UNHIDE Agroforestry booklet 2025.09.22 - Flipbook - Page 15
Linden is suitable for building sauna
interiors, the Latvians noted.
of mosquitoes that lay eggs in the grass on their
marshland, now it’s more open and more pleasant
to walk.
Anders’ advice is to not let the cows use the same
place for resting and grazing as the dung will be
concentrated in one place that ends up with too
much nitrogen, leading to rotten tree roots.
Going forward, Anders has plans to grow black
walnuts (Juglans nigra) for timber and to use more
animals for various services, such as the Swedish
forest bread “Linderödsgris” that like to feed on
nuts; a semi-wild pig which roamed the beechand oak forests of southern Sweden until the end
of the 19th century.
“Imagine a meadow or a forest edge where rose
hip, Korean silverbush, honeyberries, walnuts,
fruit trees and chestnuts grow with native species;
plants that are beneficial to the animals and can
be spread further by the animals. In such system
combined with planned grazing, grass also has
a function to fulfil, while normally, grass is something you try to avoid in a forest garden. Grazing
animals eating fallen fruit reduce parasite infestations, disrupting the parasites’ life cycle. This
should also apply to the cow weevil (Curculio
nucum) destroying hazelnuts”, Anders figures.
“Furthermore, nitrogen-fixing trees have green
leaves later in the fall, making them an asset in a
grazing system”.
•
Anders’ advice is to not let the cows use the same place
for resting and grazing, as the dung will be concentrated in one place, leading to rotten tree roots.
•
Forest grazing started to decline in the 1600´s when
trees for charcoal and timber became an economically
lucrative resource. At this time grazing started to be
considered to negatively influence the regeneration of
trees, while the real reason was the growing importance
of the Swedish state and private businesses as forest
owners, both having no economic interest in keeping
animals in forests.
•
Fäbobruk was recently inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of
Humanity - a traditional pastoral practice that was once
the heartbeat of Sweden’s rural economy.
•
In Sweden, forestry and the forest industry is the largest driver of biodiversity degradation; thousands of
hectares of trees are logged and replanted with new
monocultures each year, without regard for climate
stability, biodiversity and long term ecological health.
This stands in sharp contrast to the country’s particularly
great responsibility, housing a large part of the EU’s
natural heritage in the form of natural continuity forests
that have not previously been clear-cut. To reverse the
trend and safeguard these invaluable ecosystems, there
is an urgent need to protect and restore Swedish forests
and to restructure Swedish forestry.
•
Today, a growing body of literature from rural sociology, agroecology and conservation biology suggests that
silvopastoralism, selective thinning and horse traction
have great potential to enable multifunctional and
biodiverse forests, as well as contributing to securing
national sovereignty in terms of food, water and fibre.
