Response to interpellation 2022/23:348 on the effects of the abolished ant hill compensation
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
L argues that the previous government removed the possibility for new agreements for mire meadow compensation 1. L argues that the government has been tasked to investigate a national compensation system for the management of certain meadow and pasture lands 1. L argues that the government has invested over 2 billion on the protection and management of valuable nature. L argues that Naturvårdsverket has been tasked to establish a national compensation system for the mowing of certain tradition-dependent mire lands. L argues that they are waiting for the assignment to be reported and are preparing a partial report to protect nature. V argues that the government moved money from nature conservation to the drainage of mires 2. V argues that reduced appropriations for the management of valuable nature affect the countryside and threaten quality of life as well as the tourism industry 3 4.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Statsrådet Romina Pourmokhtari (L)
Madam Speaker! Birger Lahti has asked me if I intend to take any measures to compensate for the negative effects that the abolition of mire meadow compensation has for Vasikkavuoma and the countryside and for other mires where mowing is practiced in Norrbotten. Birger Lahti has also asked me if I intend to work for compensation for mire meadow to be reintroduced next year and if I intend to take any initiatives to analyze the effects of how lowered and abolished state subsidies for managing nature with high nature and cultural values affect the countryside.
I want to make it clear that it was the previous government that decided to remove the possibilities to sign new agreements for compensation for mire meadows during the years 2021 and 2022. This measure was included in the then current rural development program as part of the implementation of the EU's common agricultural policy. Subsequently, the previous government decided not to reintroduce the measure in the Swedish strategic plan for the common agricultural policy, which came into effect from 1 January 2023. The decision applied to mire meadows in Norrbotten, Västerbotten, Jämtland, and Västernorrland counties.
In March 2022, the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency received a mandate from the government to establish a national compensation system for the restoration and management of certain types of meadow and pasture lands with nature and cultural values. The mandate included providing proposals for compensation also for the mowing of certain tradition-dependent mire lands. In September 2022, the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency submitted an interim report on its ongoing mandate. The proposals have been referred and are now being prepared in the Government Offices.
Since the compensations may, among other things, be paid out to companies, the compensation system needs to be adapted so that it is compatible with the EU's state aid rules. The EU Commission has very recently decided on simplified rules that facilitate national support for the restoration and conservation of biodiversity. These rules have not yet entered into force.
I want to conclude by saying that the government follows how the investments in nature conservation made in the state budget are implemented and how the policy pursued otherwise contributes to creating conditions for employment throughout the country.
Birger Lahti (V)
Madam Speaker! Thank you, Minister, for the answer! I do not actually intend to address the answer yet, in this contribution. I intend to look back or provide information, if there are any listeners – it is a pity that the school class has left the auditorium.
Even in Selma Lagerlöf's Nils Holgersson's Wonderful Journey Through Sweden, he missed the entire eastern Norrbotten. Read it sometime! It is supposed to be a wonderful journey through all of Sweden, yet one still misses 25 percent of Sweden. That says a lot about why it can happen that one misses this with myrslåtter, which the interpellation is about. What is it actually? Does one have a handle on it?
My grandfather was one of those who dug and drained such a mire. It concerned poor people who did not have their own land. To survive, one had a few livestock, and to get fodder for the livestock, it was mire-cutting that applied for many people in eastern Norrbotten. Vasikkavuoma was one of these mires; I will return to it in the next post.
There are obviously today mires where mire-mowing has been practiced that can be rewetted again, even with the government's policy. That might be a better measure for some of them. But Vasikkavuoma, which I will come back to, is unique in many ways. It is one of Europe's largest mire-mowing areas. During its best days, it was 250 hectares and had over 280 barns. All of this went to cattle feed around in the municipality in question.
To constantly try to say that it was the old government that did this or that is an argument that I buy - this was not part of the common EU policy. But money for Naturvårdsverket that could have saved this, the government could definitely have introduced. Instead, people talk about money that was allocated for wetlands. Yes, money was moved - it was not 300 million in new money. Money that was intended for other purposes within the framework of nature conservation measures was taken and moved to the wetting of bogs, which was good in itself. But trying to disclaim responsibility for the fact that there was no money for Naturvårdsverket is a minus point for the government.
I will receive support from my colleague, who will take up other parts concerning money for the care of cultural environments and other valuable environments, which are also affected when these grants are reduced in the budget, which could also have gone to the mire pasture activities, which my question about Vasikkavuoma is about.
I will, as I have said, return to Vasikkavuoma and its defense in my second post.
Kajsa Fredholm (V)
Madam Speaker! It is not every day that we get the chance to speak about the consequences that the government's budget has on the countryside in different ways, so I want to start by thanking Birger Lahti for submitting this interpellation.
I live in Leksand, a small municipality in Dalarna, and there we are close to nature. Proximity to nature is also often an important reason for those who want to come and settle in Leksand municipality. If you live in Leksand's center, in Noret, as we call it, it is possible to walk to the nearest nature reserve, which is used by many of us locals. Our nature is also important for our tourism industry, which employs many in the municipality.
The vast majority of us people experience that nature provides both strength and recovery. And precisely protected areas can provide unique experiences by offering varied and scenic nature. In a study on Swedes' views on the forest and nature, 80 percent answered that it is necessary for the quality of life to get out into the woods and fields. Of those responding, it was 94 percent who experienced that they become relaxed and harmonious by staying in nature. This therefore applies to almost all of us.
Nature's inherent beauty is also something that many people appreciate and which provides experiences that are difficult to replace in any other way. To protect areas with high nature values and take care of them means that people will also in the future have the opportunity to experience nature and everything it can offer.
Nature experiences also affect our health in a positive way, and nature has a calming effect on us. In today's society, it is diseases related to stress and sedentary lifestyles that are increasing the most. Pleasantly enough, there are studies that show that after just a few minutes in beautiful nature, both pulse and blood pressure decrease, and we feel less stressed.
In its budget this autumn, the government almost halved the funding for the maintenance of valuable nature, which affects many who live and work in rural areas. I wonder if the government truly understands what effects it has for many small municipalities with high cultural and natural values that the funds are reduced and also removed.
Statsrådet Romina Pourmokhtari (L)
Madam Speaker! Thank you, Birger Lahti and Kajsa Fredholm, for your contributions and your commitment to these issues!
I also live in a small municipality, Sweden's smallest by area, and I live next to a nature reserve that my party has been involved in establishing. I truly share the view that proximity to nature increases both my and surely many others' standard of living and well-being. It is certainly something to cherish.
We have a very ambitious climate and environmental policy in Sweden; we have had that for a long time. There is a great will to protect and preserve our nature in this chamber. We want to do this in different ways. We may present different political proposals on how we should, for example, protect our nature, but we agree that it shall be protected.
This government has invested over 2 billion on the protection and management of valuable nature. It is an amount that may seem small if one only looks at the previous year, 2022. But if one looks further back, one sees that it is a considerable sum, higher than the amount allocated for this area in many other years. But the government also has a tough economic situation to take into account and needs to review all expenditures. I am very proud that, despite the tough economic situation, we have invested over 2 billion on the protection and management of nature.
To return to the question in the interpellation, Madam Speaker, namely the effects of a scrapped mire meadow compensation, I also want to mention that there is a particular situation in Norrbotten that is important to take into account in connection with this interpellation and this debate: The interest in cultivating mire meadows in Norrbotten has increased very significantly. During 2016-2020, there has been an increase from approximately 1,600 to 9,200 hectares, according to the Swedish Board of Agriculture's statistics, which corresponds to over 500 percent. This can be compared with the total area of claimed meadow land with compensation in the rest of the country, where the corresponding increase for the same period was 11 percent. The difference is therefore quite large, so one can definitely say that Norrbotten is unique in terms of mire meadows. This is also something that is relevant to take into account in this discussion.
During 2020, for example, 126 million kronor were paid out through the rural development program to companies and associations in compensation for peatland mowing in Norrbotten County. Thus, a lot of money has been paid out for exactly this purpose.
Work is underway to design the new support regulation so that we can establish a national compensation system for the restoration and maintenance of certain types of meadow and pasture lands with nature and cultural values. Therefore, as a government minister, I am forced not to go into details on how the new support is designed, but my ambition is that the new support system shall be cost-effective and provide more nature and cultural values per invested krona.
Birger Lahti (V)
Madam Speaker! Thank you again, Minister, for the answer!
I am sure that not all the money that has been spent has been of such great use for the purpose as was intended, I agree with that. But if one looks at what my interpellation was about, the mire ridge Vasikkavuoma, it is unique in many ways. It has been restored since the end of the 80s, and it has become a tourist attraction. There are couples who come from far away to get married on one of the boardwalks in Vasikkavuoma. There are school classes that learn about the history of our regions in eastern Norrbotten. Heating huts and such have been built in connection with the mire ridge. It is therefore not just a matter of sweeping everything under the carpet and saying that we are reducing the appropriations for mire ridges.
I am prepared to agree with the government in the analysis that there may be those who do not fulfill the purpose of the money when it increased so much. But regarding this mire in Vasikkavuoma, I am convinced that a historical mistake is being made. History will not be kind in its criticism if money is not added so that it is possible to continue with this. A lot of money has been spent on restoring the mire, and it is an attraction that only grows every year. Therefore, I want to highlight it as an example.
One must see that we have invested money intended for nature conservation and restoration and maintenance - my colleague took up other examples. We have a high level of protection in Sweden regarding what we have protected. We have protected nature. But I can read that the appropriations are being reduced because it is believed that they do not do any good, and that is not true. There are surely a number of cases where I can agree with the government's analysis, but it would be a mistake not to allocate money for the mire-vole in my municipality - now it becomes a bit of local politics, but I cannot help it, because it is unique.
I hope that the minister will at some point have time to visit it to get the right picture of what it is about. It is about a unique mire moor that has a cultural-historical value for Sweden and eastern Norrbotten that does not exist in other parts of the country.
Kajsa Fredholm (V)
Madam Speaker! In this final contribution, I would like to make a joint submission to the Minister regarding the continued work on this issue. I want to demonstrate what the effect will be in Dalarna of the government's significantly reduced state grants for protecting valuable nature.
The County Administrative Board in Dalarna now has 70 percent less money to manage the nature reserves we have in Dalarna. The County Administrative Board has also flagged that there is a risk that they will also be forced to say no to forest owners who want to protect land.
The savings conditions that one is now forced to make at the County Administrative Board and that the reduced appropriations entail will make it difficult to follow decided environmental goals. The tourism industry in Dalarna, especially in the mountain world, is concerned with good and safe access to nature. This means that Dalarna's nature reserves must be managed with continuity. This is now being jeopardized as a result of receiving less money from the state. Now one is forced to save on the management of the reserves, which is now happening due to the reduced appropriations, and it will cause significant problems.
It means that one must pick the low-hanging fruit, they say at the County Administrative Board. This could mean that parking spaces are removed in the nature reserves or that one is forced to close different types of service facilities, such as outhouses, which visitors will notice immediately. It means a reduced quality, a reduced service, and a reduced accessibility. This is my contribution to the Minister in the upcoming work.
Statsrådet Romina Pourmokhtari (L)
Madam Speaker! I thank both Birger Lahti and Kajsa Fredholm for their commitment to this important issue.
I truly understand the commitment specifically for Vasikkavuoma. There are surely many mire-lakes that the local populations consider to be completely unique and particularly important. I will simply have to make sure to visit Vasikkavuoma at some point so that I can see the unique site that this mire-lake constitutes.
In order not to further prolong the debate, I thought I would mention that we have tasked the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency with establishing a national compensation system. That assignment includes submitting proposals for compensation for the mowing of certain tradition-dependent mire lands. We look forward to that assignment being reported. A partial report has been received, and we are currently processing it in the Government Offices. We will simply get back to this when we have further information to provide regarding how these compensations shall be paid out in order to best protect our nature.
Birger Lahti (V)
Madam Speaker! Thank you once again to the Minister for the answer and the debate!
I look forward to the assignment that the government has given, and I hope that it truly yields results. Certainly, there may be other ants' nests around in our county and in the rest of northern Sweden that the local population considers important. But I still want to assert that the ants' nest that I have highlighted is unique in many respects. It is not to be seen anywhere else.
But I will give a good tip to the minister, which I am convinced you will not forget. When you have your birthday, I have it on the same day as well. Remember this debate and Vasikkavuoma every time you have a birthday, and you will fight for the money! It is a tip that I believe you will not forget.
Statsrådet Romina Pourmokhtari (L)
Madam Speaker! Thank you, Birger Lahti, for a well-posed question and an interesting interpellation. I will not forget to think of the specific mire-lark in Vasikkavuoma on my birthday, which I share with you!
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.