Small-scale operations bring life to the countryside
Sweden’s small-scale wood processors are asserting their power. At Elmia Wood 2009 they created their own “square” within the exhibition site. The square was called Trätorget – wood square – the same as the project’s Web address: trätorget.se.
“Those of us who live in the countryside must be able to live from our forests,” says the project’s initiator, Erik Hjärtfors.
Erik explains that the initiative is not a protest against the big forest companies who buy the timber and transport it to the wood processing industries around Sweden’s coastline. Instead, he says this project and a similar one from the Federation of Swedish Farmers that focuses on the potential of forest smallholdings, look at ways to create jobs in rural areas using forest raw materials that big industry doesn’t want.
“At Elmia Wood we’ve accumulated many examples of what can be done on the small scale using wood with high value-added potential,” he says. “Now we’re creating an online marketplace for all these products.”
The website is being run by the Swedish association of small-scale sawyers (Sveriges Småsågares Riksförbund), of which Erik is a very active member. His own contribution to Elmia Wood consisted of timbered buildings made of aspen wood. Brandishing his broadaxe, he explains his choice of material:
“There’s masses of it but industry doesn’t want it except for making matches. Aspen is lightweight and easy to work, it has a high value in terms of traditional Swedish culture, and it is weather-resistant above ground.”