In Sweden there are 354 000 private individuals owning forest. Of these forest owners there are at least two thirds that are self-employed, which means that about 215 000 forest owners conduct some kind of work in their own forest. Those numbers do not refer to firewood production, but every year 7.3 million piled cubic meters of firewood are used for heating Swedish households. This implies that many households are also producing firewood. The objective of this study was to assess and analyse the small-scale firewood production in the Umeå-region in terms of persons engaged in the work, equipment used, produced volumes and share of forest-owning households involved in these activities. According to results from a questionnaire, the average firewood producing person is a man between 40-60 years old.

The study has been done on behalf of and in cooperation with LRF Konsult. The purpose of the study was to try to find out how forest estate buyers valuated different parts of the estate at the time of the purchase and to see if it was possible to identify different trends between different kinds of purchasers. The study is delimited to Västerbotten County and all the purchases were made thru LRF Konsult. The background of the study is that the forest estate purchasers are paying more and more for the forest estates. The prices are often much higher than the net present value which means that they are paying for something more than just the timber value. The study is made with a questionnaire mailed to one hundred forest estate purchasers. Answers got returned from 48 of them.

In this master thesis we suggest a recreational directed forest management plan for the Skedalaskogen. The forest is situated 10 kilometres east of the city of Halmstad and is owned by the municipality. We have in literature and in research investigated what people like and want in the forest, how to manage the forest for recreation according to for example tree species, mixtures and density. We tried to adapt the forestry methods more to recreational thinking. We have also looked at issues like what is rare and not rare in this part of the country according to nature and forest, where people live and which connection they have to the Skedalaskogen. The Skedalaskogen is a quite big area, totally 830 hectares. The area have about 100 000 visitors a year.

After the last is age there was a long period when there was no shortage of forest for peoples needs. People living in Sweden could use the forest resources at their will. Around 4000 years BC the inhabitants of southern Sweden started to use the agricultural system and people become more stationary. The farms were located together in groups and together they formed a social association, the village. Successively the population grew and in some areas the forest started to become a finite resource.

The fragmentation and reduction of deciduous forests in Sweden is threatening many species. Particularity worrying is the loss of broad-leaf trees, since a diversity of species is often associated to them. Today many deciduous trees are situated along the border between forested and open areas, and these small fragments can be important for biodiversity.The aim of this study is to analyze if wildlife management can affect the variation of deciduous trees and bushes in the landscape. In brochures and literature Svenska Jägareförbundet (the Swedish Association for Hunting and Wildlife Management) recommend hunters and landowners to promote deciduous trees ? often broad-leaf trees ? as wildlife management measures, while the Swedish forestry laws can be sensed as unclear regarding the treatment of these trees.Five properties in Södermanland, Sweden, were chosen as study areas and inventoried in respect of trees and bushes in September 2013.

In this thesis an explorative study was undertaken with the aim to study how a number of private care providers, as well as politicians and officials from councils in and around the Stockholm and Uppsala counties, think about the future of the Swedish elderly care from a property perspective, i.e. homes for the elderly. The analysis shows that there is a demand for capacity in 6 out of 16 municipalities, and that the property is an important part of this capacity, and the fulfillment of it. This was mainly due to the cost of capital, but also because of several other factors such as lack of land, a wish to guide the design, ideology, and in many cases a wish to use the property as an instrument of domination to control private health care providers.Also, the property was show to be connected to economic competition, to freedom of choice, and to quality. The problems related to the property in the market for elderly care still remains to be solved.

Forest as an investment alternative has become more and more popular over the last few years. Between the years 2004 and 2007 increased the price level on forest land with 70 percent in Jämtland. In this thesis a comparison has been conducted between forest in Jämtland and an investment in the stock market. The risk in the two investment alternatives has been included in the comparison. The thesis includes two different studies between the two alternatives.

The private forest owners play a key role in the supply of round wood to the Swedish forest industry. Today it is a keen competition between forest companies about the wood from private forest owners. In order to get access to the wood from the private forestry you need to be an attractive collaboration partner, who can offer long-term collaboration, service at top-level, and acting for good prices to the forest owners. This work aims at analysing the situation on the market today. It gives Sveaskog purchase department a good view of the forest owners? opinion in general about the existing purchase activities. Forestry service level and timber prices are determining factors for a successful relationship between forest company and forest owner.

To have a forest area close to the city is of great importance for the city population?s well being. Children develop their motor skills, concentration and imagina-tion and the adults have a place to shake of the stress from work. Forest areas are used to exercise at, play in and to find a moment of peace and silence. The urban forest and the old farming pastures at Markussonvallen and Per-Isakssonvallen already has natural assets worth to preserve and a great potential to create more. The goal is to develop a forest with a variation of tree species and ground vegetation that will appeal to the human senses and different animal species such as birds, insects etc.

The meaning of the covert co-ownership is that the parties must have intended that the property should be their common. A party must, to be able to claim ownership, have con-tributed to the acquisition financing through the financial contribution. Further shall the fact that the property should be their common be agreed or have been assumed by the par-ties. There are the circumstances for the purchase that should be considered in determining if covert co-ownership is presumed. Covert co-ownership has been established although one party only contributed a small part to the acquisition.

On commission of the County administrative board in Värmland County a method was developed for analysis of the occurrence of artificial land use at lakes and watercourses. With artificial land use is meant land significantly affected by man. Two bases have been used to carry out the analysis. In one of the analysis the vegetation database and in the other GSD¹-Marktäckedata (land cover data) was used (this method has been used by County administrative board in Jönköping County).The analysis comprises all watercourses within Alsterälven river basin. The digital water bodies are created by the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute on the basis of GSD-Översiktskartan (general map).

Due to the forest industry downsizing, many communities in rural forest regions in Canada and Sweden are facing problems to survive. In order to create community sustainability, resilience and well-being in remote forest regions, the view on the forest resources has shifted towards multiple use, through the concept of sustainable forest management (SFM). Beside the economic and ecological elements of sustainability, the social forest values are needed, contributing to the human well-being, local participation, stakeholder collaboration, human rights and cultural connection. In this thesis the embodiment of the social component of SFM within Prince Albert Model Forest (Canada), and Vilhelmina Model Forest (Sweden) will be examined. Being partners and facing similar challenges as rural boreal forest regions, the two model forests are compared through analysis of projects and activities, conducted interviews and organization documents. Looking at projects mentioned as successful by the interviewees, they all have elements from the social values of SFM. The direction can be explained by the introduction of the Forest Communities Program in Canada, demanding the Model Forests to work towards community stability and resilience, the Model Forest organization concept itself and the way global focus are increasing around social forest values. In the future, it may be important that the role of the MFs enable some kind of political authorization and legitimacy in order to improve conflict solving and indigenous rights equality.

This work broadly illuminates the conditions for increasing the commissions of forestry services within the whole, or parts of, the western regions of Stora Enso?s operating area. Through a questionnaire, a survey was made examining whether the owners of the forests themselves do the forestry on their woodlands. This foremost concerns the pre-commercial thinning, but also planting and soil scarification. The survey also shows who are buying the most part of their forestry services and who are carrying it out themselves.

Areal is one of the major players in the Swedish market for real estate brokerage of agricultural properties and related additional services. The purpose of this report is to give a better picture of the needs for additional services of property purchasers of Areal. Add-on services are the type of counseling you may need to achieve good economy on an agricultural property. Through a survey of property buyers of Areal information has been collected and compiled. A very good response rate was obtained and the material seemed reliable as it reflected the population in general.

Sweden?s forestry legislation was updated in 2010 and a new definition of forest land was introduced. This definition was adapted to the one used by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) for international statistics on the state of the world's forests. It is in short based on the lands ability to grow forest that reaches 5 meters, 10 % canopy closure and has a continuous distribution, according to FAO at least 0.5 hectares. A country-wide laser scanning is now carried out for the production of a new national elevation model; the laser data also provides information on forest height and density.