Preservation of Norway's living history
The ancient Norse tales of Huldra, trolls and gods originate from people's encounters with the mysterious old forest. Imagine a time when you wandered through the forest in the dark of night, without streetlights, surrounded by unfamiliar sounds and wild predators. Before you stand ancient trees, twisted and shaped over centuries, perhaps millennia, as a living backdrop to the forest's dark magic.
Norway's national icon, the "troll", is born out of people's experiences in the lost primeval forest. Once our country was covered in such untouched forests, but today less than 2,5% of Norway's forests are more than 160 years old. By comparison, Norway's oldest tree is over 500 years old, while the world's oldest tree, which stands at Fulufjället in Sweden near the Norwegian border, is over 10.000 years old.
Trefadder, in collaboration with the law firm BAHR, has developed Norway's first commercial scheme for voluntary protection of old-growth forests. Through this scheme, forest owners with old-growth forests of high conservation value, who have not received support through state forest protection, can have their area protected by TrefadderThis gives the landowner a financial gain, while at the same time Trefadder ensures that old-growth forests, which otherwise might have been cut down, are preserved for the future.
Old-growth forests contain enormous biodiversity, with many red-listed species and unique habitats. In addition, they serve as a significant carbon store, and Trefadder is working to quantify how much CO₂ these forests bind. The protection of old-growth forests therefore contributes both to preserving nature's history and to combating climate change.
