SCA is the largest private owned forest owner in Sweden, with an ownership of 2 million hectares of productive forestland. To manage the planning of such large areas and to fit the traditional organization structure of a Swedish forest company, the planning approach is subdivided into three stages; strategic, tactical and operational. The strategic part, based on a statistic sample of stands, returns a harvest level estimate which should then be implemented at actual sites in the tactical part. This procedure can lead to incompatible solutions as the strategic solution is not necessarily possible to translate into actual sites in the tactical plan. The geographic aspect is important in tactical planning due to the large costs for moving equipment and maintenance of a large number of forest roads.

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%.

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.

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..

In the forest sector, non-industrial private forest (NIPF) owners commonly interact with numerous stakeholders (e.g. forest managers, timber buyers, harvesting contractors and advisors) for counseling, planning, selling and hiring. Forest management is therefore built and influenced by the relationships between NIPF owners and other stakeholders. In the local context of a Southern Sweden, the Swedish Forest Agency (SFA) and the Southern Forest Owners Association (SÖDRA) are very influential stakeholders in small-scale forest management. Based on qualitative interviews and by means of grounded theory, an analysis of the relationships between NIPF owners and the mentioned organizations was carried out in order to understand the social context at the genesis of forest management decisions.

The purpose of this report is to find out what different preferences forest owners have in the region where Norrskog have their operation area, what they prefer and think about Norrskog. The purpose is also to compare some of the questions to a similar study that was made in 2008. The study is made in cooperation with Norrskog which is a forest owner cooperative. Norrskog has about 13 000 members which is about half of all forest owners in the region. To get the answers from the forest owners, questionnaires were sent out by mail. 371 were sent out and 102 came back. There were more members of Norrskog that responded than it was nonmembers. The results indicate that the forest owners have long term perspectives, their priorities are to nurse the forest so they can get the profit later on.

The Department of Forest Products and Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences has received means from Vinnova for a preliminary study of the organisation of logging work of today and how a better logging organisation should be brought about. This thesis reports results from qualitative interviews with nine forest machine contractors regarding the situation of their companies. The interviews have been analysed with respect to the genesis of the companies, which tasks they perform or that they could consider perform-ing, business relationships of the companies, relationships between the different partners of the companies, and the state of competition experienced by the contractors. The companies have developed either from the contractor previously being machine operator employee or from that the contractor in making has owned a machine and needed work. Their primary business is mechanised logging.

This study has been performed with the help of forest machine operators in order to improve the forestry planning at Holmen Skog Örnsköldsvik-region. For Holmen Skog forestry planning is basic for a successful forestry. In a survey I have investigated what can be improved in some areas that are planned for harvesting. The result of the investigation will be used to support the machine operators as much as possible. The study has generated 49.5 % of responses and because of this low response rate, no clear conclusions to anyone else except the responding machine operators can be drawn. It has been proved that there are some details in the forestry planning system that are inadequate, such as marked routs for trails, tractor paths and buffer zones against streams. The quality of forestry planning varies greatly between different locations, as much as 50 % of the responding machine operators thought so. Over 40 % of the responding machine operators claim that the information from Holmen is insufficient. One thing that would improve the forestry planning within Holmen would be to educate all forestry planners and then do continuous follow-ups..

The aim of the "Green forest management plans" is to help forest owners to reach the environmental goal of the forestry act. But are they able to do that? Is it possible to plan preservation of species on single estates? How do single-estate-plans differ from a landscape analysis and how can the landscape approach be used in operative planning? This work was initiated to give an answer to these questions. This study was made in a landscape of 4200 ha in Östergötland county, south-eastern Sweden. A lanscape analysis was made and then compared to the Green forest management plans in the same area. The nature conservation areas (areas that were set aside to be managed with environmenatl goals) differed quite a lot between the two alternatives.

?Are the headwaters streams at the right position in the map? is a study that has been performed on behalf of Holmen Forest, region Örnsköldsvik. This study will be the basis for deciding if the Hydrology Layer Property map or Holmen Forest map will be used for planning nitrogen fertilization in forestry. The background to this study is that nitrogen fertilization near water will increase the risk of nitrogen leaching out into the water systems, which has a negative impact on the environment. The headstreams positions have been recorded in the field with a GPS and the data analyzed in the geographic information system ArcMap.

This rapport is based on a survey that was sent to 196 randomly selected forest owners, who during 2013 ordered a forest management plan from Norra Skogsägarna. The purpose was to examine how forest owners experienced advice given by an inspector based on their forest management plan..

According to a press release from the Swedish forest agency in May 2014, western Värmland has the worst regenerations of forest result in the whole of Sweden. The scarification frequency is low in the area. AB Hilmer Andersson want´s to know if the private forest owners want to scarify more than is done today. Good regeneration is important for private forest owners so they can have a long term forest management and economics of their forests. This academic study is done as an opinion poll. The purpose of the study is to see how big the interest of scarification among the private forest owner is.

On behalf has a questionnaire been conducted with the aim to find out the members opinion regarding the management of the association. The survey showed that association has a strong position locally and that the forest owners generally are satisfied with the management and the competence among the forest super visors. The main opinion is that the association can improve the communication with the forest owners before as well as after the sale of forest products..

Due to soft grounds in combination with seasonal variation in soil humidity, there is a lack of stands that are possible to cut during spring and autumn in some geographical regions. For Holmen Skog this sometimes means that a large proportion of the contracted private forest is cut during the winter when the ground is frozen. One consequence of this is that the proportion of winter stands in the stand bank of own forest increases while spring and autumn stands becomes a scarcity. This in combination with milder winters, especially when there is a long period of reduced bearing capacity in spring or autumn, means that the situation rapidly can become critical. The overall goal with this study was to generate basic data for decision support in the work to achieve a sustainable distribution between own forest and contracted private forest in the stand bank. The study took place at Holmen Skog, district of Umeå, during autumn 2007 and was based on interviews and an analysis of harvest planning and delivery data. The study showed that there is a problem with how the cutting is distributed between own and contracted private forest during the year and that it foremost is the proportion of winter thinning of own forest that has increased in the stand bank.

This degree projects made on behalf of AB Karl Hedin to find out what private forest estate owners would like to have on a forestry-related website. The reason for finding out what estate owners think of the forest websites is to meet needs of the forest owners who are customers of AB Karl Hedin. Marketing and use of the Internet for information search for products and services are two key concepts in this study. To be able to perform the study, a telephone survey was made to find out what estate owners want and what they are missing on a forest site. The survey can be summarized at following conclusion: The marketing of AB Karl Hedin website must be stronger The forest owners want more information on forest business, prices and forestry services.