Two dots (..) mean that value is missing Values for unproductive forest land have been adjusted to the values that SLU presents for each year in its official statistics. Statistics Sweden´s statistics report the same values as SLU for the years 2018–2023. Statistics Sweden´s values for the years 2024 and 2025 refer to SLU´s statistics for the year 2023, as later reference years are missing in SLU´s statistics. The same values are presented for the last three years, to obtain comparable values with the other three forms in the statistics. Values for consideration patches and sometimes voluntary set-asides have been revised continuously due to continuous quality increase in method and input data. In conjunction with the publication of the 2025 statistics, all values for consideration patches, starting with 2018, have been revised. The source of data on nature types types and forest land is the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency’s National Land Cover Database (NMD). The statistics are calculated based on the latest available version of NMD for the reference year. Statistics for 2018 and 2019 use NMD2018 v1.0 as the source. Statistics for 2020–2024 use NMD2018 v1.1 as the source. Statistics for 2025 onwards use NMD2023 v2.1 as the source. Values are rounded to the nearest 100.

Overlapping forms

Areas that overlap other forms have been eliminated. The fact that the different forms overlap means that several forms may exist within the same area. In the statistics, overlaps only exist between formally protected forest land and compensated areas under the Forestry Act, and also between formal protection and unproductive forest land. Formal protection is presented in its entirety. Compensated areas under the Forestry Act and unproductive forest land without overlap has been reduced from areas that are also formally protected.

Forest land

Total forest land is comprised of productive and unproductive forest land. Forest land refers to land within a coherent area in which the trees have a height of more than five metres and a tree crown cover of more than 10 percent or conditions to attain this height and tree crown cover without production-enhacing measures.

Forms

Formally protected forest land

Formally protected forest land is a collective term for different forms of protection, determined by laws, ordinances, agreements and individual decisions. All of them entail restrictions on forestry. Formal protection contains major overlaps between various subsets. In the statistics, these overlaps have been excluded in order to present a net area of formally protected forest land. This form exists in both productive and unproductive forest land.

Compensated areas under the Forestry Act

Compensated areas under the Forestry Act refer to areas in the montane forests where infringement compensation has been paid in accordance with Section 19 of the Forestry Act. The authorities are continuously working to establish habitat protection areas or nature reserves to the extent possible for the areas reported in this category. The statistics only include productive forest land and the areas only exist within the subalpine region.

Voluntary set-asides

Voluntary set-asides refers to areas of productive forest land on which landowners voluntarily decided not to carry out any measures that can harm natural values, cultural environments, or social values. Values are not available for the regions in/below the subalpine region, as well as for Swedish geographical regions.

Consideration patches

Consideration patches refers to small areas of productive forest land that have been made available, voluntarily or pursuant to the Swedish Forest Care Act, for rejuvenation harvesting. Values are not available for the regions in/below the subalpine region, Swedish geographical regions, and counties.

Consideration patches

The area of consideration patches are preliminary estimates based on the most recent definitive three-year average value in 2022/2023.

Unproductive forest land

Unproductive forest land refers to land that cannot produce more than on average one cubic metre of wood per hectare and year. This may refer to wooded mires, rock impediment, or downy birch forest. Unproductive forest land does not occur in productive forest land. Therefore, for this form, values are always unavailable for this variable.

year

2020

NMD 1.1 has been used in the production of statistics from the reference year 2020. This leads to changes compared with the previous year´s statistics. The changes entail an increase in the quality of the statistics that describe habitat types within protected nature, primarily with regard to the habitat types forest land and wetlands.

2020

The underlying data for all parts of the statistics has been improved and expanded during 2020. This leads to a better quality of the statistics, but means that comparisons with previous years should be made with caution.