Net4Forest

Network of knowledge for efficient private forests (Net4Forest) is Erasmus+ project, which started on 01.09.2018 and will last 3 years. It includes institutions from Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Sweden and Spain. Applicant organisation is the Slovenian Forestry Institute (SFI), other organisations involved are Foundation Centre for Support of Forest Owner Cooperation (Latvia), Estonian Private Forest Centre (Estonia), Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (Sweden) and Forest Science and Technology Centre of Catalonia (Spain).

The main purpose of this project is to educate trainers and forest owners. Private forest owners own the majority of forest land in most European countries and consequently a high proportion of harvested wood volume comes from private estates. Although literature about efficient forest products marketing and evaluation of forest services is available widely in EU, there is a big deficit in information, guidelines and training materials for forest owner´s practical education, training and use. The aim of this project is to make their decisions suitable and professionally crafted as much as possible and to give them knowledge to increase income from their forest with the respect of environmental aspect and participation of professionals from several countries.

The goal of this project is to exchange experiences, knowledge, good practise examples and to form innovative and publicly available materials, which will enable trainers and forest owners to acquire adequate knowledge for efficient forest management. Main project outputs (handbook, hands-on guidelines, learning toolkit, best practice examples) will be presented to target groups through organized events, they will be published on project partners web pages and other communication channels.

Handbook: 
The pathway for efficient operations in private forests

IO2 Summary;
Hands-on guidelines for private woodlot owners in Slovenia, Latvia, Estonia, Sweden and Spain.

Publications:
Mechanized Direct Seeding - Back Tomas Ersson (2021)

Vätteskogen & CCF in Boreal Forests – Back Tomas Ersson (2021)

Tools for calculating the ground pressure of a forest vehicle's:

This calculation model for a forest vehicle's average ground pressure is based on rough assumptions, but is nevertheless a useful tool for gaining insight into a forest vehicle's impact on the ground. The model calculates the ground pressure separately for the front and rear section of a vehicle. The difference in ground pressure between the front and rear section is quite large for a loaded forwarder. This calculation tool is designed for forwarders, but can also be applied sensibly to other forest vehicles. Click here (excel)