years.

During a normal Swedish cycle time - 80-90 years - you harvest a given forest area about 8-9 times, while in today's forestry thinning is done 1-3 times before a regeneration felling.

Today's cost-effective harvesting technology is also not suitable for continuity forestry. It damages soil and roots and requires large volumes from each felling.

Instead, small, lightweight machines have to be brought in, which in turn results in greatly increased felling costs.

In order to make such forestry work on a large scale, the price of timber and thus forest products must be greatly increased which will in turn lower the competitiveness of the sector in a global market.

It is simply not possible to operate continuity forestry on a large scale on commercial terms in the Nordic region.

The method may be justified where there are strong drivers other than the economy, for example in recreational areas, or where there are rare and disturbance-sensitive species.

However, in order for the method not to eventually lead to more and more spruce forest, open spaces must also be created in these areas where pine and/or birch forest is preferred.

Author bio

Dr. Björn Hägglund is professor Emeritus Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and former Director General of the Swedish Forest Agency.

Disclaimer

The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author's, not those of EUobserver.

Finland fights to keep control of forests away from EU

Despite Finland's EU presidency's repeated assurances it was in favour of promoting measures to end deforestation, the Finnish government has now announced that forestry policy should remain a national decision-making process.

Deforestation and the failure of EU self-regulation

As climate protests grow, Brazil's forests disappear at the rate of two football pitches a minute, and a summer of European heat raises the temperature, will new pledges from the EU on deforestation make the cut?

Biomass? Burning trees is burning future treasure

Chemical companies are watching the raw materials they need for future production go up in flames as the Fit for 55-package continues to support the burning of trees as a 'renewable' form of energy.

Exclusive

EU diplomats oppose common forest-monitoring rules

EU diplomats have raised concerns about the scope of the new forest strategy - and its implications for member states' national competencies, according to draft conclusions seen by EUobserver.

Exclusive

Sweden leads opposition to EU forest regime

The EU's 2030 Forest Strategy is triggering diplomatic clashes over who should responsible for forest policy, as EU auditors voice concern on biodiversity loss.

Latest News

  1. EU nears deal to fingerprint six year-old asylum seekers
  2. Orbán's Ukraine-veto threat escalates ahead of EU summit
  3. Can Green Deal survive the 2024 European election?
  4. Protecting workers' rights throughout the AI revolution
  5. Russia, the West, and the geopolitical 'touch-move rule'
  6. Afghanistan is a 'forever emergency,' says UN head
  7. EU public procurement reform 'ineffective', find auditors
  8. COP28 warned over-relying on carbon capture costs €27 trillion

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Nordic Council of MinistersArtist Jessie Kleemann at Nordic pavilion during UN climate summit COP28
  2. Nordic Council of MinistersCOP28: Gathering Nordic and global experts to put food and health on the agenda
  3. Friedrich Naumann FoundationPoems of Liberty – Call for Submission “Human Rights in Inhume War”: 250€ honorary fee for selected poems
  4. World BankWorld Bank report: How to create a future where the rewards of technology benefit all levels of society?
  5. Georgia Ministry of Foreign AffairsThis autumn Europalia arts festival is all about GEORGIA!
  6. UNOPSFostering health system resilience in fragile and conflict-affected countries

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. European Citizen's InitiativeThe European Commission launches the ‘ImagineEU’ competition for secondary school students in the EU.
  2. Nordic Council of MinistersThe Nordic Region is stepping up its efforts to reduce food waste
  3. UNOPSUNOPS begins works under EU-funded project to repair schools in Ukraine
  4. Georgia Ministry of Foreign AffairsGeorgia effectively prevents sanctions evasion against Russia – confirm EU, UK, USA
  5. Nordic Council of MinistersGlobal interest in the new Nordic Nutrition Recommendations – here are the speakers for the launch
  6. Nordic Council of Ministers20 June: Launch of the new Nordic Nutrition Recommendations

Join EUobserver

Support quality EU news

Join us