Sweden's Forests: Problems and Opportunities

European Tourism

Sweden is covered by vast forests. The following map, compiled by the European Forest Institute, shows us how Sweden compares to the rest of Europe.

final_forest_map_50dpi_02_12--copyright Katja Gunia, Jo Van Brusselen, Risto Päivinen, Sergey Zudin, Elena Zudina

There are lots of trees, but not so many people. This creates problems and business opportunities. How do Swedes communicate by telephone? What do Swedish people do with all those trees?

Swedish Forest, CC-BY-SA, Netzanette (taken in Sandviken, Gavleborg, SE)

Swedish Forest, taken by Netzanette (CC-BY-NC, taken in Sandviken, Gavleborg, SE).jpg

One thing Swedes have done with their trees is to make paper packages: "Tetra Pak is currently the largest food packaging company in the world by sales, operating in more than 170 countries and with over 22,000 employees" (10,000,000,000 Euros in revenues in 2010). More information from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrapak

Tetra_Pak_packaging_portfolio_I_medium_size (Tetrapak, CC-BY-SA)

Look for the Tetra Pak logo when you buy a drink! (logo is copyright)

Forests also provide wood for making furniture. Ikea is famous for making and selling good-looking but inexpensive DIY furniture [bring a box home and put it together yourself]. This company is the furniture chain store in the world (23,500,000,000 Euros in revenue). They don't only sell furniture. They also have many beautiful things you can use at home. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikea

IKEA stores around the world (Public Domain)

Go to one of their four stores in Taiwan at lunchtime or dinnertime to enjoy Swedish food. The Taiwan website is here: http://www.ikea.com/tw/zh/

The inside of an IKEA furniture store (Fastily CC-BY-SA)