Today, a large proportion of wood supplied for the Swedish forest industry is bought from private forest owners while forest companies at the same time provide the forest owners with services such as logging services and transportation. Today, forest companies work extensively with keeping the time used for transport and logging short. But what does the private forest owners think about the time required for the timber deal, also called lead time, and the different parts of the timber deal. In this thesis, the forest owners? perception of the different lead times in their contracts with Stora Enso and their communication with the purchasers is examined.

Data retrieved from airborne laser scanning represents a new source of forest data. Today, the technology has matured so that it can function in an operational environment. The aim of this study was to compile areas of application of laserdata in forestry. Moreover to analyze costs and accessibility of laserdata. The goal was to provide private forest owners information to support assessments of possible benefits of laserdata.

Södra is a co-operative of private forest owner organisation which is owned by 35 000 private forest owers in southern Sweden. Forest owners in Sweden can choose to certify their Forestry. Södra uses PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification Schemes) as their certification scheme for their members. Those who choose to certify their forest are obligated to follow the demands for forestry which PEFC requires. A ?Green? forestry plan is another important tool in the ambition to reach a sustainable forestry.

This report has been done in collaboration with SCA Skog, Norrbottens Forest Management Area. The purpose of the survey is to try to find out what the forest owners who either live in Norrbottens Forest Management area or outside but has their forest holdings in the administrative area has the vision of SCA Forest and their forest services offered by the administration. But also to find out the presences of other timber buying players who procures timber in the administrative area. This study seeks to determine if there are deficiencies that may need changes or improvements to the prevailing conditions in Norrbottens management area. The literature study is about how to design a questionnaire based on what you want to know and what to consider in order to eliminate the problem of constructing a questionnaire. A questionnaire was sent to 400 randomly selected forest owners who have their forest holdings within SCA Forest Norrbotten Management Area. And of the 400, it was 181 respondents with 39 women and 138 men.

It has been even more important in the forest sector in recent years to look at the whole chain from suppliers to end users, to improve operations and improve performance and the profits of the company. The research and development have been concentrated on the buyer?s market and product development, probably because this research has capability to give an increased cash flow. But to obtain stability and continuity in the production and selling units, the suppliers should also be investigated. The aim of this thesis is to study a one company's existing suppliers of roundwood and investigate the differences and attitudes they have about the company offerings.

This report is produced with Nätraälven forest owner association. This forest owner association has been going through some changes the last years and therefore wanted to investigate what the members thought about the development. The main purpose of the study was to gain knowledge about the attitude of the members. The study was made with a questionnaire that was purposed to investigate the member?s opinion on their own cultivation and the view on Nätraälven as an organization. The questionnaire was sent to 110 members.

The aim of this thesis is to study the private owner structure in the Swedish forestry. This will be done with both a investigation of forest owners in Småland the year 2000 and 2001 and also a statistic research for the private forest owners in Sweden right now and over the years. In Sweden more than half of the total forest area is owned by private forest owner, witch is approximately 22 600 000 ha. Private forestry includes the owner categories private person, ordinary partnership and the estate of deceased persons. The main part of the private forestry is to be found in Norrland but also in the rest of Sweden private forestry constitute a large part of the forestry area.

Silviculture in young stands in Sweden is below the mark concerning what has to be done in the forest, and it is time to solve the problem. The problem will not be solved only by the private forest owners, professional help is needed. Skogsägarna Mellanskog is one of four forest unions in Sweden who wants to play a role and take responsibility for forestry in the middle of Sweden. This academic essay is based on a market survey sent to 350 forest owners in the Örebro district. 186 of them answered the questions, giving a response frequence of 53 percentage. The purpose of the essay is to find the determining factors which will make a forest owner to find a collaborator when planning and carrying out the silviculture measures in young stands. The result of the survey shows that the forest owners are anxious about the price and the costs. The costs have a severe effect if the silviculture measures in young stands will be carried out or not.

Social capital is a relatively new concept that has received considerable attention in various community branches. The concept relates to people?s contact and relationship with each other, where their social network is seen as a resource. An extensive network of contacts and trust between people often go hand in hand. People with high social capital have high trust in their fellow human beings and vice versa.

Communication, information and marketing are three of the main prerequisites for companies that want to increase their turnover. The everyday work for a Forest Manager within the forest owners? association Mellanskog consists to a large part of interpersonal communication, either by close vicinity contact or by phone calls. Interpersonal communication is time consuming and resource intensive. If the flow of information, communication and marketing does not function well then there is a lack of a base for development.

The NIPF (Non Industrial Private Forest) owners in Sweden have very differentiated goals and needs with their forest. They have different backgrounds and some of them live at their forest estate while other live in an urban environment, and some are economically dependent on their forest estate while others are not. The heterogeneity among these forest owners creates problems for market actors that want to aim marketing messages to catch their interest. This is the problem background to the task that was provided to us as an investigative masters thesis for us. Their request was a plan for ensuring a successful marketing towards different segments of the NIPF owners. We commenced with a literature study based on market information and previously carried out similar investigations. We summarized the most important market information from the literature and created some hypotheses regarding goals and needs of the NIPF owners.

The driving forces from the forest owners point-of-view was studied on a market where several buyers attend to procure round-wood. It was concluded that forest owners prefer personal contacts to other means of communication, but that it is essential that the initial contact is a personal letter on paper. Furthermore, although price is always important, long standing relations is asked for. The buying companies need skillful experienced buyers that can provide more than just quick closures of deals..

The purpose of Älvdalens besparingsskog is to develop the district and most of all the forestry in Älvdalen. It's owned by about 2 300 private forest owners who's landed properties are located in Älvdalen. Every year the besparingsskogen gives out a lot of its profit in form different types of subsidies for agriculture and forestry. The owners can apply for subsidies for several of the costs that occur in forestry. During the period 2000-2003 the owners are offered forest management plans and pcSKOG-gård at no cost for their private forest properties. The purpose of this master's thesis was to find out if the activity in the forestry changed when the forest owners got new forest management plans and the computer program pcSKOG-gård.

Wind and wind damage has become a hot subject because of the storm ?Gudrun? in January 2005. The main purpose of this study was to establish how the land owners attitude toward preventive wind damage actions was changing immediately after they had been struck by a storm. The result of the study was built on interviews. In springtime 2005 a total number of 20 private land owners were interviewed. Ten of the landowners lived in the province of Småland and ten in the province of Värmland.

Modern forest owners are very familiar with forest management and forest economics. Therefore they have high demands for quality in forest operations. Guarantee of quality in the shape of self-checking activities is an important tool to guarantee a well managed forestry operation. To meet the forest owners? demands on guarantee of quality and the entrepreneurs wish of an easy method for self-checking, the forest owners association, Södra skogsägarna, has developed a new method for thinning inventory. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the method that is used for self-checking and to find ways to develop and improve of the method. The data has been collected by inventory in a number of stands with circle-area survey and with strip survey, which is method that is used for self-checking. The results show that the strip survey does not diverge more than ±10 % in measuring values of basal area, number of stems, roads share, thinning quotient, outtake of basal area and total volume compared to circle-area survey.