Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1939, Síða 223
REFORESTATION IN NORWAY
213
In 1938 the Director of Forests with the approval of the
Ministry of Agriculture submitted to the Storting a comprehensive
plan for bringing back to full production the large areas of mis-
nianaged and poorly stocked woods in the more typical forest
districts of the country.
Broadly speaking, the new plan, which has been approved
ln principle by the Storting, provides for cultural measures in
the districts mentioned over an area of at least 150,000 hectares
during the next ten years, or 15,000 hectares per annum. The
work, which comprises planting, sowing, soil preparation, heather
burning, ditching, fencing and thinning, is estimated to cost about
two million kroner per annum.
The plan also makes provision for further grants from public
funds towards drainage of swampy bog and forest land, although
°n a somewhat smaller scale than hitherto, and for the building
°f roads through the forests so as to reduce the cost of transpor-
tation.
This reforestation scheme is to be financed partly by direct
yearly grants of public funds, and partly by means of an increase
ln the “cultivation tax” voted by the Storting last year from 1 to
2 per cent. This tax is charged on the gross value of all timber
sold or used for industrial production. FIow much this tax will
y^eld is not known with any certainty, but the proceeds for
the two years 1936 and 1937, when it was levied at the rate
°f 1 per cent., averaged 730,000 Kroner per annum. It may
therefore, after the said increase, be expected to bring in some
t-5 million Kroner.
The following appropriations have been made towards the
teforestation plan in the financial year 1938—39:
Ordinary grants ....................... 460,000 Kroner
Extraordinary grants ................ 1,080,000 »
Total.... 1,540,000 Kroner
About 12,000 kilos of seeds and 25 million plants will be
required every year for the realization of this cultivation plan,
and some years will elapse before it will take full effect, as both
the collection of seeds and plant production will have to be
mcreased many times over.
As already stated, there were no restrictions to the exploitation
°f private forests during the last century prior to 1893, when