The main purpose of this study is to investigate how to reduce the high, and every decade raising, pre-clearance cost. The pre-clearance is today carried out with a brush saw and paid per labour hour. All small trees not suitable for pulpwood are removed to simplify the later work of the harvester. The study compares the economic results from thinning of four parcels each treated differently regarding harsh or light pre-clearance and extraction of only pulpwood, or both pulpwood and fuel wood. In this type of spruce stand the study indicates that a lighter pre-clearance, followed up with both pulpwood and a fuel wood extraction, has a much better economy than the traditional method of hard pre-clearance and only pulpwood extraction..

This final thesis is performed on commission of Torsby forestry administration, Stora Enso Skog. Stora Enso Skog is one of the major forestry companies of Sweden. The main business area is located in and around the region of Bergslagen. During the last decade the practice of forest management has rapidly changed due to a new forest legislation. The new law has resulted in that the production goal is equal to the environmental goal within forestry.

Sweden recently changed the national regulation of chimney sweeping. This study has two purposes. The first purpose is to evaluate the effect of this reform to see if the new regulation has led to an effect in terms of increased chimney fires in single-family houses and for the wood-burning and oil-burning stoves, respectively. The second purpose is an updating of a previous study (Mattsson 1994) of analysis of society´s benefits and costs of different alternative sweeping frequencies for wood-burning and oil-burning stoves. This study also has a secondary purpose to examine the extent to which the local sweeping rules vary with climate conditions.  Mattsson, based on his results, proposed that the sweeping requirements for oil-burning stoves should be reduced from twice a year to once every second year and for wood-burning stoves the sweeping should be reduced from four times to once each year.

In my thesis I have sand blasted different type of woods - ring-porous and diffuseporous deciduous tree species and conifers - to show different results depending on the species, the direction of the grain and the effects of surface treatment of a blasted surface.The results of my tests were sometimes unexpected, such as that the sand from blasting almost completely disappeared, that all wood surfaces after blasting exhibited a much lighter or paler surface than before and that the diffuse-porous tree species showed differences in hardness between the beginning and end of annual rings.By creating a library of different kinds of wood and sandblasted surface treatment, I have created a reference bank that I will be able to use me in the manufacturing of interiors, furniture and other objects..

Title: Kvarteret Tvättstugan, an apartment building with massive wood construction. A thesis about acoustic and fire requirements and a comparison of energy and moisture aspects. Earlier restrictions in the Swedish legislation have resulted that only a small percentage of the apartment buildings that have been built are designed with a massive wood construction. It has been allowed to build unrestricted with wood since 1994 as long as the function of requirements are fulfilled. This change in the rules together with the great environmental benefits of wood has led to that more companies choose to build apartment buildings with wood. One of these companies is Folkhem Production AB.

Dead wood is important for many species. The amount of coarse dead wood (diameter >10 cm) is much lower in managed forest than in unmanaged forests. Stumps constitute the largest proportion of the volume of coarse dead wood in managed forests. Since stump harvest for biofuel may increase, the amount of dead wood will decrease even more, which may threaten biodiversity. The first aim of this study was to compare the amounts of fine woody debris (FWD, .

The aim of this study was to quantify the productivity and the costs of different harvesting systems (teams), containing harvesters equipped with accumulating harvester heads and forwarders, in first commercial thinnings were an integrated harvest of pulpwood and energy wood were performed. In the beginning the plan was to study and measure 20 sites before and after harvest. Due to storms during the summer of 2010, complete data could only be obtained from 8 of these 20 sites. Seven of these sites were privately owned and one was owned by UPM, all of the sites had been pre-commercially thinned. The mean stem density before harvest was 2578 stems per ha and the mean stem volume was 0.074 m3solid over bark.On average 1518 stems/ha was harvested.

This study was made to see too what extent Swedes uses consumptive resources such as berries and mushrooms, game meat and meat from fish in their household on a yearly basis. I have also looked into the difference between rural and urban areas in Sweden. Further aim was to determine what factors that correlates with the participation in berry and mushroom picking and the use of game and fish meat within the household. The study was conducted in form of a mail survey that was sent to randomly chosen persons in every municipality in the six northern most counties in Sweden and in the county of Stockholm. In addition a sample was sent to randomly chosen persons on a national level.The results showed there is a difference in use between rural and urban areas in Sweden in all 4 investigated consumptive resources.

As demand for renewable energy is increasing rapidly, the market for biomass pellets is expected to continue to grow in the near future. Most of the new raw materials that are discussed for pellet production have one thing in common; the production costs will increase compared to using traditional raw materials such as sawdust and planer shavings. The aim of this thesis is to investigate to what degree increased use of new raw materials for pellet production will affect the general pellet prices in Sweden and to survey what plans Swedish pellet producers have concerning new raw materials. To investigate the raw material situation of the Swedish pellet producers an industry survey was performed. Literature studies were also made on previous research in the subject field. Calculations of the production costs for pellets were done for the raw materials sawdust, wet sawmill chips and energy wood respectively. New raw materials are already used by the large-scale pellet producers in Sweden.

The collection of hazardous waste from the household around Swedish municipalities varies. 1% of the households waste is hazardous waste. It has hazardous features that can give bad consequences for the nature and human health if we don?t collect it and treat it. Therefore the law controls it, the municipalities have responsibility for the household waste.

The proportion of women entrepreneurs in Sweden is, as in many countries, smaller than the proportion of men entrepreneurs. Sweden has therefore created political measures with the ambition to increase women entrepreneurship. However, knowledge about the determinants of women entrepreneurship is needed in order to enable the promotion of it and, at the same time one can question the treatment of women entrepreneurs as a homogenous group. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the determinants of women entrepreneurship and whether these determinants fluctuate regionally. If this proves to be the case, a more spatial/individual approach should be used, when creating measures to promote entrepreneurship.

The competition for Norway spruce pulp wood in Central Sweden increases, forcing the supply-structure of Holmen to face two important challenges. Firstly, it is of the outmost strategically importance to secure the long-term supply of Norway spruce pulp wood to the industries. Secondly, Holmen desires to increase the obtainable volume of Norway spruce pulp wood. This would enable the company to choose volumes in the lower price-segments and thereby decrease the dependency of costly marginal volumes. As this work shows, one part in managing these challenges could be to lower the quality standards concerning root rot (Heterobasidium annosum). Facts presented in the work shows that: 1. Technically, the TMP-industry of Braviken can handle a much more rotted pulp wood than that used today, although the cost of refinement increases.

I have done a follow up study of the restoration of two rivers, Röälven and Grundan, in order to evaluate the effects of the restoration on the endemic population of trout. Both rivers have been used for timber floating during many years throughout the 20th century, and because of this, had all obstacles such as rocks and wood parts removed. In 2004-2005 both rivers were restored, and rocks and wood were put back into the rivers. Spawning grounds were created and boulder dams were constructed to promote the streaming water. The result showed that the trout population of both rivers increased after the restoration, but also that the trout population of Röälven increased more than that of Grundan.

The Swedish forest have about 100 000 km of watercourses and it?s an important structure in Swedish landscapes and catchments. In some of the watercourses lives spieces like the freshwater pearl mussel (Margaritifera margaritifera) and brown trout (Salmo trutta) which both are sensitive for inteference from the forestry. The new EU water framework directive has a goal that all surface water will have high or good ecological- and good chemical status at latest by the 22nd December of 2015. The study has been made in the catchment of Håltjärnsbäcken and it is from a national perspective one of the most valuable streams in Sweden and which also have been included in a LIFE-project. The catchment is situated within the Eco-park of Malingsbo-Kloten and managed by Sveaskog AB.

The European Council agreed in 2008 on a climate and energy package to combat global warming. This package is valid for each EU member country and means that greenhouse gas emissions must fall by at least 20% and the EU's energy use to 20%, consisting of Renewable Energy in 2020. The Swedish Government has set stringent climate and energy with the intention to set an example for the rest of Europe. For example, renewable energy sources account for at least 50% of energy use and our climate emissions to fall by 40% by 2020. A combination of these goals and a steadily rising oil price has led to an increased demand for wood fuel in the form of such branches and tops.