Transportation constitutes a large part of the forest industry's raw material costs. Transport also contributes a significant proportion of the carbon dioxide emissions. In order to reduce both the cost and environmental impact different types of decision support are required. These, in turn, require extensive information about the road network and correct information on road path selection and transport distances. In the development of national road data base for forestry (SNVDB) a road selection application has been included.

The forestry companies? operational planning process is these days dependent on reliable, efficient and user-friendly computer-based support systems. This study is an evaluation of Holmen Skog's current computer-based systems. The aim of this study is to: ? investigate the work pattern of the production managers when using the information system to plan the harvesting operation; ? investigate the efficiency and user friendliness of the information system with the different work patterns and to find the strengths, weaknesses and bottlenecks in the current system; ? find out if the type of object, the volume, the area of the harvesting object affects the time and work pattern; ? examine how this type of study is met by the employees and what factors that is critical to avoid feelings of intrusion. The conclusions of the study were: ? there is a large variation between the work patterns of the production managers and the time spend to perform the operational planning; ? the mainframe computer system used by Holmen Skog is clear, has short response times, is robust and conveys relevant information; ? the computer systems are however divided in many subsystems.

Quality assurance means to systematically work for better understanding of the customers needs, demands and expectations. The goal for this study was to investigate how quality can be assured in the job follow up that is made by forestry contractors after soil scarification and planting. The study consisted of a description over the current follow up process at SCA forest AB Jämtlands forest administration, analysis of current follow up situation and an investigation of follow up process made by contractors in other line of business. The first step was a statistical comparison where the own follow up made by contractors were compared with follow up made by SCA them selves over 100 stands. Two soil scarification contractors and two planting contractors carried out the silvicultural measures. The results showed that significant differences between a number of quality factors measured, for example number of approved plants or approved scarification points, average score on stand and number of totally planted plants.

The supply of raw materials has always been an important issue in the Swedish Forest industry. Buying timber from local suppliers is important. To ensure raw materials to their industries the forest company must offer good prices and good business deals to their suppliers. The aims with this work are to find out how the contact between private suppliers of raw materials and how the forest company can be developed. To be able to do a complete study of the problems connecting with this subject a quality interview study has been done.

When a decision is to be made on what long term strategic forest management plan to use, consideration must often be taken to multiple objectives. Such decisions are very complex and a promising approach to handle them is by Multiple Criteria Decision Analyses (MCDA). The study is based on the problem that the MCDA that have been implemented into forest management planning have only had capacity to compare and evaluate a limited number of management plans; which means that there is a risk the most suitable plan is missed. The aim with this study was to test the applicability of combining the MCDA tools: the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) for including consideration to multi-objectives into strategic forest management planning. The study was based on the process of creating and selecting a management plan, using Heureka PlanWise, suitable for all the major objectives found in the forest holdings of a municipality in northern Sweden.

Bark-stripping by red deer (Cervus elaphus) cause extensive damage to economically valuable spruce trees (Picea abies) in Swedish forests. The underlying causes for bark-stripping are not fully understood, and the frequency and severity of damage unpredictably differ between regions. In this study, I investigated if landscape structure (e.g. agricultural dominated landscape opposed to forest dominated landscape), forage availability, population density and disturbance (e.g. roads and settlements) affect bark-stripping frequency.

Forestry is increasing on an industrial scale where collection of logging residues takes a greater part. This has resulted in more machinery and heavy machinery driving in the clear felled area, this increases the risk of soil damage that will occur in the form of soil compacting and rutting in the clearings. This affecting on the nature in a negative way and especially in rivers and lakes that are affected by siltation and acidification leading to increased levels of heavy metals and methyl mercury. The purpose of this study was to investigate why there is damage to the ground when working with the slash in forest management from the forest officer point of view. A self-designed questionnaire was used and 45 questionnaires were sent out to various companies all over Sweden.

Restrictions in nature conservations are increasing the influence of forest management. Nobel broadleaved forests are more influenced than other forests, because they are considered to be more valuable than other forest types in Skåne. There has been a lack of knowledge about the amount that is set-aside for nature conservation and what types of forest that is concerned. These are the main questions to be answered in this thesis. Moreover has the timber quality been compared between set-aside and non-set-aside areas since it affect the financial conditions for the forestry in nobel broadleved forests. The last asked question deals with the financial consequences of set-aside.

This essay is about the hamlets´ older boundaries, i.e. boundary lines (?rågångar?) and boundary markers in the form of rocks, and an own survey of two hamlet boundaries in southeast Sweden. Many of the boundary rocks were subjected to unintentional damage or destruction that arose during forestry activities, the excavation of ditches, or road construction. Boundaries between hamlets sparsely populated areas were not clearly defined from the beginning, but were established initially in the form of boundary zones, that often consisted of wetlands, watercourses, or mountain heights.

Future climate changes may lead to an interest of alternative and foreign forest tree species in order to spread the risks in forestry. Douglas fir, Sitka spruce, Freemont cottonwood and hybrid aspen are examples of popular foreign tree species that along with western red cedar could have a future in the Swedish forests.Södra Skogsägarna and SLU have collaboration in establishment of foreign species in Swedish forests.The purpose of this study was to analyze and present the establishment of western red cedar, and to survey and illustrate injuries of freeze drying and other damages like deer browsing, vegetation and insect attacks. The study included four different provenances, and spruce as a reference, planted in two locations ? Asa and Släne.Western red cedar is despite its name a conifer of the cupressaceae family with defined secondary characteristic and gets along well with an overstory. Western red cedar grows often in mixed stands with similar conifers and its natural habitat is within and in the area near to British Columbia.The study included two series of field inventories, one made in the summer and one in the autumn 2013, three growing seasons after plantation.

Fortifikationsverket which is the landlord for the Swedish national defence has a great problem in their forestry due to the relatively large amount of metal objects in their timber. These metal objects cause different types of economical losses in the timber refinement chain. To enable out sorting of logs containing metal objects already in the harvesting phase, Fortifikationsverket is interested of the possibility to utilize some type of metal detector in a harvesting head for that purpose.The goal of this study was to, with help of a case study, enlighten the problem that metal objects in timber cause for Fortifikationsverket and their customers of timber and to investigate conditions of to mount and utilize some kind of metal detector in a harvesting head at present.The saw timber deliveries by Fortifikationsverket during the time period 2003-2005 was used as a reference volume for calculations of economical losses. In this case study was included two sawmills where timber from Fortifikationsverket were delivered to for further refinement. Factors investigated were the type of damage metal objects caused in these two sawmills and the economical signification of these damages.

Services, no matter if they are established on the market or not, are often problematic since they are difficult to define for the customer. An example of such services is an real estate agent offers his or her service when it comes to all types of real estate. The purpose of the intermediation is to sell a costumers real estate to a buyer and act arbitrator between the two parties, this means that good communication is very important. To pin down what the service is all about and to know how to communicate is essential. When it comes to land and forest holding a special need of knowledge and experience is needed to be able to act professionally.

This master thesis is made in co-operation with the Department of Forest Management and Products at the Swedish University of Agriculture in Uppsala and the Forestry Association in Stockholm. The purpose of the Master thesis was to describe how pre-schools in Sweden use forests and green areas, and to understand how different factors can affect the use of the nature. The purpose of the interviews was to create a picture of attitudes and routines of the pre-schools, in the matter of visiting the nature. The thesis is built on interviews where fifteen pre-schools in five large cities around Sweden participated. Among these pre-schools, five of them worked with special focus on nature, while the other ten did not have any particular focus connected to their activity.

In today´s forestry, assessments of needs for thinning are based on basal area measurements. This is an indirect measurement. The approach and the developed assessment tables are based on an assumed production forest, which implies that management proposals in stands that deviate from the basic model may be misleading. Since Walter Bitterlich in 1948 launched the idea of the relascope, several modifications have been developed for different purposes. In common is that all are based on a certain angle measurement principle.

This report is a B.Sc. Forestry thesis work at the school for Forest Management, SLU. The work was an assignment from the forest owners? association Mellanskog. The aim of the work where to investigate the economical result of removing undergrowth trees before first thinning, and a follow-up of the contractors and their compliance with Mellanskog standards. This thesis work was divided in three parts: The first was to find a relation between the net volume from the first thinning and the cost of cleaning undergrowth trees. Secondly there was a follow-up in the field, to investigate whether the contractors have done the undergrowth cleaning according to Mellanskog?s directives.