Healthy, natural pastures is very valuable for biodiversity in the form of both plants and animals. An efficient use of pastures helps to preserve biodiversity, but grazing animals needs to be de-wormed to keep them healthy and to prevent harmful parasites spread on the pasture. The awareness about the environmental impact of the frequent use of deworming agents is low among the public. Some people are unaware that the absorption in horses of anthelmintics is incomplete, which make the circumstances about enviromental effect important to investigate further. The scientific evidence in this area is limited and more studies and trials are needed to deepen the knowledge about the effects of anthelmintics in the environment.

In 1994 a new Forestry Act was accepted in Sweden. One of the aims of the law is to raise consideration forpreservation of biodiversity. Since the new law got accepted and some time has passed, there now lie someinterest in examining whether the law has been effective towards its purpose. Methods suitable for analysishave been examined during this study. The content of this pilot study is based around five parameters whichcan be used to validate the effects of the new law.

Objekt för undersökningen är en nyplantering av bok på en mindreskogsfastighet i sydöstra Blekinge. Bok och ek, som är de viktigaste ädlalövträden för den biologiska mångfalden, intog i dessa trakter en stor andel avskogsbeståndet fram till 1960-70-talet, men har sedan minskat i takt med attde ersatts av planterad gran. Det finns idag, bland annat i Skogsstyrelsensriktlinjer, en uttalad strävan mot en högre andel ädellövskog på debreddgrader som ingår i dessa trädslags naturliga utbredningsområden. På såsätt kan det projekt, som studien beskriver, anses ligga rätt i tiden.Inledningsvis ger rapporten en översikt över skog och skogsbruk somkunskapsområde och bakgrunden till att vi nu ser tendenser till att detraditionella formerna av skogsbruk, där ekonomi är den dominerandestyrfaktorn, börjar ge vika för skogsbruksmetoder som gynnar ävennaturvårds- och sociala värden. Detta är en tendens som nu börjar fågenomslag såväl i myndigheters styrdokument som i forskning ochkunskapsutveckling.I rapporten beskrivs utvecklingen av en tio-årig plantering av bok, delsresultatet av den första fasen, etableringsfasen, och dels en bedömning av hurden framtida planeringen kan göras utifrån de uppställda målen med fokus påde skötselformer som kan betecknas som ?hyggesfria? eller ?naturnära?metoder.I analysen av studiens resultat görs jämförelser dels med liknande studier ochdels med schabloniserade tillväxtprognoser för bok.

The aim with this study was to investigate mortality in older respectively younger beech stands (Fagus sylvatica), the different types of dead wood in the forest and the availability of coarse woody debris (CWD). The research was carried out in previously managed and seminatural stands in Biskopstorp and Frodeparken, located north of Halinstad in Halland,Sweden. Data were collected from 22 stands with at least 50 % beech and with a minimum age of 5 1 years, ranging in size from 0,67 to 19,9 ha. A transect was placed in each stand, in which the diaineter on both dead and living trees with a minimum diameter of 50 mm was recorded. On seven to 13 dead trees, depending on the size of each stand, decomposition stage, primary and secondary cause of death, amount of fungi and the type of the dead wood was noted.

Uppsats för avläggande av filosofie kandidatexamen iKulturvård, Landskapsvårdens hantverk, 15 hp, 2012.

Uppsats för avläggande av filosofie kandidatexamen iKulturvård, Landskapsvårdens hantverk, 15 hp, 2012.

In 1994 a new Forestry Act was accepted in Sweden. One of the aims of the law is to raise consideration forpreservation of biodiversity. Since the new law got accepted and some time has passed, there now lie someinterest in examining whether the law has been effective towards its purpose. Methods suitable for analysishave been examined during this study. The content of this pilot study is based around five parameters whichcan be used to validate the effects of the new law.

As the past century?s technological development has progressed the Swedish boreal forests have transformed into dense, highly productive, homogenous and coniferous forests. The area around Saxdalen in Ludvika municipality has long been dominated forests which have been heavily worked since the 18th century. There are in Ludvika 119 000 hectares of productive forest land. Around 70 percent are owned by forest companies and 20 by private forest owners.

The fragmentation and reduction of deciduous forests in Sweden is threatening many species. Particularity worrying is the loss of broad-leaf trees, since a diversity of species is often associated to them. Today many deciduous trees are situated along the border between forested and open areas, and these small fragments can be important for biodiversity.The aim of this study is to analyze if wildlife management can affect the variation of deciduous trees and bushes in the landscape. In brochures and literature Svenska Jägareförbundet (the Swedish Association for Hunting and Wildlife Management) recommend hunters and landowners to promote deciduous trees ? often broad-leaf trees ? as wildlife management measures, while the Swedish forestry laws can be sensed as unclear regarding the treatment of these trees.Five properties in Södermanland, Sweden, were chosen as study areas and inventoried in respect of trees and bushes in September 2013.

Organic agriculture is financially promoted in Sweden by special environmental support and as consumers we are all encouraged to buy organic food. At the same time scholars at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences claim that organic farming does not provide any environmental benefits. The main criticism is that organic farming has lower yields than conventional, which means that more land is needed to produce the same amount of food as in conventional farming, leading to deforestation and loss of biodiversity. As for climate change, the critics claim that the significantly higher productivity in conventional crop production compared to organic, releases surplus land, which could be used for bio-fuel production and thereby replace the fossil fuels. The critics also claim that organic farming causes higher nutrient leaching than conventional.

Forestry in Sweden is currently conducted in a manner aiming at equating the production objectives and the biodiversity. To ensure that biodiversity is maintained, patches that are considered to be valuable now or in the future is saved in final fellings. How the tree retention areas will grow into the future forest stands is yet unknown.The purpose of this study was to visualize how different scenarios of natural consideration taken at final felling will evolve in a long term perspective, for two rotation periods. Projections of the forest conditions were executed with the decision support system Heureka and its applications PlanStart and PlanWise. The information about the projected forests was then used for the visualizations which were created in the software Visual Nature Studio.

95% of the productive forest land in Sweden are now being exploited for forestry. The new Forestry Act of 1993 equate the goal of production and the environmental goal which means that the objective for forestry is a sustainable yield, while the biological diversity must be preserved. Recent years results from the inventories of the Board of Forestry show declining trends in how nature conservation aspects taken into consideration at the felling sites.The aim of this study is to investigate what happends with the nature consideration taken at felling sites in the long run. 20 final fellings in the county of Östergötland were re-inventoried 7-9 years after final felling. These felling sites had previously been inventoried before final felling (P0) and one year after final felling (P1) in the inventory Polytax by the Board of Forestry.

Piles of deadwood are often retained in forests after management to support the biodiversity ofsaproxylic organisms which depend on deadwood to survive. Any knowledge about the crucial role ofpiles as suitable habitat of saproxylic organisms compared to single distributed deadwood objects thatare around the piles would help conservation actors to motivate more forest owners to supportsaproxylic organisms during their management. Therefore to give facts to this the saproxylic fauna ofdifferent pile positions (up and low) was studied and compared to distributed deadwood samplesaround each pile. Our study was focused on saproxylic beetles. Some other parameters such asdiameter, deadwood volume, pile volume and decay stage were assessed to define any effect.

Biodiversity is essential for human well-being and it is defined as the genetic variation within species and the variety of species and ecosystems. Biodiversity provides several ecosystem services which are necessary for human beings but there are different threats towards the biodiversity. The biodiversity linked to the forest in Sweden are threatened, about 50 % of the red-listed species in Sweden are associated with forests. This is linked to the commercial exploitation of the boreal forest in Sweden which started 200 years ago. The forestry the last 50 years, with clear-cuts, have contributed to a fragmented forest landscape.

Through millennia, humans have shaped the European landscapes. Agriculture, hunting andforestry have influenced virtually every ecosystem on the continent and formed what we todaythink of as the cultural landscape; a mosaic pattern of cropland, fields, pasture and forests. Thepast two centuries, globalization, industrialization and urbanization have come to pose a threatto the existence of these landscapes. European farmlands are now being abandoned at analarming rate, and the associated loss of landscape preservation, biodiversity and ecosystemservices is a concern to the scientific community and public alike.This thesis studies if the implementation of the relatively new conservation strategy rewilding(recreating self-sustaining ecosystems and reintroducing keystone species) can be a part of thesolution to preserve cultural landscapes and biodiversity in Sweden. Through interviewssupplemented with studies of published works, expertise from different fields has beencompiled to provide an overall picture of the capacity of rewildings as conservation method.