Impacts of different forest management scenarios on forestry and reindeer husbandry

Abstract

In northern Sweden, the forests are used simultaneously for both timber production and reindeer husbandry. During the winter months, lichen is the most important fodder for reindeer. Forest management operations are generally considered having a negative impact on reindeer husbandry as harvesting and dense stands remove or obscure the ground lichen cover. In this study, we simulate three different scenarios for forest management, differing in the intensity and types of harvest operations. The resulting 100-year scenarios are analyzed with respect to their estimated suitability for providing reindeer pasture areas. Suitability is determined by vegetation type, stand density and stand height. The results indicate that the current trend of a decrease in lichen area will continue if existing forestry practice prevails. Implementing continuous cover forestry as a management alternative and carrying out precommercial thinning could halt the decrease in reindeer pasture area and even lead to a future increase in pasture area, with losses of approximately 5% in the net present value of forestry.

Keywords:

• continuous cover forestry
• forest management
• lichen
• precommercial thinning
• net present value
• reindeer winter pasture

Acknowledgments

The work of Anu Korosuo and Karin Öhman was partially financed by the EU FP7 project Advanced multifunctional management of European mountain forests (ARANGE), and in collaboration with the research program Future Forests supported by the Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research (MISTRA), the Swedish Forestry industry, the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Umeå University, and the Forestry Research Institute of Sweden. The work of Per Sandström was partially financed by the Formas project PLURAL. The authors would like to thank Ph.D. Torgny Lind for helpful comments during the planning of this study, and Associate Editor Jordi Garcia-Gonzalo and two reviewers for their insightful comments that helped to improve the manuscript.

Notes

1. A treatment schedule is a specific sequence and timing of treatments (e.g. regeneration, thinning and clear-cutting) that are performed over the planning horizon covered by the simulation.