Anders Ragnarsson is a Swedish-born forester who won’t settle for second best. He spoke with editor Chris Cann following World Bioenergy 2012 about climbing giant trees in the snow, the problems with the green energy movement and riding his Harley Davidson through the Italian Alps.

International Forest Industries: How did you get start in the forestry sector?
Anders Ragnarsson: I would have to say I fell into it. I grew up on a farm in Sweden and in 1983 it was time for my sister and me to take over the business from our parents. She was more of a farmer than I’ll ever be so I packed up my gear and moved to the US. In Sweden, I used to climb trees – big trees. I’d climb trees in people’s backyards that no one else would touch and cut them down. Back in ’82 in Boston there was a hurricane – Hurricane Bob – that really made a mess out of parts of Massachusetts. The trees were all over the place so I thought ‘that place is going to need high-risk tree-felling’, so I  grabbed my climbing gear and my chain saw and I never went back home.

IFI: That first business venture must have been a success.
AR: It was. It was very successful, initially, but I knew sooner or later I was going to kill myself. If you climb up 100 feet into a tree hanging onto to frozen bark with your fingernails, sooner or later you’re going to slip and that will be the end of you – and I pushed it. I pushed is as hard and as far as I could have pushed – if there was anything I was ever good at, that was it.

IFI: So what changed?
AR: There was generally a whole bunch of wood waste that I had to