FORESTS IN DENMARK
1. Forest facts
2. Forest ownership in Denmark
3. Family forestry in Denmark
4. Forest owner organisations
5. Forest certification
6. Forest protection and biodiversity
7. Forest sector in Denmark’s national economy
8. Forest policy
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1. Forest facts
Danish forests cover 534.500 ha (2006) that is about 12.4% of the total land area.
Denmark is the northernmost part of the central European temperate forest zone, just south of the boreal coniferous forest zone.
The most common tree species are Norway spruce (19%, all planted), beech (13%), pine (12%) and oak (9%). Species for Christmas trees and greenery production adds up to 6% of the total forest cover.
The total volume of the growing stock in Danish forests amounts to 106 million m³.
The growing stock and the forest area have been constantly increasing from a level of about 3% forest cover in 1800. Today the annual increment is calculated to be 5.45 million m³, whereas annual felling amounts to 2.2 million m³.
It’s estimated that the annual increase in the carbon storage is 1.34 million tonnes in the Danish forests. This is equivalent to 4.90 tonnes of carbon dioxide.
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2. Forest Ownership in Denmark
From the forest area:
Privately owned forests 69 %
Publicly owned forests 31 %
Private persons, ordinary Danish citizens, own 65% of all forest land. Further 4% are owned by private foundations. The number of private forest holdings is about 25,000.
The Danish State owns 23% of the forest land. Further 8% are publicly owned, mostly by municipalities.
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3. Family Forestry in Denmark
Danish forest owners are as diverse as most other groups consisting of tens of thousands of people. But they do have some things in common:
- Many of them are farmers as well as forest owners. They have typically owned their forest for generations.
- New forest owners are more likely not to be farmers, but people living in cities. They have typically bought their forest for recreational purposes, e.g. hunting.
Profitability of Danish forestry
Danish forestry, and in particular the family forestry, is in a severe crisis. In 2003, after years of similar losses, private forest owners lost almost 80 €/hectare when leaving out any alternate income. The economy of Danish forestry is thus not sustainable.
As seen in the figure 2 on alternate income (chapter 7), the economy of the Danish family forestry is under pressure. During the last 20 years the average surplus of Danish family forests has been between 50 and 130 €/ha/year.
Family forest owners objectives / values
Most forest owners manage their forest with the objective of handing the forest over to their children in the same or even in better state than it is in now. That goes for the forest’s nature values as well as for the production values.
An increasing number of forest owners try and make an income from the forests with recreational values. This is particularly relevant in a country like Denmark where there is an average of 10 Danish citizens per hectare of forest and where the demand for recreational activities on every hectare is high.
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4. Forest owner organisations
The Danish Forest Association, Dansk Skovforening, is the Danish forest owners' national policy organisation. The objective for DFA is to promote the political and professional interests of the Danish forest owners - and to promote such forestry which has the ability to protect the nature values of Danish forests.
DFA provides, among many other things, information on wood- and non-wood markets, political supervision of the interests of forest owners and general information to the public on forests and wood. DFA publishes the monthly magazine Skoven (The Forest). DFA owns the international wood trading company DSH-WOOD
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5. Forest Certification
Over 200,000 hectares, around 40%, of the Danish forests are certified under the Danish PEFC scheme.
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6. Forest Protection and biodiversity
Forest protection
Approximately 5% of the total land area in Denmark is under some kind of specific restrictive protection. In addition approximately 20.000 ha of forests ( around 4% of the forest area) are protected under the Natura 2000 scheme or Sustainable Forestry protection scheme.
More general protection of land, forests and wetlands are taken care of by the Danish Nature Protection Law and Forestry Law. These laws regulate i.e. all change in conditions and use of all land and forest.
Biodiversity
National biodiversity programme
Denmark has signed the 2010-countdown objective, but has not yet formulated a national policy on the subject. In the spring 2007 the Danish Parliament “Folketinget” held a hearing on the subject.
The content of the hearing can be found from the report “Biodiversity 2010 – how do we reach the objectives”.
Nature Conservation Act has a long history and has been revised many times. The Nature Conservation Act primarily deals whit conservation and protection of nature types and cultural heritage Biodiversity- /Nature Conservation Act
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7. Forest sector in Denmark’s national economy
The Danish forestry contributes 0.24% to the Danish GDP. The combined forest-, paper- and furniture industries in Denmark contribute 3.67% to the Danish GDP.
The employment in the forest sector has only been moving one way, with a historical low 43.700 people employed in forests, the forest-, paper- and furniture industries in Denmark. See figure 1.
Figure 1: Employment in the forest sector
Value of wood and non-wood products
During the last few years alternate income has been playing a more and more important role in the economies of the forests. As seen from the figure 2, the surplus in the Danish forests during four years (2001-2004) has been negative, when leaving out the income from alternate business such as hunting, riding, hiring out houses and different arrangements for the public.
These figures are from a yearly balance survey of the Danish Family Forestry, made by the Danish Forest Association. It should be noted that the figures under heading surplus forestry are without any payment to the owner and without any payment of interest. In that survey it was not possible to separate any income from gathering of mosses, berries or mushrooms. In any case, these figures are insignificant to the economies of the Danish forests.
Figure 2: Alternate income in forests
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8. Forest Policy
The Danish Forest Act was passed by the Parliament in 2004.
The purpose of The Danish Forest Act is to conserve and protect the Danish forests and to increase the forest area and to promote sustainable forest management. Sustainable management includes economic as well as ecological and social values.
Sustainable management entails that when managing the individual areas designated as forest reserve land and when administrating The Forest Act one should strive to:
1) promote the establishment of robust forests,
2) ensure the production of the forests,
3) conserve and increase the biological diversity of the forests, and
4) ensure that proper attention is given to landscape, natural history, cultural history, environmental protection and outdoor recreation.
In 2000, it was decided to develop a National Forest Programme. The reasons for this were the changing conditions in the Danish forest sector and the obligations outlined in the various international agreements and conventions to which Denmark is a party.
The Danish National Forest Programme is aiming at sustainable forest management equally based on economic, ecological, environmental and social concern. The programme aims at a long-term conversion towards a forest management regime, which increasingly supports and utilises the natural processes of the forest.
The National Forest Program can be viewed in the report “The Danish national forest programme in an international perspective”
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