It is with sadness in our hearts that we announce that the State Governor in Trøndelag has confirmed Lierne municipality's decision not to grant a license for Naturarvet to acquire Ågården Vestre. Thus, we lose the opportunity to secure this carbon-storing and species-rich forest. With an owner who intends to use the forest, the world misses a potential annual storage of 1700 tons of CO2.
We have done everything in our power to acquire "Elveskogen", a unique property bordering the entire stretch of a river in Lierne municipality, Norway. Unfortunately, Naturarvet is not granted a license, which is a prerequisite for carrying out the acquisition. Naturarvet has thus reached the end of the road in this project. If we are to take anything away from this failure, it is that the winning bid by Naturarvets at least put a stop to the second highest bidder's plans for the forest, which would have been to feed the trees to Norway's largest self-propelled woodchip.
We turn our attention to our other focus areas and feel grateful for the gifts that have flowed in during the first half of the year and enabled the acquisition of two areas on Gräsö, Östhammar municipality, Uppsala county and a mountainous forest at Stora Blåsjön in Strömsund municipality, Jämtland county.
We will provide more information on the ongoing acquisitions shortly.