Pro Silva Sweden

From Friday 27.2. to Sunday 1.3. the preparatory committee of Pro Silva Sverige met at the farm Harbäck (60.29808627748622 N, 17.139732164395102 E), which belongs to Mr. Andreas - one of the founding group of our new branch.

During two evenings and throughout the whole of Saturday, discussions took place on issues of the branch's functioning as well as the general goals of Pro Silva.

We clarified:

• organizational structure of Pro Silva
• principles of establishing a new branch, including their statutes and functioning of the committee
• methods of communication to the outside
• methods of functioning of branches in large countries (Germany, France, Italy) - this may be useful in the future in Sweden
• our attitudes towards forest certifications, towards large corporations
• our position between timber industry and green NGO‘s
• we agreed on positive functioning (we are not judges), but we motivate foresters to change the way of management by showing examples of "how it can work differently"

I personally believe that after several years of communication and searching, there is now a great group of founding members in Sweden. Their advantage is that they represent both forest owners and persons/companies that perform forestry services, the academic sphere is represented. Above all, I can confirm the most important thing - they want to change forest management in the spirit of our principles and are ready for it.

We have agreed:

• that they will elect the first committee
• they prepare the statutes, registration, account and other legal requirements
• send us the contact addresses - chairman and administrator
• their first "official" excursion will take place in the spring to let people know that Pro Silva Sverige is coming. The excursion will be organized as "Pro Silva Sverige in preparation"
• we will be informed about their steps
• they will attend the annual meeting in Hungary - here I would like to ask that we allow about 4 people to attend, instead of the usual 2. We need colleagues to get to know each other, to establish communication - Sweden is big and their communication will not be as easy as it is here in Central Europe.