In the last few decades, an increasing number and intensity of bark beetle outbreaks have plagued the forests of Europe and North America. Bark beetle management is directly related to forest owner characteristics, although this relationship is not well understood. The purpose of the study was to investigate the influence of forest owner characteristics on the amount and timing of sanitary felling under different disturbance regimes and quantities of Norway spruce. We combined different databases on sanitary felling, the timing of sanitary felling, and forest owner characteristics for Slovenia from 2014 to 2018 and analyzed the amount and timing of sanitary felling in relation to forest owner characteristics. We found that the timing in winter and the amount of sanitary felling were positively associated with the distance of the owner’s residence to the forest parcel. Larger parcels were more affected by bark beetles but did not have later timing of cutting in the summer period as was hypothesized. The timing of sanitary felling decreased with property size, while with the probability of sanitary felling, the effect of property depended on the ice storm and the amount of spruce. The size of the settlement, the permanent address of the private owner, and timing of sanitary felling were positively associated but also depended on the amount of spruce. Gender and age did not have an important influence on the amount and timing of sanitary felling. Forest owners are an important factor in effective bark beetle management. This study highlights the private forest ownership characteristics that should be emphasized in order to fight bark beetle outbreaks in the event of large-scale disturbances. Governments should support forest owners who are at greater risk of bark beetle outbreaks and less efficient in managing outbreaks. Furthermore, landowner characteristics should be included when forecasting bark beetle outbreaks.

Despite strong expectations regarding the role that forestry, with its multitude of potential benefits, could and should play in the ‘bio-economy’, little research has been done on the actual perceptions of influential actors on how to best address future forest land-use disputes. We want to shed light on whether and in which contexts expectations regarding the bio-economy, e.g., the strong role of markets, are likely. The paper analyses influential actors’ core values and beliefs about the primary facilitators and the most appropriate instruments for resolving disputes over future forest land use. We used Social Network Analysis-based sampling and a quantitative semi-structured questionnaire, which included a preference analysis with twelve items covering broad issues and disputes related to future forest land use, to identify actors’ beliefs about and preferences for facilitators and policy instruments within key issues for future land use. The respondents were asked to identify one of five ‘primary facilitators’ (state, market, society, individual citizens/owners, leave it to nature) and distribute six points to a maximum of three preferred instruments (eight items, covering a broad set of instruments, from dictates or bans to awareness raising). The results are based on the perceptions of the influential or most important actors from various innovative government and private forest initiatives in Bavaria (Germany), Slovenia, Castilla y León (Spain), Nordeste (Portugal), and Latvia (481 actor responses, 109 initiatives). The initiatives included participatory mountain forest initiatives, forest intervention zones, afforestation projects, forest owner associations, and model forest and labelling initiatives. The results provide insight into the similarities and differences between European countries and actor groups regarding the preferred facilitators and instruments for solving future forest problems. In light of disagreement in the literature on the role of the state or markets in future forest land use and the bio-economy, our results show that the market and its instruments are considered to play a dominant role in wood mobilisation. With respect to all other issues (socio-ecological, societal, other), the state or other institutions and their instruments gain priority. The state is considered to play a stronger role in developing new markets, e.g., for energy transition or new uses of wood, contrary to liberal market expectations. Ecological and social problems are considered to be outside of the market domain. Here, the state is called in, e.g., to steer recreational issues, the provision of ecosystem services, or the improvement of the protective function. The clearest preference across all regions is for the state to secure the provision of ecosystem services, in contrast to calls for future markets to regulate this field.

The rationalization of working procedures during difficult market conditions is gaining increasing importance. For rational production, it is necessary to always be aware of what and how much to invest in the business process to obtain the desired products or services without economic loss. This article presents a tool for the assessment of costs in forest wood supply chains. WoodChainManager is a Web-based tool composed of three user modules intended for the assessment of material costs of individual machines or the total costs of all selected machines in a forest harvesting system. Users can test the impact of individual technologies on the total material costs of the harvesting system and thus optimize operation processes. The basic tool for describing harvesting systems is the matrix, which visualizes cutting and hauling from the standing tree in the stand to the forest products at the end user. The tool has built-in algorithms that prevent the selection of an illogical harvesting system. The selected method for calculating costs for individual machines is simple, but still reflects the state of the actually incurred costs. WoodChainManager offers cost calculations for a wide range of technologies, machines and appurtenant attachments. The authors of this paper wish to increase awareness and understanding of cost calculations and to offer the possibility to directly compare different harvesting systems.

European forest stands of small-diameter trees can provide industries with biomass as an alternative to fossil use. Small-tree harvesting is costly using conventional methods but using accumulating felling heads (AFH) in combination with a novel boom-corridor thinning (BCT) technique can increase harvester productivity and supply cost efficiency. This method has great potential to reduce costs, but its environmental impact compared with selective thinning (ST) needs to be determined. The objectives of this study were therefore to quantify and compare tree and soil damage as well as air, water and soil emissions for both BCT and ST in various European small-diameter-tree forests. Trials were performed in 84 study units (42 replications per thinning technique) across four countries. Damaged trees (with a diameter at breast height ≥ 7 cm) were measured after thinning and after forwarding. Harvesting emissions were calculated from a life cycle assessment. The percentage of remaining trees that had been damaged by the harvesting processes was 13% and 19% for BCT and ST, respectively, and the difference was significant. BCT exhibited the lowest emissions in all environmental impact categories considered, in all countries. Greenhouse gas emissions were on average 17% lower for BCT. BCT in small-diameter-tree stands therefore reduces the environmental impact of thinning operations compared with conventional methods, and results in less damage to the remaining trees.

Skilled contractors are needed to meet the increased demand for wood and to maintain a competitive edge in forestry. The structure of the forest industry has changed significantly. Today’s situation favours smaller contractors that are more flexible. Worldwide contractors are important for forest operations, but there is often limited knowledge about how well they fulfil demands about resource efficiency, social responsibility and environmental protection. The aim of this paper is to present the guidelines for the assessment of forestry contractors following sustainability principles and to present a recently developed system. In addition to the requirements for professional competences and legislative obligations, the system proposes a number of additional requirements such as corporate social responsibility, participation in the local community and greater environmental responsibility. The forestry contractor and the certification body sign a cooperation agreement to obtain the expert assessment. The expert assessment is performed by an evaluator authorised by a certification body. A web service has been introduced with the purpose of serving as a communication tool between professional evaluators and forestry contractors, as well as providing a new possibility for forest owners to get direct contact with forestry contractors. The system enables its users to exert influence on the assessment of forestry contractors by assessing the quality of their services. Private forests would greatly benefit from customer feedback information on the service quality. By now, 1584 forest contractors have registered in Slovenia, where 67% provide the service of cutting and skidding, 8% provide woodchipper service, 7% transport of round wood, 5% cable crane yarding and 4% fully mechanised harvesting. Until June 2020, 142 forest contractors have gone through the process of quality assessment.