Denmark’s private forestry – representing 70 per cent of Denmark’s total afforested area –is in a very bad financial situation. In 2004 the financial result was an average deficit of 500 DKK (70 euro) per hectare of forest.
At the end of August the Danish Government will present its long awaited programme for improving the forestry’s financial framework and its long term sustainability. The Government’s report on the financial situation of private forestry constitutes a first step. The Danish Forest Association is happy that the forestry question has been put on the Government’s agenda at all. The Forest Council – the Government’s broad-based advisory body on forestry questions – has requested the Government to make forestry a priority matter and to give it a real helping hand.
But regrettably the Government’s report on forest economy is based on errors and deficiencies:
The report does not point to any problems and it gives no solutions. On the contrary, it rejects the idea of finding separate solutions for forestry’s particular problems.
The report ignores the problems of storm stricken forests when the Government has rejected particular arrangements for additional felling, despite the Government will revenue an additional 30 million DKK (4 million euro) in taxes from forest owners for storm stricken forests and wood sold in 2005.
The report makes light of forestry’s bad economy and argues that most forest owners do not own their forests for financial, but for sentimental reasons. The report further argues that forest owners can simply cover their losses by selling their forest. In other words, the report focuses on the person – the forest owner – instead of facing the actual problem, namely the forestry.
The salient question is that the State imposes more fees and taxes on forests than forest owners themselves are able to earn. The worse this evil gets, the less money forest owners can spend on maintaining and developing nature values.
The Danish Forest Association now tries to get an opportunity to talk to the Government for the purpose of making Danish forestry financially sound.