In recent decades, the forests of the Norway have experienced extraordinary expansion: the their volume has tripled compared to the levels prior to the Second World War. If in 1925 there were about 300 million cubic meters of trees, today it has reached 900 million.
Much of this growth is due to the massive reforestation campaigns launched in the 1960s, when almost 100 million red fir trees were planting every year, often also involving school students. Today, those trees are ripe and represent an important slice of forest biomass.
But that’s not all: according to the researchers of the Norwegian Forest and Landscape Institute, The Norwegian trees – including Abeti Rossi, Pini and Betulle – are growing faster than the scientific models. A acceleration that goes beyond expectations and that has different possible explanations.
What is feeding this growth
Among the factors that may have favored this surge there are the increase in medium temperatures, longer vegetative seasons, a greater concentration of CO₂ in the atmosphere, and more substantial nitrogen deposits. Even the reduction of pasture by wild and domestic animals may have played a role in allowing vegetation to develop without obstacles.
In past years the worst was feared: intensive deforestation and acid rains had hypothesized a black future for the Norwegian forests. Instead, the opposite happened: not only did the forests go back, but they thrived. Paradoxically, The timber industry has failed to keep up, exploiting only the available biomass only.
With many plantations of the 1950s and 1960s that now reach full maturity, this trend will be expected for decades. And Norway is not alone: similar phenomena are also taking place in other European countries, such as Germany, where forests grow at accelerated pace thanks to increasingly favorable environmental conditions.
