I norra delen av Sverige levde allmogen på jakt, fiske, boskapsskötsel och byteshandel innan storskiftet på 1800-talet. I Älvdalen levde man på detta sätt fram till ungefär 1870-talet. Åkerjorden var en bristvara och man vistades på fäbodar under sommarhalvåret, där kreaturen gick fritt och betade. Mjölkprodukterna togs tillvara genom tillverkning av ost, mese och smör på plats. För att få gott bete till djuren brände man eller taxade träden (dödade dem genom ringbarkning).

In order to understand the human impact on today?s remaining ?virgin? forest and to develop sensible management strategies for future reserves, it is necessary to know how these forests have developed. This knowledge can be gained by using forest history analysis. here are large areas of forests still untouched by modern forestry in the mountainous region in the county of Norrbotten. These forests are highly interesting study objects from an ecological and historical point of view.

People have utilised and influenced the boreal forest for many centuries. Prior to the industrial revolution during the 19th century, however, human use primarily only had a low impact on the forest. When the timberfrontier swept over the country, the Swedish forests came to change for ever. The study site for this thesis is situated in the northern part of the county of Västerbotten, Sweden, and has previously been a National forest. Today the area is an ecopark and the land is owned by the forest company Sveaskog.

The forest in the northern part of Sweden has changed dramatically during the last centuries. The forest has gone through a large-scale transformation, from it being only used locally for domestic purposes to becoming very important raw material for Sweden in the industrial age. The strategy by foresters during the second half of the 20th century has been to create pure production forests for commercial forestry. This has mainly succeeded and we have today homogenous production forests that give a high profit to the owners. The aim of the study is to compare the state of the forest in the former state forest Hällforsmarken in the years 1925 and 2000 and to interpret the changes which has taken place.

Aspen (Populus tremula L.) and goat willow (Salix caprea L.) are two important tree species in the aspect of nature conservation. Due to the elimination of forest fires, a former negative attitude towards deciduous trees in forestry and a strong herbivore pressure, these tree species have been negatively affected during the last fifty years. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the occurrence of aspen and goat willow could be related to either human impact or to site properties, such as ground moisture and vegetation type. A side study included an inventory of a number of cyanobacterial tree lichens on aspen and goat willow in order to try to relate the occurrence of these lichens species to stand history and stand properties. The study was performed in Hamra State Forest in northern Dalarna. Nature reserves were compared with stands in managed areas.

Arboretet i Skäftekärr ligger i Böda socken på norra Öland. Trädsamlingen ligger intill en jägmästarbostad som var bebodd från mitten av 1800-talet och ända fram till ungefär 1980. Då var Domänverket ägare av arboretet och ytterligare cirka 5000 hektar barrskog som täcker nästan hela norra delen av Öland. Området blev en Kronopark under 1800-talet och idag är det en del av den nya ägaren, Sveaskogs, Ekopark Böda. Arboretet påbörjades under andra halvan av 1800-talet av dåvarande jägmästare J E Boman som var mycket intresserad av främmande växtmaterial.

Vid 1800-talets slut var stora delar av skogarna i Norrland starkt påverkade av dimensionshuggning (Kempe 1909; Tirén 1937). Det var i samband med den industriella revolutionen och en ökad efterfrågan på virke från de industriellt utvecklade länderna i Europa som exploateringen av Sveriges skogar tog fart på allvar (Björklund 1984; Kardell 1991). Dimensionshuggning och olika former av blädning fortsatte att vara de dominerande avverkningsformerna fram till mitten av 1900-talet då kalhyggesbruket fick sitt genomslag (Esseen m.fl. 1997; Ericsson m.fl. 2005; Enander 2007).