When I began my studies at Gammelkroppa forest school I started to think about an appropriate thesis. There was much discussion about the wild grazing damage during that period. I was at that time a part of Boo property and helped at their great hunts. They had the dual uses of wildlife and forest. I decided that I want to study how big the wild grazing damages are and if we can reduce them.

Livestock animals affect their environment in a number of different ways, mostly through grazing and trampling. This study focused on the effects of Gotland pony grazing on forest structure and diversity, and the impact on ground cover. To compare the fenced and grazed area with a reference area outside the enclosure a number of transects were used. The study showed that there was no significant difference in height structure and diversity between the compared sites; however, there were a significantly higher proportion of damaged trees inside the enclosure. The ground cover variables showed a higher amount of bare soil, plant litter and wood-rush (Luzula sp.) inside the enclosure whilst grass was more frequent in the reference area.

The purpose of this study was to show how the Hybrid Larch (Larix eurolepis x) are used by large herbivores in terms of grazing and fraying. More specifically I studied how impact on the seedlings was affected by forest stand area, tree height and stem density (stems/ha).The survey was done in Jönköpings county in southern Sweden. About 50 % of all stems that are measured are damaged by grazing and 5,8 % was damaged from fraying. The conclusion of the study is that the biggest influencing factor is the height of the seedlings. The size of the stands and number off seedlings per hectare have almost no impact on the injuries on the seedlings. Fraying are common on trees smaller than 3 meters, and doesn?t occur on trees above that height.

During thousands of years, reindeer have adapted to living under harsh conditions with large seasonal variations in climate and forage availability. This adaptation implies that body functions and nourishment needs are strongly bound to the season. In the summer the reindeer has to maximize food intake to build up fat and protein reserves for the winter. More than 200 different plant species are included in the reindeer diet, but since reindeer have an unique ability to use the nourishment in lichen, different lichen species make up a large portion of their winter diet in many areas. Fundamental for reindeer husbandry is access to natural grazing during most of the year.

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.

Pollen analysis of a peat core was used to reconstruct the last 2500 years of vegetation history, with focus on the impact of anthropogenic disturbance, in Hamra National Park, central Sweden. In addition, analysis of pollen in soil samples was performed in an attempt to locate ancient cultivation plots in the National Park. The analysis of the peat core shows a development of the vegetation that can be divided into four stages of different degrees of human impact: A - virgin forest (c. 500 B.C.-A.D. 1300), B - grazed forest (c. A.D.

In the 1980?s the moose population in Sweden grew explosively due to big changes in the silviculture with clear cuttings instead of single-tree selection. Clear cuttings brought big areas of young forest and therefore a lot of fodder in one place. Since this change, the discussion about how to manage the moose population has grown into a very big problem. Forest owners think that the population needs to be strongly reduced because of all the damage that is done to the young forest when the moose seeks its food, and the economic losses because of that.

Information regarding cows grazing behaviour and time spent grazing can be of great interest to dairy farmers, since this information can indicate how well suited the pasture is to the cows. Feed intake at pasture is however challenging to measure. Automated systems for monitoring the behaviour of cows within dairy production have become increasingly important and relatively common. The aim of this study was to validate an activity measuring device (HOBO® G Logger Pendant Data Logger, USA), a triaxial accelerometer that registers the cow?s head positions during grazing, in order to see if cows? grazing behaviour on pasture could be distinguished from their non grazing behaviour.

This Master thesis is made at the request of the local municipality of Uppsala in Sweden. The purpose of this work is to create a guiding management plan. Recreation, conservation of the cultivated landscape and the historical environment, conservation biology and the aim of the landowners are all considerd. The area is almost 34 hectares and located north of the centre of Uppsala. Landowners are the National Heritage Board, the diocese of Uppsala, the university of Uppsala, the local municipality of Uppsala and one private landowner.

The report is a comparative study between spruce plantations where 4 plants are treated with deer repellents and 4 plantations are untreated. The study aims to provide a base for the Forest Society's future decisions regarding the use of wildlife-repellents.  The report indicates that wildlife-repellents work reasonably well for its purpose, the treated stocks were virtually untouched during the planting year and next year while the untreated stocks have been heavily grazed during these years.  Growth difference between grazed plants and ungrazed plants found to be virtually non-existent (0, 01 m) of the treated stocks and 0, 07 m in the untreated plants. Because of the growth differences are so small between grazed and no grazed plants, it seems like the treatment of deer-repellent are unnecessary. Unless you know in particularly that the area has a specific problem whit severe deer-grazing..

To better understand how various factors affect the establishment of forest and trees around the tree line-ecotone, this study was conducted in Troms County, Norway. The altitude of different forest and tree limits together with the surrounding vegetation type were collected during August 2011. Comparisons of the collected data were made with previously collected data from the same sites conducted 1914 and 1915. On average the forest limit has expanded with 26 meters in altitude, however, an expansion is not statistically significant for the whole area. The tree limit has significantly expanded in altitude.

The aim of the study was to investigate if the Grazemore Decision Support System (DSS) is able to provide a grazing management strategy that gives a high utilisation of grazed grass in milk production in the north of Scandinavia. To do this, a grazing experiment was planed and performed during the summer 2005. Simulations in the DSS were run to get a suggestion of how the cows should graze, grazing calendar 1. Deviations and updates during the season resulted in the simulated grazing calendar 2. During the experiment, the actual milk yield was recorded twice weekly. The difference between actual and predicted milk yield by Grazemore DSS was analysed statistically with regression analysis and the mean square prediction error (MSPE) was estimated.

This report is a joint venture with SCA Forest, Ångermanlands forest man-agement area. The purpose of the study is that SCA Forest wants to know what the landowners in Ångermanlands forest management area think about SCA Forest and who they deliver their timber to. SCA Forest is the largest private landowner in Europe, with an area of about 2.6 million hectares. Today, SCA offers lumber, wood products, tis-sue and packaging and has factories all over the world. SCA Forest has five forest management areas in the north of Sweden, with the headquarters in Sundsvall. A questionnaire was sent to 265 landowners, where they had to answer 15 questions with possibilities to give comments. The survey was sent out on 21 of February with a response requested by 3 of March 125 landowners responded to the survey, giving a response rate of 47%.

This rapport is about how often private forest owners follow the measures proposed in their forest management plan. The survey is made in cooperation with the forest-owners association Norrskog. The private forest owners are relatively satisfied with the forest management plans and with the measures proposed. There are some differences between those who live on or near their property and those who live many miles away. The forest owners who live on their property are those who follow the proposed measure of precommercial thinning to the largest extent. That group also values precommercially thinned stands higher than thinned stands. The complete opposite is the case for the group that lives far away from their property. Almost all of the respondents thought that the forest management plan would be or had been a good help in the decision making about the forest..

By using pollen analysis, 14C-dating and historical sources, I studied the history of vegetation and land use at an abandoned forest settlement near the Lade summer farms in the parish of Mora, Dalama. The aim of this paper is to investigate the agricultural establishment and development, the effects of this on forest vegetation, and the origin and development of summer farming. The analysis of pollen in a peat core revealed that a settlement was established at Lade around 1000 AD. Cereal cultivation, hay-making on the mire and extensive Forest grazing were intro-duced as a complete agricultural system. Pollen analysis and the presence of ancient fields suggests that cultivation took place on permanent fields. Barley was the main crop, but rye and hops/hemp were also grown at the settlement.