Forest planting and sowing in km2. Source: Statistics Norway; Nordic Environmental Indicators.
If we regard forests as a purely material resource, afforestation is a positive means of increasing or maintaining the stock of forest. However, planting may have major impacts on the biological diversity.In Norway the trees that are planted are often monocultures of spruce. The density of the fauna and flora in planted spruce forest is much lower than that of the naturally regenerated forest. This implies that planting is not only a positive measure.
The Government granted subsidies for forest planting as early as 1863. In recent years planting of forest has been somewhat reduced to between 200 - 300 km2 of forest planted or sown annually.