Earlier this year, the Ingka Group, which owns most of IKEA’s furniture stores, announced that they had bought 1 321 hectares of land destroyed by hurricanes and now plan to transform it into forests. This is part of a long-term commitment to responsible forest management.
“The new forests will support increased biodiversity, help ensure sustainable timber production from responsibly managed forests, and recover land damaged by Hurricane Michael in October 2018,” the group said to Reuters.
Around 250 000 hectares of land, including the one in Florida, is now owned by the Ingka Groupe, which already owns land in the United States, New Zealand and Europe with the same purpose.
“The afforestation business… is a long-term investment that consolidates our business while also positively impacting the climate through the absorption of CO2 during the forests’ growth,” says Krister Mattsson, head of Ingka Group’s investment arm Ingka Investments.
The new forests will be home to mostly longleaf pine seedlings as they are resilient to the effects of climate change. They also display resistance to forest fires and can provide habitat for endangered plants and animals like for example the gopher tortoises, dusky gopher frogs, pine snakes, and red-cockaded woodpeckers.
Kent Olofsson
