According to the Dictionary of the Swedish Academy, the word förvalta, manage in English, means to be responsible for something valuable. The meaning is found in the Swedish name of the Royal Djurgården administration – Kungliga Djurgårdens förvaltning (KDF) but is also central to our task to manage the King’s individual right of disposition to Djurgården. Our mission is to safeguard the historic cultural landscape, nurture the existing nature and adapt the area to people’s desire for a stimulating leisure and recreational environment, as well as to look to future needs.
With these introductory words, I thought I would highlight one of the projects that shows how we work in practice to best manage Djurgården both at the present and for the future.
Bioinnovation – a transition to a bio-based economy
In 2020, KDF joined a research project linked to a strategic innovation program called Bioinnovation as a project member. The program is funded by Vinnova, the Swedish Energy Agency and Formas as well as the participating stakeholders, where KDF is one of the funders. The vision and common goal for all research projects linked to Bioinnovation is a bio-based economy where Sweden must have completed the transition to a bio-based economy by the year 2050.
The goal of the research project is to find an environmentally friendly alternative to today’s pressure-impregnated wood where toxic copper salts are used to prevent rot fungi from breaking down the wood fibres in humid environments. An environmentally friendly alternative can be to impregnate wood with a bio-based oil such as linseed oil.
The origin of the project came about a few years ago when the city of Stockholm ordered cultivation boxes from Linjonwood. The requirement was that the boxes should be impregnated to resist rot but at the same time non-toxic in order to be able to grow edible crops in an urban environment. When researching the market the most suitable alternative turned out to be the use of linseed oil as an impregnating agent. Over the years, hundreds of samples have been made and tested for mold growth, strength, water uptake etc before the idea was raised to evaluate the solution within this research project.
Project participants are the Djurgården based carpentry Linjonwood together with the Research Institute of Sweden (RISE), the Swedish Environmental Research Institute (IVL), the City of Stockholm and KDF. Our role in the project is to use the linseed oil impregnated wood in various outdoor constructions where it replaces conventional pressure impregnated wood. Among other things the rot resistance will be evaluated by RISE’s researchers according to scientific practice and IVL will also produce a life cycle analysis (LCA).
We look forward to offering our visitors at Royal Djurgården a non-toxic outdoor environment both now and in the future and through a local collaboration nonetheless!
Helena Bladh
Park and street engineer at the Royal Djurgården administration / Kungliga Djurgårdens Förvaltning
