Conservation areas

Our conservation areas consist of a mosaic of important habitats and forests used fpr producing timber. We adapt both our conservation efforts and forestry practices so that we can preserve, develop, and restore the natural values that exist. An important aspect is also creating more variation and a green infrastructure, meaning a network of nature that contributes to species dispersal across the landscape. We can also restore forests to create additional habitats for biodiversity.

The conservation areas have been established following a comprehensive inventory of nature values across our forest holdings and an analysis from a landscape perspective. After a thorough analysis, we decide how the different parts of the conservation areas should be managed. The decision is based on both the local conditions and the broader landscape context. We can create new conservation areas when we discover new valuable habitats.

A conservation area is at least 50 hectares, but many are several hundred hectares. c These areas cover approximately 15 percent of our total land holdings.The areas may have different focuses. For example, SCA's Conservation parks are located within various conservation areas, as are our ÅGP landscapes.

Many measures

In a conservation area, we have higher conservation ambitions than in the rest of the forest landscape. We adapt forestry practices to preserve, develop, and restore the natural values found there. Here, we utilize multiple tools from our conservation palette, including voluntary set-asides, combined targets, adapted retention, and active conservation efforts.

Examples include old-growth-like natural forests, which are areas that should be fully preserved; wetland forests, which can be managed with combined targets; and certain deciduous forests where harvesting can be postponed to promote nature values. Active measures include practices such as prescribed  burnings or creating specific types of dead wood that certain species depend on.

Conservation parks

Our five conservation parks are part of our conservation areas. These parks are large areas where we have set aside at least half of the area or where we manage the forest to promote nature conservation, recreation, and cultural environments. We also make our parks available for various forest research.

ÅGP-landscapes

Our ten ÅGP-landscapes consists of important habitats and also includes some production forests.
ÅGP stands for Action Programs for threatened species and habitats, developed by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and the Swedish Agency for marine and water management. These ÅGP-areas feature concentrations of ÅGP species, which have high demands on their habitats.

ÅGP species do not primarily require protected areas for their survival. On the contrary, they depend on disturbances to thrive and are disadvantaged in environments left for free and natural development. Since natural disturbances are rare today, we carry out targeted conservation efforts to mimic natural events, such as prescirbed forest fires.

In ÅGP landscapes, we direct our measures both to older forests with conservation values where these species occur. We can also enhance higher conservation values in younger forests by increasing the proportion of deciduous trees and creating future conservation trees, such as pine, during thinning and clearing. In this way, we can improve conditions for these species in the long term.