Protected nature 2022
Almost 100 new nature reserves
Statistical news from Statistics Sweden and Swedish Environmental Protection Agency 2023-05-24 8.00
In 2022, the number of nature reserves increased by 98 areas. This means that Sweden had 5,440 nature reserves at the end of 2022. The largest new nature reserve was Södra Gardfjället, located in the northern and mountainous area of Sweden. The area covers almost 39,000 hectares in total, including a lot of open land in the mountainous region.
Out of Sweden’s total land and inland water areas, 15 percent are formally protected. The vast majority is permanently protected according to instruments defined in the Environmental Code. This includes national parks, nature reserves, nature conservation areas, habitat protection areas, the National City Park and the Natura 2000 areas. Other instruments included in the formal protection of natural environments are nature conservation agreements and intra-government agreements (that is, agreements between government agencies). In total, this makes up 0.4 percent of Sweden’s entire land and inland waters area.
Forest land on more than half of the new areas
The 2022 newly formed protected nature consisted primarily of nature reserves. Since the new areas of nature reserves partially overlap existing Natura 2000 sites, the net increase in new protected areas was approximately 22,000 hectares. More than half of the new areas were forest land including mountain low forest. Marine areas made up one quarter. Open wetlands made up 8 percent of the new protected areas.
Protected areas refer to national parks, nature reserves, nature conservation areas and Natura 2000 areas (SCI)
Source: The Swedish register on areas protected under the Environmental Code and Swedish data on land cover mapping
Sweden’s international reporting in 2022
In this year's reporting to the CDDA database, the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency reported 3,245 new areas. They mainly consisted of newly added areas in the OECM category. The total area of OECM was more than double as the previous year's reported areas. In total, almost 9.2 million hectares of protected nature were reported, including OECM. The OECM constitutes 0.78 percent of the total area reported for 2022.
| Area in hectares | Difference between 2021 to 2022 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 2022 | Area in hectares | Percent | |
| Protected areas | 9 060 300 | 9 084 700 | 24 400 | 0,27% |
| OECM | 33 000 | 71 700 | 38 700 | 117,13% |
| Total | 9 093 400 | 9 156 400 | 63 100 | 0.69% |
Source: Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. Areas are rounded to even 100s.
Definitions and explanations
Statistics Sweden produces yearly statistics on protected nature in collaboration with the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. A protected area refers to a geographically defined area that is permanently designated, regulated and administered to achieve specific aims and conservation goals. In Sweden, “protected area” is a collective term for protection under Chapter 7 of the Environmental Code and according to many of the nature conservation agreements under the Land Code.
Sweden’s national and official statistics on protected nature contain information on a selection of protected areas under Chapter 7 of the Environmental Code. Information is also presented on protected rivers, protected species, nature conservation agreements under the Land Code, Intra-governmental agreements, and forest land covered by land replacement.
The data refers to areas that applied (that is, for which judgment was final) on 31 December 2022. Most of the data has been retrieved from the Swedish register on areas protected under the Environmental Code and the database on Sweden’s Natura 2000 areas.
Publication
A more detailed report of this survey is published in the publication Protected Nature 2022 (pdf).
Next publishing will be
The next statistical news in this series will be published in 2024.
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.