Swedish soldiers are to be taught how to shimmy up trees in the proper fashion in case they need to salvage unmanned drones caught in canopies. Read the full story

Tree-folk in Iceland are racing against time, and each other, to get Christmas trees chopped down and into the shops. Read the full story

Danish health officials have said that allergy suffers in Copenhagen are worse off than those in other parts of the country. Read the full story

Norway is urging rich nations to provide deforestation aid money to poorer countries, despite the risk of corruption. Read the full story

Icelanders buy ISK 300 million (EUR 1.8 million) worth of real Christmas trees each year and only a third of them are from Iceland. Read the full story

Interest in forests and the growing of trees in Iceland has increased since the economic crisis hit, according to the head of the Icelandic Forestry Association. There is now forest growing on over 20,000 hectares all over Iceland. The organisation celebrated its 80th birthday at Thingvellir yesterday. Read the full story

Finland’s forests are absorbing double the amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than they were 20 years ago. Wooded areas in the country can now take up 42 million tonnes of the greenhouse gas annually, over half of the 70 million tonnes emitted by Finland in 2008. Read the full story

The Christmas Tree Growers Association of Denmark, Europe’s leading exporter of Christmas trees, is being prosecuted for allegedly fixing the price of trees.

The Danish competition authority gave the association an initial warning in 2001 and a second in 2005. After a year of investigation, the charges were made this week.

According to the association, the increase in the price of Christmas trees by around 20% this year is due to a lack of trees, rather than price rigging. The popular Nordmann soft fir has risen 25% in price.

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