Conservation of Forest in Sweden: a strategic ecological analysis

Policies for future conservation of forests must be preceded by an evaluati on of the present reserves. Using data from the Swedish National Forest Inv entory, this study analyses Swedish reserves, i.e. national parks, nature r eserves and forest service reserves, in terms of proportion of forest, stan d age, site quality, tree species composition and tree volumes. The results show that in Sweden, the proportion of productive forest within reserves i s 20% compared to 60% of the non-reserve land area, and that the volume of dead trees is greater in reserves. In general the distribution of forests w ithin reserves is skewed towards old, low:productivity Norway spruce forest s in Northwest Sweden. This allocation may not meet the demands for protect ion of the habitats of endangered species. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. A ll rights reserved.