Boreal forests are the largest land-based carbon storehouse, sequestering about 11% of the world’s total carbon storage.

And yet, Sweden is deforesting its old growth trees at a faster rate than the deforestation of the Amazon.

At a time when every part per million of carbon counts, the loss of old growth forests in Sweden is frightening.

Compounding the tragic loss of these trees is the fact that the Sámi way of life depends on the presence of abundant old growth trees. Traditional Sámi culture revolves around reindeer herding, the annual trek from taking the semi-wild reindeer from the summer pastures in the mountains to the winter grazing along the coast. 

When the ground is covered in ice and snow, lichen that grows only on the most ancient of trees contains the nutrients reindeer need to survive. And yet that lichen is quickly vanishing along with the old-growth trees.

Delegates at the 12th World Wilderness Congress, including Sámi reindeer herders and their allies, took action to address the critical loss of boreal forests and adopted a resolution calling for a complete ban on all old-growth trees in Sápmi, the traditional homeland of the Sámi people which consists of large parts of Sweden, Norway, Finland, and parts of Russia. Read the Protecting the Sámi Forest: Safeguarding Biodiversity and Indigenous Livelihoods resolution. 

WILD.org has adapted that resolution and proposed it as a motion for the International Union of the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Conservation Congress to convene in October 2025. 

We recognize that the strongest institution standing in the way of the Swedish forestry companies and the complete destruction of the old growth forest is the relationship between the Sámi and the reindeer. Every year, Sámi reindeer herders are required to “negotiate” with forestry companies for how much forest can be taken. Oftentimes these meetings are fraught with lack of transparency by the forestry companies and a sense of isolation by the Sámi. 

The Sámi must not stand alone in the protection of an ecosystem that benefits the entire biosphere! Our future, which the old growth helps to protect, must not be on the negotiating table! By calling for a ban on old growth deforestation we halt the destruction of a critical ecosystem as well as the lifeway that defends it best.

We are pleased to acknowledge our co-sponsors on this motion, including Wilderness Foundation Africa, Kua`aina Ulu `Auamo, Natural Resources Defense Council, Center for Large Landscape Conservation, and Svenska Naturskyddsföreningen (Swedish Society for Nature Conservation). This motion could not come to the floor without their fearless support.

And we also want to thank the many delegates of the 12th World Wilderness Congress who voted in near unanimous agreement on a total of 4 resolutions that included both an emphasis on protecting ecosystems, such as old growth forests, and the Indigenous institutions that maintain and advance conservation values. 

You can read Protecting the Sápmi Forest: Safeguarding Biodiversity and Indigenous Livelihoods here. We look forward to announcing later this month the outcome of the IUCN’s initial review of this motion and whether or not it was accepted for debate on the floor of the World Conservation Congress.