The purpose of this essay was to find and analyse Finnskogen’s actors and their opinions about the place’s cultural and natural heritage values. Also, the process so far to become a World Heritage Site. The methods used in the essay were hermeneutic and argumentation analyses; the first was used in the process of finding the sources, the second, to analyse them. The results show that the actors have different arguments to why they want to make the place a World Heritage Site and also that collaborations they have with other projects and people that are involved are important. The results also show that they also follow UNESCO’s conventions about world heritage and cultural heritage, even if they have not said it officially. The conclusion of the essay is also that the actors sometimes have conflicting arguments  to why Finnskogen should become a World Heritage Site and how to proceed with the application process in the future.

The World Heritage Project ”Finnskogen – vägen till världsarv” was initiated in 2018 with the aim of inscribing the Forest Finnish heritage in northern Värmland on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. This essay examines how the cultural values of Finnskogen are portrayed and communicated by the project owners through visual semiotic analysis. The material consists of the film ‘Finnskogen – vägen till världsarv” and the project’s website finnskogen.se, with communication being related to, among others, the governing documents of the World Heritage Committee. The theoretical approach of the essay is based on Laurajane Smith’s Authorized Heritage Discourse (AHD) and Iain Robertson’s Heritage from Below (HFB). Through these two approaches, we explore how cultural heritage is produced from above, as well as a genuine way of living and transmitting lived cultural heritage. The study’s findings reveal that Finnskogen’s universal, unique, living, and antiquarian aspects are presented as positive values, aligning with several of the UN’s normative sustainability goals in Agenda 2030. Another conclusion from the study is that Finnskogen is portrayed as HFB, but ultimately subordinated to AHD.