Orsa Besparingsskog
The income from Orsa besparingsskog built the modern Orsa.
Lumberjacks at an logging at Dovänget, north-west of Untorp in the beginning of the 20th century.
Few areas were so fragmented as the forests in Orsa. The forest had been divided by inheritance for ages and the forest properties shrank each time.
In Orsa, a landreform (The big shift) was made in the years 1859 to 1884. In connection with this, Orsa Besparingsskog was formed with 53,000 hectares, where the Orsa farmers agreed to set aside a third of all forest for joint use. Every landowner who had set aside a part of his forest for the common forest received shares in it in the form of a land number. The return would go back to the landowners in the form of grants for forestry and purposes that benefited the development of the area.
After the big shift, they began to cut down the jointly owned forest and Orsa became a wealthy municipality. The total income from the logging was about SEK 150 million and between 1886 and 1933 the people of Orsa paid no municipal tax thanks to Orsa Besparingsskog.
When work with forestry was at it's greatest, 6,000 people and 3,000 horses worked to fell and extract the timber from the forest. Orsa Besparingsskog became a strong and influential organization that in the late 1800s and until the mid-1950s built schools, courthouses, industries and old people's homes.