Modern forestry requires a high degree of machine traffic for clear felling and scarification operations. The machines most frequently used are big and the traffic often results in tracks on the forest ground. There are many small streams running through a forest, in connection to logging operations, machines might cross these frequently. These crossings could result in the erosion of fine particulate inorganic matter, which ends up in the stream. The aim of this thesis was to give a general description of small forest streams of order-one in the county of Värmland and to determine the frequency of machine tracks in small streams.

Many wood living insects are considered threatened by modern forestry due to the reduction in amount of dead wood. During the last decade various methods have been used to enhance the quantity of dead wood in managed forests. However little is known how and if these methods are aiding saproxylic insects. The threatened tenebrionid beetle, Upis ceramboides, is already extinct in southern Sweden. It develops in white rotted dead birch (Betula spp) and requires sun-exposed sites.

In this work I have tried to reconstruct the forest history within Särna-Idre forest common in northern Dalarna from the 19th century until present time. The Särna-Idre region has been an extensively used landscape for a long time. Pollen which indicates grazing has been found in samples orginating from the 10th century. Early travellers from the 18th and 19th centuries seem to have been passing trough a "used" landscape. Burned forests on naked ground are described as common. Also large areas are mentioned as undisturbed with lots of large trees, snags and dead wood.

Stronger demand has been put on forestry to show environmental considerations during harvesting. This is especially for crossings of brooks with sensitive elements and great care should be observed when they are to be crossed during harvesting by logging machines. For that reason Hultdins has constructed a portable bridge that can be used for those occasions. The bridge has been developed in accordance with wishes from SCA forest, since they have a great deal of brooks in their forests and in private forests from where they buy part of their wood supply. The aim for this report is to investigate if this portable bridge can be of interest for the forestry market. The research has been made at SCA skog in Medelpad and Norrskog in Medelpad.

Skogsägarföreningen Norrskog är ansluten till PEFC och drygt 15% av dess medlemmar är också anslutna. Enligt beslut i Norrskogs styrelse utförs all avverkning på objektsnivå i enlighet med PEFC:s normer oberoende av om skogsägaren i fråga är certifieradeller ej. Studiens syfte har varit att se om Norrskogs medarbetares kunskaper i natur-, kultur-och miljövård har tillämpats i praktiken vid avverkning på medlemmamas marker. För att svara på den frågan har två slutavverkningar per skogsbruksområde, d v s 48 slutavverkningar totalt, inventerats. Slutavverkningama i fråga har utförts mellan 200 l och 2003 och de har varit mellan 2 och 5 hektar stora.

A large part of the interactions between horse and rider during horseback riding takes place through the reins and the bit and devices for measuring the tension on the reins, rein tension meters, has fairly recently been developed. To safeguard the welfare of the ridden horse riders need to be aware of the rein tension they apply and actively work to decrease it. Furthermore, there is a need to develop the study of rein tension through new techniques and refined analysis procedures. A good-quality rein tension meter should be small in size, sensitive, durable and as accurate for light rein tension as for strong forces. Rein tension meters used in research on horse and rider interaction commonly depend on strain gauge technique for generating rein tension data.

The biodiversity of the Swedish forest has degenerated since the beginning of the 19th century when fire suppression and large scale logging first occurred. Together with a changed land use, these actions today have had a negative influence on many forest dwelling species, due to gradual reduction of natural processes, successions and different structures from the forest ecosystem. The Swedish Forest Act, together with different environment certifications, have today encouraged private persons and forest companies, among them Holmen Skog, to work actively to improve nature conservation. The aim of this study was to, by field inventories of already existing nature values, literature studies, recommendations from scientific reports and ecological gap analysis as a basis, make a management plan, for a non-production area, to conserve or improve the prerequisites for biodiversity. ?Storskogsberget? is located in the coastal area of Västerbotten County, 35 km from the city of Umeå.

Skogen är en förnyelsebar energikälla som möjliggör för ett minskat beroende av fossila bränslen. Ur ett politiskt perspektiv minskar såväl klimatpåverkan som beroendet av importerad energi från oroliga delar av världen genom att ta tillvara skogsbränsle lokalt. I Sverige är sågverkens biprodukter fullt utnyttjade och därför har skogsbränsle i from av grot (GRenar Och Toppar) en av de största potentialerna till ökat uttag.Barrträdens barr är en omstridd fråga i samband med tillvaratagandet av grot. Barren står för en liten del av biomassan, men för en stor del av näringen i ett bestånd. Därför är det önskvärt att så mycket som möjligt av barren lämnas på föryngringsytan.

Running water-pathways have played an important roll in Sweden and frequently been manipulated. One profound change was made during the period of logging when streams were cleared from obstacles as big boulders, sharp bends and side-streams. Dams and different constructions gave control of the stream water and the streams became channel-like with a homogen structure. This interference gave problems for many fish populations and resulted in a shortage of feeding habitat, over-wintering habitat, spawning habitat, unnatural flow regimes, sedimentation, unnatural temperature fluctuations. Many of these historical changes of the watersheds are now subjects for restoration, ie., bring back the streams to what we believed it was before the change. However, what once existed in terms of complexity is now gone and difficult toreplace.

Tropical rain forests only cover around six percent of the world?s land area and contain around 70 % of the world´s animals and plants. Tropical rainforests have been, and still are, negatively affected by human activities. These activities lead to forest degradation which has negative impacts on production and biodiversity. Between 1970-1980 forests in Borneo, Sabah, Malaysia, was subjected to intense logging.

The forest and mire landscape surrounding the north Swedish villages have been of fundamental importance through time for the farmers. In the Scandinavian summer farm system the forest and mire pasture was used to its full potential. The system consisted of smaller summer farms some kilometres from the main farm in the village, and were the livestock grazed in the forest around the summer farm. The livestock affect their environment, and grazed forests generally contain a higher biodiversity than an ungrazed forest. The overall aim of this thesis is to understand the impact of livestock grazing on a northern forest ecosystem over a long time period.

Since 1993 the Swedish Forestry Administration conducts a nation-wide inventory of wood-land key habitats covering all forest land in Sweden. The inventory aims at mapping and describing habitats where redlisted species occur or can be expected to occur. According to the inventory stand history is crucial to the presence of red-listed species. However, the current knowledge of stand history in woodland key habitats is very limited. The purpose of this work is to describe stand history in woodland key habitats, i.e. fire history, human activities - mainly cuttings - and structural changes.

This thesis reports on a case study of two different organisational forms in the Swedish forest industry; the geographic and the functional organisation. The work in the geographic organisation is carried out within districts under the supervision of an overall responible district manager, where as in the functional organisation the work has been divided into functions headed by function managers. Forest magement, logging and wood purchases are examples of such functions. The general idea of the functional organisation is having the functions working over a larger geographic unit, without subdividing district boundaries of the region. Also a third organisational form of current interest for the forest industry; the process orientated organisation, is analyzed in the case study. Here, a company outside the forest industry has been analyzed, since no forest company was considered to have made as much progress of changing organisation to process orientation. In the report I present the results from qualitative interviews, where I give the reader a picture of the motives behind each organisational form, what the form implies for some of the company?s interested parties and the organisations? views on future organisational development.

The following thesis is a study of the forest history on the island of Ängsön-Marskär concentrating on the last three hundred years. The island is located in the administrative province of Stockholm, the local community of Haninge and it is situated approximately seven kilometres east of the island Ornö in the south of the Stockholm archipelago. The questions this thesis attempts to answer are: How where the natural resources on Ängsön-Marskär used through the centuries? How has the state of the forests developed since the 16th century? How will the nature develop onwards? The thesis is based on archival sources for Ängsön-Marskär and the surrounding areas. A field study was conducted where the entire island was investigated using an objective forest inventory method. The first map material existing over Ängsön-Marskär is from the year 1711.

The use of renewable resources is rapidly increasing in Sweden, especially the use of fuel pellets. Through pelletizing the energy content per volume unit is greatly increased and the pellets are more homogeneous with regard to moisture content, particle size and density compared to unrefined fuels like forest residues and chips. For further development of the Swedish pellet industry, the use of different assortments from lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta Dougl. var. latifolia) is of particular interest, mainly because of its high volume production.