In the end of 1998 the company Holmen Skog AB was certified accordint to the FSC system
with an area of 1 036 000 hectare. After that Holmen Skog AB has been working actively
with the nature conservation in the forestry. In order to control the quality of the company’s
nature conservation in final fellings they started a yearly inventory which is called BAKRUS
(Judgement of ecological and culture care in relations to policies for a persevering
silviculture). After 1999 the control was expended to include all actions in the forest. The
collected data is the basis for the evaluation of how the regions and districts attain the
company’s strategic objective for nature conservations. The strategic objective is that at least
90 % of the final felled areas only haves one deviation per area. No deviation is tolerated
concerning watercourse, relic of antiquity, areas with high environmental value and obvious
green tree retention.
In relation to the goal of not having any deviation concerning obvious nature trees, Holmen
Skog AB wants in a more extensive way measure to what extend the nature trees are reserved
in final felling. The purpose of this study is to evaluate how many nature trees there are and
how many are reserved after final felling.
The study was concentrated to the regions Lycksele and Örnsköldsvik that have 4 respective 5
districts. Ten percent of the planned area for final felling 2001 was inventoried, total 815
hectares. One inventory was made before final felling to point out the nature tree with an x –
and y coordinate be means of the GPS system. A subjective classification of every tree was
made according to the categories thin, normal and large. Next inventory was after final
felling in order to check if the trees were preserved or cut down.
On the 815 hectare that was inventoried 1.48 nature trees per hectares were preserved after
final felling. In average there are 0.47 trees per hectare that are of the large category, 0.54
trees per hectare that are of the normal category and 0.47 of the small category. With A
comparison between the two regions of Ö-vik and Lycksele shows that Ö-vik had the highest
rate of remained trees per hectare, 1.61, compared to Lycksele that had 1.39. The tree species
that separated the two regions the most is sallow; Ö-vik had 1.32 sallowtrees/hectare and
Lycksele 1.39 sallowtrees/hectare. Except the 1205 remained trees 161 nature trees had been
cut down, i.e. 11.8 % of the 1366 nature trees that were originally there. Divided between the
two regions Ö-vik had cut down 11.2 % (64 trees) and Lycksele 12.3% (94 trees). The biggest
reason that a nature tree is not kept after final felling is that it is cut down. 79 % of all the not
spared nature trees have been cut down. Other reasons are that they have been knocked down
by the machine or by another tree or that they have been made into a high stump.
The objective that Holmen Skog AB has set is to have no deviation concerning the saving of
obvious nature trees on final felling. The result of my study illustrates that this objective has
not been achieved. There is a relatively large deviation concerning the saving of nature trees.
About 25 % of the nature trees that I have come upon during the inventory before final felling
and at least 11 % of all nature trees f...
