Protected nature 2018:

Protected nature accounts for 15 percent of Sweden’s terrestrial area

Statistical news from Statistics Sweden and Swedish Environmental Protection Agency 2019-05-24 9.30

The protected nature that emerged in 2018 consisted of almost 60 percent of forest land. Marine areas accounted for 22 percent and 12 percent were open wetlands.

Nationally designated areas of protection encompass almost 9 million hectares in total (marine areas included). Land areas and inland water account for 75 percent of that area. This represents 15 percent of Sweden’s land surface, including inland waters.

	Number of areas	Area in hectare				Share out of Sweden’s total land area, including inland waters
Type of protection		Total area, including marine water	land area	Marine waters	Inland water
Permanent formal protection
National parks	30	743 235	633 651	63 604	45 981	1.6%
Nature reserves	4 930	4 808 590	3 939 158	309 402	560 030	9.5%
Nature conservation areas	90	149 161	109 471	13 345	26 345	0.3%
Habitat protection areas in forest land	8 251	30 392	30 326	64	2	0.1%
Habitat protection areas, other	114	314	264	4	46	0.0%
National City Park	1	2 614	1 806	14	794	0.0%
Natura 2000	4 539	7 794 568	4 748 246	1 042 676	2 003 646	12.9%
Total, overlapping areas not included		8 690 671	5 380 269	1 086 743	2 223 659	14.5%

Time-limited formal protection
Nature conservation agreements	18 262	170 219	168 759	1 439	21	0.4%

Agreement between government agencies
Fortifications Administration	59	32 284	30 851	1 378	56	0.1%
All of the above types of protection, overlapping areas not included		8 893 318	5 580 044	1 089 560	2 223 714	14.9%

Since 2012, designated protected areas (marine and terrestrial) have increased by 1.6 million hectares. The new protection mainly consists of marine areas, of which a large share were constituted in 2016 in the form of Natura 2000.

Nationally designated areas, most commonly located in national parks and nature reserves, are unevenly distributed across the country because of the need to protect large old-growth forest areas in mountainous regions. Eighty percent of the national designated land area is located in the three northernmost counties. The protected areas in these counties are concentrated in the mountains or along the edge of the mountain chain.

Sweden has large areas of protected nature per capita compared with other countries in Europe. On the other hand, if we consider protected nature as a share of the total area, many other European countries have protected larger shares of their territories.

Definitions and explanations

Protected areas are defined here as statutory protection of nature regulated by the Environmental Code. Until 1 January 1999, the main legislative provision for nature protection in Sweden was embodied in the Act on the Management of Natural Resources (NRL). On 1 January 1999, this Act was replaced by the Environmental Code.

Publication

A more detailed report of this survey is published in the Statistical Report Protected Nature 2018 (pdf).

Statistical Database

More information is available in the Statistical Database

Feel free to use the facts from this statistical news but remember to state Source: Statistics Sweden.