Browsing by department "Department of Forest Sciences"

Finnish forest industry is in the middle of a radical change. Deepening recession and the falling demand of woodworking industry´s traditional products have forced also sawmilling industry to find new and more fertile solutions to improve their operational preconditions. In recent years, the role of bioenergy production has often been highlighted as a part of sawmills´ business repertoire. Sawmilling produces naturally a lot of by-products (e.g. bark, sawdust, chips) which could be exploited more effectively in energy production, and this would bring more incomes or maybe even create new business opportunities for sawmills. Production of bioenergy is also supported by government´s climate and energy policies favouring renewable energy sources, public financial subsidies, and soaring prices of fossil fuels. Also the decreasing production of domestic pulp and paper industry releases a fair amount of sawmills´ by-products for other uses. However, bioenergy production as a part of sawmills´ by-product utilization has been so far researched very little from a managerial point of view. The purpose of this study was to explore the relative significance of the main bioenergy-related processes, resources and factors at Finnish independent industrial sawmills including partnerships, cooperation, customers relationships and investments, and also the future perspectives of bioenergy business at these sawmills with the help of two resource-based approaches (resource-based view, natural-resource-based view). Data of the study comprised of secondary data (e.g. literature), and primary data which was attracted from interviews directed to sawmill managers (or equivalent persons in charge of decisions regarding bioenergy production at sawmill). While a literature review and the Delphi method with two questionnaires were utilized as the methods of the study. According to the results of the study, the most significant processes related to the value chain of bioenergy business are connected to raw material availability and procurement, and customer relationships management. In addition to raw material and services, the most significant resources included factory and machinery, personnel, collaboration, and geographic location. Long-term cooperation deals were clearly valued as the most significant form of collaboration, and especially in processes connected to raw material procurement. Study results also revealed that factors related to demand, subsidies and prices had highest importance in connection with sawmills´ future bioenergy business. However, majority of the respondents required that certain preconditions connected to the above-mentioned factors should be fulfilled before they will continue their bioenergy-related investments. Generally, the answers showed a wide divergence of opinions among the respondents which may refer to sawmills´ different emphases and expectations concerning bioenergy. In other words, bioenergy is still perceived as a quite novel and risky area of business at Finnish independent industrial sawmills. These results indicate that the massive expansion of bioenergy business at private sawmills in Finland is not a self-evident truth. The blocking barriers seem to be connected mainly to demand of bioenergy and money. Respondents´ answers disseminated a growing dissatisfaction towards the policies of authorities, which don´t treat equally sawmill-based bioenergy compared to other forms of bioenergy. This proposition was boiled down in a sawmill manager´s comment: “There is a lot of bioenergy available, if they just want to make use of it.” It seems that the positive effects of government´s policies favouring the renewables are not taking effect at private sawmills. However, as there anyway seems to be a lot of potential connected to emerging bioenergy business at Finnish independent industrial sawmills, there is also a clear need for more profound future studies over this topic.

Energywood harvesting is increasing strongly due to promotion of renewable energy sources. As a part of the development the use of energywood thinning will increase and become more diverse. Therefore it is important to know the effects of the operation on merchantable yield and on profitability of silviculture. The objective of the study is to detect those effects of mechanised energywood thinning in young stands. For economical calculations the moment for decision making is set to the moment of the thinning. 30 young stands were chosen for the study. For forecasting stand development stand parameters were measured from each stand. The study was limited to mineral soil and to stands where dominat species was pine (Pinus sylvestris) or spruce (Picea abies). The stands were situated in Finland in the regions of Häme-Uusimaa, Kaakkois-Suomi, Etelä-Savo and Keski-Suomi. Stand development was forecasted using MOTTI software developed by Finnish Forest Resource Institute. Future harvesting yields were forecasted separately for each stand and for three different management alternatives. The three alternatives were energywood harvesting in a dense young stand, indutrialwood thinning in a dense young stand, and a management chain according to the finnish silvicultural recommendations. With the predicted harvesting yields, annual yields and net present values were calculated. The effects of harvesting damages were examined by a literature overview. Managing stands according to silvicultural recommendations gave excpectedly the best result. A considerable increase in energywood price would be needed for the alternative of energywood harvesting to be competitive in pine stands. In spruce stands it is an economically viable alternative with relatively low energywood price. This is mainly due to high yields of deciduous trees in dense spruce stands. Energywood harvesting is a good alternative for managing dense young stands that have been left without or with insufficient precommercial thinning. In these cases energywood harvesting generally leads to better yields than an industrialwood thinning. However, with the energywood prices used in this study, industrialwood thinning leads to higher earnings. Differences between the alternatives are low and an increase in energywood price would quickly turn the situation in favor of energywood thinning. Forest type does not have a significant effect on the differences between the management alternatives. According to the inspections of Forestry Development Centre Tapio, there are more harvesting damages in stands managed by energywood thinning than by industrialwood thinning. Losses in growth and wood quality due to harvesting damages are however minor according to literature overview, and therefore have no significant effect on the results of this study.

In this master´s thesis it was studied if the harvesting and cultivating of energy wood is ecologically, economically, socially and culturally sustainable if it is done by following Forestry Development Centre Tapio´s guidelines for Best Forestry Practices for Energy Wood harvesting and cultivating. The aim of the study was also to find out how energy wood harvesting and managing practices should be developed according to experts. Best Practice Guidelines for Forest Management and Energy Wood Harvesting and Cultivation is a handbook for forest owners and professional foresters. The handbook describes operations models for energy wood harvesting and cultivation that are based on research and good practices. The guidelines have been compiled as an extensive cooperation process with Forest Development Centre Tapio. The aim of Best Practice Guidelines for Forest Management is to ensure that forest management is ecologically, economically, socially and culturally sustainable. 34 experts and researchers were interviewed for this study. All of these interviewees have participated in the Energy wood harvesting and cultivating guidelines project. The response percentage in these interviews was 81. In the interview, claims based on the guidelines were presented to the interviewees. The answers were evaluated by using 7-step Likert scale. In addition, it was possible for the interviewees to give informal arguments after every claim. The claims were from 21 different topics collected from the guidelines. In every topic, all three dimensions of sustainability were examined. Social and cultural sustainability were combined in the claims, so a total of 63 claims was presented. The results indicate that the majority of the recommendations in the guidelines is sustainable. Only in the claims dealing with stump lifting, low-quality tree removing, whole tree harvesting on VT-sites and foliage and branch collecting, the average calculated from all Likert –answers was negative. In the informal arguments, the most important concerns were nutrient loss from forests and forest owners´ economical benefits in energy wood harvestings. The results indicated that the biggest benefits from social and cultural sustainability are the positive effects on employment in homeland. The results indicated that there is need for Best Practice Guidelines for Forest Management in Finland. The biggest need for the recommendations is among forest harvesting workers, for example harvester drivers and forest workers. In this work it was shown that energy wood harvesting and cultivating in Finland is usually sustainable if the recommendations are followed. In future research it should be studied how energy wood harvesting and cultivating guidelines should be developed in the operations whose sustainability was questioned. It seems that the harvesting of small diameter energy wood is based partly on state subsidies. Therefore, in future research, it should be studied how big an effect the subsidies have on the profitability of energy wood harvesting. It should also be studied how Best Practice Guidelines should be developed so that they could support practical forest workers as effectively as possible. It might also be good to do research on this same area using some other approach.

Due to anoxic conditions and slow decomposition, pristine peatlands are usually considered as sinks of carbon dioxide but sources of methane. After drainage for forestry purposes, carbon dioxide emissions usually start to increase and methane emissions decrease. Nowadays about 830 000 hectares of forestry drained peatlands in Finland are considered as low productive and non-suitable for commercial forestry as they are too nutrientpoor or too wet. Restoration has been seen one way to after-use these areas but its effects on greenhouse gas fluxes, especially on very nutrient-poor bogs, is mainly unknown. The aim of this thesis was to find out the effect of restoration on methane fluxes from low productive nutrient poor raised bogs. Methane fluxes were measured from 14 sites (7 restored, 6 drained, 1 pristine) near Sipoo, Tammela and Parkano during the summers of 2014 and 2015. Also water table level and peat temperature from 5 and 30 cm depth were measured. Vegetation of the gas measurement plots was surveyed using the Braun-Blanquet method in Sipoo and Tammela sites. Restoration (ditch blocking and/or tree removal) was done 4‒22 years before measurements. Restored sites were wetter than drained sites but drier than pristine sites. Peat temperature was higher in the ditches of restored sites and the coverage of cottongrass (Eriophorum vaginatum) increased a little. Both drained and restored sites were methane sources during the growing season. The annual flux of restored sites (4.02 ± 1.21 g m-2 yr-1) was little bit higher than drained sites (2.86 ± 1.57 g m -2 yr-1). The highest flux was measured from pristine sites (8.38 g m-2 yr-1). Methane fluxes from the ditches increased most and they were close to the fluxes from hollows of pristine site. The age of restored site did not affect the methane fluxes although the highest fluxes were measured from the youngest site. The results were not, however, statistically significant due the huge variation within and between the sites. The fluxes of restored sites were closer to the fluxes of pristine peatlands found from literature compared to drained sites, which means that restoration was successful and there was not a big problem for climatic point of view.

Sibbo storskog är ett enhetligt skogs- och jordbruksområde som täcker delar av Sibbo kommun samt Vanda och Helsingfors städer. Den privatägda marken på området används i huvudsak för aktivt jord- och skogsbruk. År 2011 inrättades Sibbo storskogs nationalpark på statsägd mark i Sibbo storskog. Nationalparken är splittrad till formen och dess läge skapar förutsättningar för stort rekreationstryck. Detta befaras leda till negativ inverkan på privatskogsbruket. Tidigare forskning om nationalparkers inverkan på omgivningen har främst fokuserat på lokalbefolkningen och närområdet som helhet. Målsättningen med denna undersökning var att ta reda på vilken inverkan Sibbo storskogs nationalpark har för specifikt de privata skogsägarna och deras verksamhet, samt hur konflikter mellan användning och skötsel av nationalparken och privatskogsbruket i Sibbo storskog kan förebyggas. Materialet samlades in med en enkät riktad till privata skogsägare i Sibbo storskog och med intervjuer med privata skogsägare i Sibbo storskog och vid Noux nationalpark. Syftet med intervjuerna i Noux var att få ett jämförande material från ett område vars läge och rekreationstryck är jämförbart med det i Sibbo storskog, men där nationalparken har existerat under en längre tid. Resultaten visar att inverkan från nationalparken förknippad med områdets användning för rekreation redan förekommit i Sibbo storskog. Hotbilder för framtiden var utöver dessa främst relaterade till utvidgning av nationalparken och planläggning av mark-användningen som ansågs försämra förutsättningarna för utövandet av normalt skogsbruk. Ca 40 % av skogsägarna ansåg att nationalparken kommer att påverka negativt på de egna skogsarbetena i framtiden. Genom att göra nationalparken enhetligare med markbyten inom Sibbo storskog eller med frivilliga skyddsavtal och försäljning av mark kan konflikter förebyggas. Ca 30 % av skogsägarna var under vissa förutsättningar intresserade av markbyten med staten. Ett förnuftigt styrande av rekreationen och information till nationalparkens besökare är andra metoder med vilka problem med områdets användning för rekreation kan förebyggas. En viktig del av konflikthanteringen utgörs av deltagande, information och kommunikation. Samarbetet mellan Forststyrelsen och privata skogsägare har kommit i gång. En stor del av konflikterna som hotar privatskogsbruket gäller dock markanvändningen utanför nationalparkens gränser och därför bör också samarbete med kommun och stad uppmuntras till.

The green markets are growing all the time and many different environmental performance measures (EPMs) such as forest certificates, eco-labels, footprint calculations and environmental management systems have emerged in the past few decades. These measures help companies to prove the origin of wood and the environmental friendliness of their products and production processes. This qualitative study examined how Finnish wood products companies use different environmental performance measures in both supply and demand side of the wood products market and the practices and problems related to environmental communication. Seventeen personal interviews among Finnish wood products value chain professionals were conducted in order to find the industry perspectives on the development needs in environmental performance of the wood products. The results of this study indicate that the most commonly used environmental performance measures in Finnish wood product companies are forest certificate PEFC and the standard of ISO14001. In contrast, the use of other ecolabels as well as Life Cycle Assessment methods (LCA) and related tools were relatively uncommon. The main drivers for use of EPMs were customer requirements (especially in certain environmentally sensitive export markets) and strategic decisions to act responsibly. The most important issue in environmental performance measures was perceived to be the ability to document trustworthiness of company operations. Also the origin of wood was recognized as an important issue. It also seems that forest certificates and ISO14001 standard are more important in the export markets than in the domestic markets. The supply chains for wood products are often long and complex and therefore the environmental information of the products does not always reach the end-consumers. The communication between wood product companies in the B2B markets is mainly based on personal relationships. Environmental issues are mentioned, but in most of the companies, they are still in passive use. Companies that want to stand out in the future need to start focusing on new green strategies and providing more detailed environmental information on their products and processes.

Nykymuotoisen metsäsuunnittelun ongelmaksi on koettu heikko asiakaslähtöisyys. Sitä voidaan kuitenkin kehittää tuntemalla metsänomistajien tarpeet paremmin. Sen vuoksi tämän tutkimuksen tarkoituksena oli selvittää tapaustutkimuksen keinoin teemahaastattelulla metsänomistajien aitoja tarpeita, jotka liittyvät metsäsuunnitelman hankkimiseen. Tutkimuksen kohteena olivat erillismetsäsuunnitelman tilanneet metsänomistajat, koska he olivat tilanneet suunnitelman omasta aloitteestaan joko metsäkeskukselta tai metsänhoitoyhdistykseltä. Haastatellut 12 henkilöä ovat aktiivisia metsänomistajia, jotka arvostavat hyvää ja tuottavaa metsää. Metsänomistajien aitoja tarpeita ovat metsänhoidolliset syyt. Metsäsuunnitelma on puukaupan apu, metsänhoitotöiden järjestyksen ja kiireellisyyden määrittäjä, metsän kokonaistilanteen selventäjä, metsän arvon ilmentäjä ja etämetsänomistajalle mielenrauhaa tuova asiakirja. Aloite suunnitelman hankkimiseen oli tullut metsänomistajalta itseltään, joten metsäammattilaisten myötävaikutus tilauspäätökseen oli vähäinen. Pääsääntöisesti metsänomistajat olivat vahvassa vuorovaikutuksessa metsäsuunnittelijan kanssa, mutta osalla yhteydenpito oli vähäistä suunnitteluprosessin aikana. Viisi metsänomistajaa 12:sta oli ollut suunnittelijan mukana maastossa. Metsänomistajat olivat pääpiirteissään tyytyväisiä suunnitteluprosessiin ja kokivat suunnitelman vastanneen tarvetta. Tutkittujen metsänomistajien toimeliaisuudesta kertoo se, että lähes kaikki olivat tehneet uuden suunnitelmansa avulla puukauppoja, taimikonhoitoa tai molempia. Monet metsänomistajat kertoivat tekevänsä metsänhoitotöitä itse, mutta useat tukeutuvat osittain ja jotkut jopa kokonaan ammattilaisen apuun. Erillismetsäsuunnittelussa itsessään on asiakaslähtöisyyden piirteitä, mutta erillismetsäsuunnitelmia tilanneita tutkimalla on hankala vastata nykymetsäsuunnittelun pahimpaan ongelmaan, asiakaslähtöisyyden puutteeseen. Uusi suunnittelujärjestelmä antanee mahdollisuuden lisätä neuvonnan määrää ja tehdä erilaisia metsäsuunnitelmia metsänomistajille. Vaikka metsänomistajat kaipaavat yhä enenevässä määrin kokonaispalvelua, tänäkin päivänä metsänomistajat ovat omatoimisia. Asiakaslähtöisyyden parantamista voidaan auttaa edelleen tutkimuksen keinoin. Järkevintä olisi tutkia mm. niitä metsänomistajia, jotka ovat tilanneet aikaisemmin suunnitelman, mutta uudella aluesuunnittelukierroksella ovat jättäneet sen tilaamatta. Olisi hyvä tietää, mikä heidän mielestään on ollut suunnitelmassa vikana ja miksi metsänomistaja on jättänyt suunnitelman tilaamatta.

Recreational use of forests promotes both health and well-being thus reducing health care costs, which in turn gains the whole national economy. When moving around in the forests the recreational users value the attractive landscapes and the facilities for outdoor activities provided by the forests. A great deal of the recreational use takes place in commercial forests, which means that in forest management planning there is a need to take into account the interests of different stakeholders. According to previous preference studies recreational users in Finland in general prefer open forest stands with old trees and dislike large clearcut areas, logging residues and tracks made by the logging machinery. Also the forest owners in Finland have been showing a growing interest towards uneven-aged (continuous cover) forestry and matters concerning forest landscape and recreational use of forests. In order to produce forests suitable for recreational use by means of forest management planning there is a need for better information on how and to what extent the recreational users notice the structural features of a forest stand (e.g. density, tree species etc.) when judging on the scenic beauty of the stand or it’s suitability for their leisure activities. This was the aim of this study as well as to find out how well the methods used in this study work in finding the answers to these questions. The study was done as a survey in Ruunaa hiking area where the respondents were asked to fill a questionnaire where they were met unlike in previous preference studies, where the interviews have been done in predefined places. According to the results the judgement of how attractive a forest stand is is affected not only by the structural features of that forest stand. This has also been the conclusion of many previous studies. In case of Ruunaa the lake scenes and the sounds of the rapids form an essential part of the landscape and this affected the valuations. Structural features were seen only in the landscape close to the beholder. When the respondents compared the interview site to a commercial forest of same age, they found that the commercial forests were suitable for various leisure activities as well as the interview site, thoug Ruunaa was considered to be better for activities related with nature (e.g. birdwatching or botanical interests). One of the original aims of the study was also to find out how the respondents related to the small scale gap felling experiments in Ruunaa. No respondents were met at these felling sites, but some of the respondents told they had seen them and that they didn’t seem to have anything against the gap fellings.

Forest carbon offset projects have been growing vigorously in China in the last ten years. It is necessary to form an overall picture of the projects, to analyze the quality of their development processes, and to shed light on the development of upcoming projects. In order to evaluate their development process, a framework of assessment was built up and applied in practical project assessment. In this thesis, firstly, the situation of the global carbon markets and Chinese forest carbon offset projects was introduced. Especially, different international and domestic carbon accounting and other carbon related standards were presented and compared. Secondly, the previous studies about the assessment of sustainable development impacts of the forestry carbon projects were reviewed; the approaches and indicators were compared and summarized. Then, in combination with checklists and multi-criteria approaches, a new assessment framework was established, consisting of a set of indicators and a four-level scoring system. Finally, 16 Chinese forestry projects which have applied different carbon standards were evaluated with this assessment framework. Their performances were compared and analyzed, the characteristics of standards were also compared. According to the results of the assessment, the successfully registered Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects gained higher scores, suggesting their development processes were of higher quality. The projects applying Climate, Community, and Biodiversity Standards (CCBS) in pair with another carbon accounting standard also tended to get higher scores, indicating the positive effect of CCBS on the consideration of sustainable co-benefits. The international standards are stricter than domestic standards, which can be seen from the comprehensiveness and meticulousness of the Project Design Documents (PDDs). The result of the assessment corresponds to the previous understanding about the projects and standards, which supports the validity of the assessment framework.

Purpose of this thesis is to estimate the carbon sequestration potential in eucalyptus plantations in Uruguay. This study also aims to show how beneficial these plantations are for carbon sinks. The aim of this research is calculate total carbon balance in eucalyptus plantations and compare the results to degraded lands. This study is first-of-its-kind study in Uruguay, but not unique globally. The objective was to use a modeling approach to formulate the results. The methodology of this study is based to the dynamic growth model (CO2fix V3.1). Model is developed to calculate and estimate forest carbon fluxes and stocks. In this study the model was utilized for estimating how much carbon is sequestered in eucalyptus plantations and soils. In this thesis the model was used to simulate eucalyptus forest plantations that stem from numerous studies and different data. Ad hoc Excel model was generated to form calculated results from the simulated data. A separate sensitivity analysis is also formulated to reveal a possible different outcome. The framework is based on a stand-level inventory data of forestry plantations provided by the Ministry of Uruguay (MGAP) and companies. Also multiple scientific reports and previous studies were used as guidelines for simulations and results. The forest stand, yield, soil and weather data used for this study are from three different departments. There are over 700 000 hectares of different species of eucalyptus plantations in Uruguay. The theoretical framework was tested computationally with eleven simulations. CO2fix was parameterized for fast-growing eucalyptus species used in different parts of Uruguay. The model gave outputs per hectare and then this result was scaled up to the national level. This study will also estimate how much grassland (Pampa) and former pasture land could sequester carbon. Situation prior to plantation is a baseline scenario and it is compared to the expected carbon sequestration of plantations. The model is also used to calculate the effect of changing rotation length on carbon stocks of forest ecosystem (forest vegetation and soil) and wood products. The results of this study show that currently the 707,674 hectares of eucalyptus plantations in Uruguay have the potential to sequester 65 million tonnes of carbon and reduce 238 million tonnes of CO2. The calculated carbon storage is 38 and simulated 25 million tonnes of C, products are deducted from the equation. During 22 years (1990–2012) the annual carbon sequestration benefit (afforestation-baseline) without products is 1 757 847 Mg C. The results suggest that it is reasonable to establish eucalyptus plantations on degraded, grassland (Pampa) and abandoned pasture land. The implications of the results are that eucalyptus plantations in Uruguay actually enhance carbon sequestration, are carbon sinks and store more carbon than grassland and abandoned pasture land. Plantations have a vast sequestration potential and are important in mitigating of CO2 emission and effects of the climate change. The findings endorse the significance of plantations to increase carbon sinks and this role will broaden in the future. The most relevant findings of this study are that afforestation increases the soil carbon in 10-year rotation plantations by 34% (101.1>75.6) and in 12-year rotation 38% (104.4>75.6 Mg Cha-1) in a 60-year simulation. The net (afforestation-baseline) average carbon stock benefit in the soil is 25.5 Mg C ha?1 in a 60-year simulation. The (CO2Fix) model indicate that the total average carbon sequestration for eucalyptus plantations is 92.3 Mg Cha?1. The average total carbon storage ranges from 25.8–138.5 Mg Cha?1 during a 60-year simulation. The simulations show that the net annual carbon storage in the living biomass is 29.1, 25.5 (soil) and 37.6 Mg C (products) on the average scenario. There is some fluctuation in the sequestration results in other 10 simulations. Previous studies have showed that the average carbon stock for eucalyptus plantations varies from 30–60 Mg C ha-1, when soil and products are deducted. The capacity of forest ecosystems to sequester carbon in the long run could be even more strengthened if a rotation length increases. Extending rotation from 10 to 12 years increased the average soil carbon stock from 25.5 to 28.8 Mg C (by 13%) in 60 year simulation. The results also indicate that mean annual precipitation (MAP) alters the carbon sinks of the forest ecosystem. There are some limitations in this study and they are clearly explained and analyzed. Hence, most of the results are estimations. Ministry and companies need to prolong planting of trees and even intensify annual programs in order to achieve carbon sequestration targets. Further research is needed to get an estimate of the total forest ecosystem carbon storages and fluxes.