The origins of prescribed burning in Scandinavian forestry: the seminal role of Joel Wretlind in the management of fire-dependent forests

Abstract

In Sweden, prescribed burning was trialed as early as the 1890s for forest regeneration purposes. However, the origins of prescribed burning in Sweden are commonly attributed to Joel Efraim Wretlind, forest manager in the State Forest district of Malå, Västerbotten County, from 1920 to 1952. To more fully understand the role he played in the development of prescribed burning and the extent of his burning, we examined historical records from the State Forest Company’s archive and Wretlind’s personal archive. The data showed that at least 11,208 ha was burned through prescribed burning between 1921 and 1970, representing 18.7% of the Malå state-owned forest area. Wretlind thus created a new forestry-driven fire regime, reaching, during peak years, extents close to historical fire regimes before the fire suppression era, and much higher than present-day burning. His use of prescribed fire to regenerate forests served as a guide for many other forest managers, spreading to all of northern Sweden during the 1950–1960s. Our analysis of Wretlind’s latest accounts also shows how he stood against the evolutions of modern forestry to defend a forestry system based on the reproduction of natural processes, such as fire.

Fire Management in The Boreal Forest of Swedish Sápmi: Prescribed Burning and Consideration of Sami Reindeer Herding During 1920–1970

“…Joel Ephraim Wretlind, forest manager of the National Forest Company (Sveaskog AB, formerly Domänverket) in Malå from 1920 to 1952, experimented with prescribed burning and applied it extensively during the 1940s and 1950s. Malå became the center for prescribed burning in Sweden, with the early application of prescribed burning on a large scale and almost continuously over several decades (Granström 1991;Pyne 2012;Cogos et al 2020). Wretlind's personal archive provides an invaluable source of information regarding forest management and prescribed burning, but also historical interactions between foresters and Sami reindeer herders.…”

“…However, the case of Malå shows how forest managers could take liberties with the rules that were promulgated at the institutional level, and how the opinion and the interests of the Sami were sometimes overlooked. In Malå, this can be explained by Wretlind's personal commitment to developing prescribed burning as the foremost forest regeneration method (Cogos et al 2020). Moreover, this period corresponds with a change in Swedish forestry practices towards more effective regeneration (Östlund et al 1997).…”

The war on deciduous forest: Large-scale herbicide treatment in the Swedish boreal forest 1948 to 1984

“…However, there were a few exceptions. One of the few outspoken opponents of herbicides in the 1960s within the forestry sector was the well-known forester Joel Wretlind, who stated that ''Those who set poison to kill them [the birches], yes, well, they should take it themselves'' (Cogos et al 2020). As already mentioned, in the Mala ˚forest district where he was chief, herbicides were hardly used at all during this period.…”

Fire scars, ground vegetation fuels, and prescribed burning: towards better fire management in Fennoscandia

“…Yet in Fennoscandia during the last century, the main reasons for prescribed burning were silvicultural and were aimed to improve forest regeneration. These silvicultural burnings of clear-cut areas were widely practiced in Finland and Sweden, reaching their peak during the 1950s and early 1960s, when tens of thousands of hectares were burned annually (Cogos et al 2020;Parvianen 1996). Although such burnings decreased drastically in the late 1960s and the 1970s, they are still practiced in Sweden and Finland with increasing biodiversity-related targets, yet the current annual areas are < 500 ha in Finland and > 500 ha in Sweden (Ramberg et al 2018;Finnish Forest Statistics 2021).…”

“…(1) The traditional silvicultural prescribed burnings of clear-cut areas (Figure 4a), which aim to improve regeneration conditions by improving nutrient cycling and decreasing the competition of understory vegetation (Viro 1969;Parviainen 1996). The method was widely practiced in Finland and Sweden in the 1950s and 1960s when tens of thousands of hectares were burned annually (Parviainen 1996;Cogos et al 2020). In recent decades, silvicultural burnings have been modified to also safeguard biodiversity by leaving and burning retention trees to create fire-affected wood and habitats for fire-dependent species, and thus can be termed nature-management prescribed burnings or "prescribed burnings to promote the biodiversity of forests," as in the Temporary Act on the Financing of Sustainable Forestry (Kestävän metsätalouden rahoituslaki 2015).…”