A staggering 160,000 Norwegian farms have been abandoned since 1960 in a nation of 5.5 million. A Norwegian researcher is calling for urgent measures to prevent the Scandinavian country from becoming overgrown.
Urbanization and depopulation of rural areas may have dramatic consequences for Norway's economy, Oskar Puschmann, landscape geographer at the Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy, has argued, calling for drastic measures to stop the country from becoming a thick forest, national broadcaster NRK reported.
Over the past 25 years, Puschmann has documented vast areas of Norway becoming overgrown. Since the millennium alone, 25,000 farms have been closed down in the Scandinavian country, bringing the total number since 1960 to a whopping 160,000.
"All we see is green," Puschmann said, claiming the reforestation process to be accelerating.
Puschmann identified the coastal areas of the northernmost provinces of Troms and Finnmark, the Trøndelag coast, as well as the outer fjords and woodlands of southern Norway as "particularly vulnerable."
According to Puschmann, when a farm is abandoned today, only the closest and easiest-to-cultivate parts of the plot are being re-used in a process resembling "cherry-picking." Puschmann compared Norway's agriculture to an egg, where only the yolks, that is profitable and intensely cultivated lands are maintained, whereas the white has gradually disappeared since the 1960s.
More at: https://sputniknews.com/environment/...ontent=2247492
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