Biologist and Assistant Professor (lecturer) of Ecolocy at Umeå University. Lives in outside Umeå. Has been involved in forest issues for a long time, established the organization FURA for the protection of sub-alpine virgin forests in the beginning of the 1980s. Owns forest north of Umeå. Wants to bring up the idea that not only the protection of forests should be increased but also that the forestry should be modified for the sake of coming generations.

Lecture (will be held in English):

Sustainable boreal forestry – an alternative to the plantation model?

My presentation consists of a hypothesis of how forestry in boreal forests should be designed to minimize the loss of biodiversity. My proposal is mainly based on three different measures:

1) In each landscape, protect, or restore, areas of forest, which are in late succession stages, large enough to allow the survival of species dependent on late succession stages.
2) By adjustment of management methods, logging, reforestation, and clearing of young forests in the parts of the landscape that are managed, i.e. so called semi-natural-forests, enabling, over time, a re-establishment of a homogeneous density of ecological niches as before the logging was conducted, thus enabling re-colonization of the species that can survive in semi-natural forests.
3) Bring some of the present tree plantations in different ages back to the semi-natural forest, through various forms of “ecological restoration”.

I will also give examples of what such an adjustment of the forest management would, most likely, imply for different forest multiple-use aspects; removal of wood, hunting for game species, opportunities for reindeer herding, effects in terms of net emissions of “greenhouse gases”, company financial outcome and economic diversification. My hypothesis is mainly based on a synthesis of different scientific published papers.