Forest Club model projects and sites

SWEDEN

Criteria

Boundaries of the investigation
The research covers the boreal region of Sweden. The southern parts of Sweden, which are regarded as hemiboreal and nemoral, are not covered. The southernmost counties covered in the maps are Värmland, Örebro (northern half), Västmanland (northern half) and Gävleborg.

Definition used
The Fennoscandian definition stated in this report (see under Norway in this Appendix) has been used.

Size of areas
The minimum size has been 100 ha. Due to the lack of large old-growth forests in the southernmost part of boreal Sweden forests areas down to 75 ha have been included in this region. Areas smaller than 1000 ha are shown as dots while larger areas are shown as polygons.

Protected areas
Due to lack of accurate documentation of protected forest areas it has not been possible to show protected areas in the Swedish map.

It should be noted that a large proportion of the unfragmented montane or "mountain-near" (fjällnära) forests shown on the map are within protected areas.

Limitations
Many old-growth forest areas are missing from the Swedish map. There is no up to date national old-growth forest inventory and some forest companies were unwilling to share any company information concerning their land holdings.

Due to lack of information sources there has not been information available on the county of Västernorrland. Lack of consistent information has also forced the mapper to show old-growth forest areas bigger than 1 000 ha in the county of Norrbotten as dots.

Sources

The main source of information has been phone interviews and literature studies. The phone interviews were conducted with 45 representatives of local groups of the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (25), municipalities (8), counties (5), the National Board of Forestry (4), and forest companies (3).

The main references were:

• Lundqvist, R. 1997: Dalarnas urskogar - en inventering av urskogsartade skogar i Dalarnas län. Länsstyrelsen, Miljövårdsenheten 1997:4.
• Sporrong, H. 1998: Skogar med höga naturvärden i Skellefteå kommun. Skellefteå kommun (ISBN 91-630-7065-0).
• Naturinventering Bjurholms kommun. 1994: Miljö- och hälsoskyd-dsavdelningen, Bjurholms kommun, Henrik Sporrong.
• Karström, M. 1997: Indikatorarter för identifiering av naturskogar i Norrbotten, del 2, Inventeringsrapport för Jokkmokks kommun. Rapport 4692, Naturvårdsverkets Förlag (ISBN 91-620-4692-6).
• Woodland Key Habitat identified by the National board of forestry.
• Särnaprojektet - Inventeringsrapport från en landskapsekologisk planering. Dala-natur, årgång 10, no. 5, September 1993 (ISSN 0282-8723).
• Skyddsvärd naturskog i Orsa, en inventering 1992-1993. Orsa kommun (rapport 1:95) & Länsstyrelsen i Dalarna (rapport 1995:1, ISSN 1101-3044).
• Skyddsvärd naturskog i Mora, en inventering 1991-1992. Mora kommun (rapport 1:94) & Länsstyrelsen i Dalarna (rapport 1994:4, ISSN 1101-3044).

The unfragmented mountain-near forests are based on:

• Von Sydow, U. Gräns För Storskaligt Skogsbruk I Fjällnära Skogar - förslag till naturvårdsgräns (Border for Large-scale Industrial Forestry in the Montane Forests - Recommendation for Nature Protection Border). Svenska Naturskyddsföreningen, 1988. (ISBN: 91-558-5201-7).

Time

The major part of the mapping work was carried out during the end of 1998. Minor additions and updates have been carried out during 1999.

Map coordinator

Mr. Fredrik Wilde
Långgatan 18
S-652 22 Karlstad
Sweden
tel. +46-18 68 08
email: fredrik.wilde@telia.com

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