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. The proportion in percent has been calculated using non-rounded values in hectares. In the calculation, the numerator consists of the areas of the selected variables. The denominator consists of the total areas of forest land accordning to two different data sources. Formally protected forest land and compensated areas according to the Forestry Act use the Swedish data on land cover mapping (NMD) as data source. Voluntary set-asides, consideration patches, and unproductive forest land use the Swedish National Forest Inventory as data source.

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

Productive forest land refers to forest land that is considered to be able to produce on average at least one cubic metre of wood per hectare and year.

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.

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.