Speaker
Description
Modern Swedish forestry has contributed to a substantial decline in ground lichen, a key winter forage resource for semi-domesticated reindeer, while demand for timber and bioenergy continues to increase. This study develops and tests a generic, easily implemented GIS-based screening method to identify priority areas for lichen-adapted young stand management that can simultaneously support biomass utilization and reindeer husbandry in northern Sweden.
We conducted a case study on productive forest land owned by Sveaskog, overlapping the Ubmeje Tjällddie and Vapsten reindeer herding communities. The analysis was restricted to productive forest land, as only these areas are subject to regular management operations. Stand data included 32,347 stands (309,476 ha), of which 20,200 stands (237,372 ha) were classified as productive forest land. Young stands were defined as those with a need for pre-commercial thinning, initial thinning, or complementary thinning (management classes 21, 31, 32), while stands treated with fertilizer were excluded due to known negative effects on ground lichen.
We combined corporate stand data with spatial datasets on lichen coverage (10 m raster, continuous % cover), soil moisture (2 m, categorical), and management history (polygon attributes). Ground lichen potential was quantified by aggregating the lichen raster to stand level using a hierarchical threshold system inspired by the Swedish National Forest Inventory, but with expanded classes tailored to reindeer grazing needs. First, we calculated the proportion of pixels with ≥10% lichen cover and assigned stands to five lichen cover classes, recognizing that <10% cover is too low to be of grazing relevance. Second, we calculated the proportion of pixels with ≥25% lichen cover and grouped stands into four additional classes to highlight areas with higher forage quality. Third, we recorded the presence/absence of pixels with >50% cover, treating these as “hotspot” indicators due to their low frequency but high value for grazing.
This multi-threshold approach generates stand-level indicators describing both the extent and intensity of lichen occurrence, enabling screening of a wide combination of stands for lichen-adapted management. The resulting indicators can be used to rank and map priority stands for young stand treatments that increase light availability and improve accessibility, such as boom-corridor thinning and geometric thinning systems. These methods have shown potential to increase mechanized harvesting productivity in dense young stands, offering opportunities for additional biomass recovery while improving conditions for reindeer.
Ongoing work compares the mapped priority stands with an independently developed list of stands prioritized through a collaborative planning process between Sveaskog and the reindeer herding communities. This comparison will be used to validate the method’s relevance for operational co-planning at both stand and landscape scales. The proposed framework is replicable, relies on commonly available stand registers and remote sensing products, and can be scaled to other reindeer herding districts. It therefore offers a practical decision-support tool for integrating lichen-oriented, adaptive young stand management into forest operations while contributing to a growing bioeconomy.
| Keywords | Precision-forestry, Remote-sensing, GIS, Adaptive-management |
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