Oct 27, 2008. /Lesprom.com/. The Norwegian Government's budget proposal for 2009 proposes to increase allowances for forest protection, Nordic Forest Owners Association reported. A total of 107 million NOK ($15 million ) can be spent for the purpose next year. The budget proposal stipulates that in 2009 the protection will concern to a great extent state-owned forests. Mr Gudbrand Kvaal, Managing Director of the Norwegian Forest Owners' Federation, believes that the allowances are adequate for taking measures in areas where voluntary protection is planned for 2009. However, in case the allowances are not sufficient for all, he demands that private forests should be given priority before state-owned forests. Voluntary protection has been applied in Norway for five years. So far private forest owners have offered 44 land lots of a total area on 11 thousand hectares for protection. At the moment work is in progress on 120 new land lots - area of 50 thousand hectares - that will be voluntarily offered for protection purposes. The budget also proposes allowances of 50 million NOK ($7 million) for value-adding measures in forestry and 30 million NOK ($4 million) for bioenergy research. It also contains much bigger allowances for measures to combat climate change. As much as 1.5 billion NOK ($ 214 million) have been reserved for preventing deforestation in developing countries.