With some courage, Sten Nilsson takes a seat to be interviewed. His back is still tender. During lunch with the South Korean environmental and foreign ministers a week ago, acute lumbago struck. It was a meal partaken in by the guests in traditional fashion, sitting on the floor.‘When I tried to get up, it just went “crack”. They had to grab me so that I didn’t fall helplessly onto the table.’
The reason for Nilsson’s visit to South Korea was the need to create large-scale forest plantations in North Korea. South Korea’s northern neighbour is affected by erosion, floods and falling farm production. One reason is massive clear-felling of forests.
Liaison and cooperation with South Korea are essential for a chance of getting into North Korea, which is otherwise closed.
Forest sectors in China
For many years, Sten Nilsson has worked at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Vienna. This research institute is engaged in global development issues, including energy, demography, technological development and the environment. In 1976, after training to be a forestry officer, he became Professor of Economic Planning at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. In the 1980s, he moved to Austria to establish IIASA’s research in the forest sector, and he has headed its Forestry Programme ever since. One objective of IIASA’s work is to develop the growing forest sectors in China, India and Brazil. Scientific documentation is also being compiled on the importance of forests for the global climate. The results are being used in an attempt to influence the international climate talks now in progress.
Nilsson also chairs the evaluation group that has examined the proposals for Future Forests, Mistra’s forthcoming programme of forest research. This programme is based on the assumption that in the long term, between 50 and 100 years from now, forests will face greater and partially contradictory requirements and wishes on the part of different segments of society.
Greater interaction
‘As things look at present, action is taking place by sector, and that’s not a viable option for the future. Much greater interaction among all the different stakeholders is required. The forest industry will also have to be integrated with measures relating to the energy sector, agriculture and the climate. While the world’s energy needs continue to increase, we must radically reduce our emissions from fossil fuels. This will be a crucial issue for the forest sector, both as an energy supplier and as a sink for carbon dioxide.’
Conflicting aims
A conflict of objectives is already discernible: the raw material itself, timber, has to meet needs not only for wood products and paper but also, to a greater extent, for biofuel. Competition between traditional forest industry and the energy sector, but also with agriculture for cultivable land, is therefore intensifying. There are other trends that we can only guess at today, Nilsson states. For example, IT development is resulting in a reduced need for newsprint, and many people think that biotechnology is contributing to the trend whereby present-day paper and pulp mills will, in the future, become giant chemical factories with renewable raw materials and products.
‘All this will have repercussions of one kind or another on the forest industry, and affect how we use forests. The important thing is first to get a clear picture of where the scope for development lies,’ Nilsson explains.
Critical of forest policy
Nilsson has previously tried to get a hearing for the view that more cooperation is needed to meet future challenges. In 2004 he intervened in Swedish forest policy by drafting his own ‘shadow’ legislative bill. In it, he was strongly critical of the lack of political coordination and the fact that no one has an overall grasp of the key challenges faced by forest management. His opinions were not given any great media coverage, but Sten Nilsson is convinced that his involvement nonetheless influenced the then Government.
‘In that year’s Statement of Government Policy, Göran Persson suddenly said that the forest industry had been mismanaged and we had to develop new strategies. Some of the wording in his speech was taken straight from my “shadow bill”.’
A dialogue between the two industrial parties and the Government was initiated but, according to Nilsson, nothing specific happened before a new Government came into power. Now Mistra is taking up the future of forests in a new, broad research programme. And Nilsson has a new chance to contribute to a change.
