The car skims along the gravel road that winds between hills and trees. Above the village of Ytterkonäs in Åre municipality towers the horn-shaped mountain Suljätten. Kurt Hyttsten raises his hand and points forward towards a row of firs that are lower than the surroundings.
- We felled there when we had bought the land, now it is on its way up again, he says.
They left the rest of the forest in the area. 26 years later, Kurt Hyttsten calls it "a real blunder."
Kurt Hyttsten and his wife Haldis Westholm bought the forest because it would provide capital and an extra leg for the dairy farm to stand on. They knew the sellers and had to buy the forest so that it would not go to a "forest cutter".
- It was big in the 90s that someone from outside bought forest and then cleared everything, says Kurt Hyttsten.
Now the state has decided that the forest must not be felled.
Something that has placed the Hyttsten family at the center of the conflict between species protection and forestry.
The ban does not come with any right to compensation, which hits hard at the dairy farm which is in the middle of a generational change. The forest was a crucial capital for agriculture.
- The bank guarantees have been put out of action to a large extent. The forest was a significant part and I think that is the hardest part of this. That an authority can go in and take away the bank collateral you have, says Kurt Hyttsten.
The car stops and we jump out. A stream rushes through the forest valley. The trees stand tall around the road. Lichen hangs from the branches. Stumps overgrown with moss testify to previous felling.
The Hyttsten family applied to be allowed to do two fellings on their land in 2023. It ended up with the Norwegian Forestry Agency banning felling completely in one area and largely in the other.
There were reports of three-toed woodpecker tracks. A red-listed and protected species in Sweden. After the report, people from the organization Birdlife inventoried the area and made more finds. The Norwegian Forestry Agency then made a field visit. Something they almost never do. They found more endangered species.
Species protection was activated. Felling was prohibited.
A success for biodiversity. But a disaster for the Hyttsten family.
Both Kurt and Haldis are of retirement age and the plan was for daughter Kristin Hyttsten to take over. Therefore, they have started to modernize the farm. First up was a new barn in 2019.
The forestry plan, i.e. the plan for how the forest is to be managed and felled and thus the forest's capital value, was decisive for the loan for the barn to be approved.
- But today it is something completely different. The values in the forestry plan are 70 percent gone. They no longer exist, says Kurt Hyttsten.
They still have the debts on the loan. The investments on the farm are not finished.
Now it is unclear whether they will be able to carry out the generational change.
Kristin Hyttsten sits with the youngest in her lap, three generations in the kitchen.
- What I think is boring and troublesome is that you don't place a higher value on a smaller farm out in the sparsely populated countryside. Sweden needs both large and small farms for preparedness, she says.
At the end of June, the verdict came from the Land and Environment Court of Appeal after the family's appeal against the Forestry Agency's ban.
They follow the authority's line completely.
The state considers the forest to be an overly important plateau between the three-toed woodpecker's habitats.
- The woodpecker, of course he must be allowed to live. There is no question about it and we have never said no to taking environmental considerations into account. But you have to look at the consequences of this, our business must also have value, says Kurt Hyttsten.
Around 60,000 logging notifications are made per year. Most are not handled manually, but roll through the system and felling is automatically approved after six weeks. So-called zero decisions.
More and more decisions are appealed, often by environmental organizations, and this has made the land and environmental courts an increasingly common arena for the issue of species protection and forestry.
Critics of forestry believe that fellings that do not comply with Swedish legislation are carried out. Dagens Nyheter has written about it several times.
In 2021, 89 notifications were appealed. In 2025, it had increased to 964 according to a survey from the industry magazine ATL. The processes often end with the cases being sent back to the Norwegian Forestry Agency for renewed processing, sometimes with direct criticism of the authority.
The Hyttsten case shows how hard a ban can hit individuals.
At the same time, change is on the way. On January 1, a new forest policy comes into force. In addition, a reform would be introduced that gives forest owners the right to compensation from the state if felling is prohibited due to species protection.
It is currently with the EU Commission, which will decide whether the reform is in line with the rules for state aid. Something referral bodies warned about during the investigation. Little is known about its future.
- A state aid review is underway. The climate minister has no further comments to give beyond what was previously said, says Romina Pourmokhtari's (L) press secretary Agnes Eriksson in a text message.
But when or if the reform is introduced, the Hyttsten family will once again have to go to court if they want to apply for compensation.
This is what Helena Eriksson, district manager of the inspection in northern Jämtland at the Forestry Agency, tells us. She is also the one who made the decision in the family's case.
- At present, we do not know whether the compensation applies to older cases or from 1 October. So we say that people who are banned from logging because of species protection need to sue the state. Actually, they need to do all the steps. First apply for a dispensation, then it must be tried in court and then they can sue the state for the possibility of compensation, says Helena Eriksson.
Is it a problem that people lose large capital values?
- It becomes a problem because you think you have this capital and then this happens. But we are an authority and carry out the legislation decided by the elected representatives. Regardless of what we think or want, we must follow the law, otherwise we do not have a democratic society.
The family has not given up. Together with LRF and Norra Skog, they will try to find alternative ways forward.
Remaining with Kurt Hyttsten is a feeling that you are not equal before the law. Some distance away from the family's forest, two clearings have been made by forestry companies.
- There is hardly a bush left. It's carved against streams and rivers and everything. But apparently they had to do that because they saved forest elsewhere.
He is pissed off. That there is talk of the countryside, self-sufficiency and preparedness being so important, but the state has other plans for the family's land.
- It's a hell of a rambler. How much forest should the state put under control? Isn't there enough money to take care of the one you already have? And if there is now closure, then it is society that has closed the farm.
