Market analysis of harvesting services engaged by private forest owners in Sweden

The forest industry in several Nordic countries is heavily dependent on the timber supply of the non-industrial private forest owners. This study focused on the behaviour of forest owners on the timber market when they chose a timber procurement organization. The study was made with a survey among forest owners that during the year 2011 notified the Swedish Forest Agency that a final felling would be performed on their forest property by way of their timber procurer. The survey was answered by 418 forest owners (79% male and 21% female). It was found that there was no difference in age distribution between the forest owners in the sample compared to the total age distribution of forest owners in Sweden. Harvesting was more common on large properties. Half of the forest owners had made timber deals with other timber procurement organizations before. Earlier research suggested that forest owners do not analyse the market, but this study suggest that a change may have occurred. Although a majority of the timber deals were made on the initiative of the forest owner, 17.2% of the deals were based on a tender of the forest owner and this concerned mainly large timber deals. One in four of the forest owners experienced problems, mainly related to how the harvesting operation was performed. Female forest owners, absentee owners and share owners experienced significantly more problems. The results indicate that the forest industry may need to intensify their efforts to learn and understand forest owners better, especially with the new generation forest owners, to maintain their level of timber procurement from the private forest sector

Handling uncertainties in forest information: the hierarchical forest planning process and its use of information at large forest companies

This qualitative study aimed to map what information is used in the forest planning process at large forest-owning companies, how it is used, its level of uncertainty and currently employed strategies to handle forest information uncertainty. An additional aim was to assess the status of the paradigm of the forest planning hierarchy in forestry. We used data from semi-structured interviews with representatives of six large forest-owning companies in Sweden, representing 30 per cent of the productive forest land in the country. Our results show that the forest planning process is a hierarchical system of decisions where the information used in the different planning stages is of varying quality and that the traditional hierarchical planning paradigm still plays a vital role in forestry. The most central source of information in the whole forest-planning process is the forest stand database (forest inventory). This includes uncertain information from various sources, including subjective field measurements and aerial image interpretation. However, the use of remote sensing estimates to feed the databases is increasing, which will probably improve the overall quality. Another important finding is that forest companies tend not to use decision support systems or optimization models to solve planning problems outside the scope of strategic planning; thus, most planning is done manually, e.g. in a geographic information system (GIS) environment. Apart from the hierarchical division of the planning process itself, we identified six main strategies that the companies use to control information uncertainty, namely locking the future by making a decision, utilizing a surplus of available harvests, updating information before a decision is made, replanning when the plan is found to be infeasible, planning by looking back and ignoring the uncertainty, either intentionally or unintentionally. The results from this study increase our understanding of contemporary forest-planning practices and will be helpful in the development of decision support systems and methods for information collection

Heat stress in forestry work

An intrinsic characteristic of forestry work is that it is an outdoor activity, exposing its workers to the prevailing climate conditions. For a large majority of forest workers this implies being exposed to warm conditions while performing physically strenuous work. The overall aim of the thesis was to study effects of heat stress on the health and productivity of forest workers using manual working methods. Studies were made to evaluate the ISO heat stress measurement methods in forestry and the effects of dehydration on the health and productivity of forest workers in manual thinning. The studies were conducted in North East Zimbabwe in September-October 1996. Three metabolic rate assessment methods of ISO 8996 were compared. Large variations between the assessments were found depending on the method chosen. Differences between the ISO heat stress indices in heat stress risk assessment were found as well as unacceptable variations in the assessment of allowable exposure times with ISO 7933. It seems therefore questionable that today's standard methods are able to guide manager of forest operations in reliable heat stress risk management. The consumption of a fluid level assuring full hydration resulted in a significant lower percentage of heart rate reserve used, as well as a considerable reduction of time consumption when compared to consumption of a fluid level leading to mild dehydration. It was found that during harvesting, the responses of the forest workers on the fluid consumption levels were affected by their physical condition as well as their work manner and that changes in work manner had occurred between the fluid consumption levels for some workers. Moreover an accumulating effect of inadequate fluid consumption over days was found on the time consumption. As these results were obtained in mildly warm climate conditions, it is recommended to extend ILO's recommendation to drink at least 5 litres of water per work day during heavy forestry work also to temperate climate conditio

Heat stress in forestry work

An intrinsic characteristic of forestry work is that it is an outdoor activity, exposing its workers to the prevailing climate conditions. For a large majority of forest workers this implies being exposed to warm conditions while performing physically strenuous work. The overall aim of the thesis was to study effects of heat stress on the health and productivity of forest workers using manual working methods. Studies were made to evaluate the ISO heat stress measurement methods in forestry and the effects of dehydration on the health and productivity of forest workers in manual thinning. The studies were conducted in North East Zimbabwe in September-October 1996. Three metabolic rate assessment methods of ISO 8996 were compared. Large variations between the assessments were found depending on the method chosen. Differences between the ISO heat stress indices in heat stress risk assessment were found as well as unacceptable variations in the assessment of allowable exposure times with ISO 7933. It seems therefore questionable that today's standard methods are able to guide manager of forest operations in reliable heat stress risk management. The consumption of a fluid level assuring full hydration resulted in a significant lower percentage of heart rate reserve used, as well as a considerable reduction of time consumption when compared to consumption of a fluid level leading to mild dehydration. It was found that during harvesting, the responses of the forest workers on the fluid consumption levels were affected by their physical condition as well as their work manner and that changes in work manner had occurred between the fluid consumption levels for some workers. Moreover an accumulating effect of inadequate fluid consumption over days was found on the time consumption. As these results were obtained in mildly warm climate conditions, it is recommended to extend ILO's recommendation to drink at least 5 litres of water per work day during heavy forestry work also to temperate climate conditions

The effect of fluid consumption on the forest workers' performance strategy

The heart rate development and time consumption of four Zimbabwean forest workers engaged in manual harvesting were studied to assess their performance strategy and whether this strategy was affected by differences in fluid consumption. Each worker was studied during eight consecutive working days and produced 2.4 m3 pulpwood/day. They consumed either 0.17 l or 0.6 l of water each half hour with one fluid scheme assigned to each day according to a randomised block (person) design with four replicates (days). All workers were found to harvest large trees at the start of the working day and small trees at the end. All workers took longer to complete their task when on the low fluid scheme, however, the effect on the heart rate development varied for the individual workers as the strategies adopted to accommodate the stress inflicted by the low fluid scheme, varied for the individual workers. It is recommended that sufficient fluid supply during work is accompanied by training of the workers to convey the need and benefits of sufficient fluid consumptio

Family Forest Owners’ Expectations and Perceptions of Service Quality in Timber Transactions in Sweden

In Sweden, 59% of the annual gross felling takes place in forests owned by family forest owners (FFOs). Forest companies conduct thousands of timber transactions with FFOs each year, and, most often, harvesting services are provided to them as part of the deal. Delivering services that meet the FFOs’ expectations of quality is important for any organization that wants FFOs to be loyal suppliers. The objectives of this study are to clarify FFOs’ service quality expectations in timber transactions, show how well forest companies meet these expectations, and identify factors that may influence FFOs’ quality assessments. Data were collected through a survey sent out to 973 FFOs, with a response rate of 43% (n = 418). The results show that, on average, FFOs perceived that the quality of the services delivered in relation to their latest timber transaction met their expectations on 2 out of 14 quality features: modern equipment (e.g., forest machines) and staff’s courtesy towards the FFO. The study concludes that skilled and service-minded employees are highly important for maintaining good relationships with FFOs and that forest companies may have a lot to gain by improving communication and taking the interests of the FFOs into greater consideration

Factors explaining the interest of adult offspring in succeeding their parents as forest owners

In the past, Swedish ownership of the forest estate was predominantly passed on by parents to their descendants. However, a general societal change has given successors a larger say in decisions on such matters. Their willingness to become forest owners has, therefore, become an important factor for who will own the forest in the future. To study what factors explain adult descendants’ interest in taking over as forest owners, this study determined how adult children, who expressed a willingness to take over their parents’ forest estate, were different from those who were not willing. Members of the Northern Forest Owner Association in Sweden were asked to provide contact addresses of their children, in the age group 30 to 50 years old. The logistic regression analysis of the 249 participating offspring respondents revealed several significant factors. Offspring who helped their parents with the management of the estate were more likely to be willing to take it over, showing that developing into a forest owner remains a socialization process that starts with practical work. Values, such as the respondents’ attitude towards maintaining a forest ownership tradition, as well as the interest in forest income, hunting, and fishing, were also found to be factors affecting the willingness to take over. The results also indicate that the socialization process is still gender-biased, and that the distance between a descendants’ present home and the forest estate is a factor that mattered