Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

Development of forestry management plans has been a concern during the last couple of years. In 2006 Skogforsk did a study that showed that the forestry management plan needed to be further developed. During 2017 a degree project was conducted on forest owners that owned forests in other communities than where they lived. These forest owners make up for a big part of the clientele for today’s forest federations. The study done was based upon what services they appreciated. The result was that management plans were valued low but at the same time they were demanded as an overview of the forest and for the forest plan. This was the reason why this study was conducted, to further assess how modern forest owners wish to have their management plan presented.

The aim with this study was to investigate how Norrskog were to supply the wishes of the modern forest owner to the present management plan. Forest owners who were younger than 50 years, own more than 50 hectare of productive forest land and who had a forest management plan at Norrskog were included in the study. A survey was sent to 279 forest owners and the response rate was 39%. The survey was mainly a multiple choice questionnaire but on 9 questions the participants had the opportunity to write free text answers, but only 17% used it. The survey was sent out through the survey program Netigate.

The results showed that 9 out of 10 valued that the economy of the forest should be presented in the management plan on a scale 8 out of 11. The answers showed that the interest was directly proportional to the owner’s size of property. 59% thought to have more knowledge than average on forestry. The study also showed that 59% could interpret the abbreviations used in the management plan. The presentation of environmental and climate aspects was not highly valued amongst the forest owners.

Most of the forest owners agreed that they wanted to see improvements in Norrskogs forest owner application. Some requests were made on the map options and the availability to connect the property to the Swedish forest agency’s website in order to see present data and harvesting notifications. Today the management plan is presented in a binder which is appreciated by the forest owners. However they also wish to have a summary available in the App.

In this study the forest owners had the opportunity to choose the maintenance strategy, however the majority chose the present economic strategy with the wish for some personal moderations on some sections.