MISTRA DIGITAL FOREST ANNUAL REPORT 2020 1
MISTRADIGITALFOREST Photo: The Swedish Forest Ind
ustries Federation/Värmskog Mark & Sjökartor. Digital solutions do real good The rapid development of digitalisation can perhaps be seen as the opposite of the long cycle times of Swedish forestry. However, both digitalisation and forestry have a lot in common and above all, they are both important keys to finding solutions to the climate crisis. Since the autumn of 2020, Viveka Beckeman has been CEO of the Swedish Forest Industries Federation, the professional body that hosts the programme for Mistra Digital Forest. She believes in development rather than in romanticising the past, something she believes Mistra Digital Forest acknowledges. – I think it's exciting for the Swedish Forest Industries Federation to be the platform for this programme, since we want to be a sort of node for the whole industry. She is convinced that the forest sector and the forest industry are the key that enables us to continue to develop both ourselves and our surroundings, without endangering the climate. – I believe that it is essential for our sector that we are successful in ensuring that we are part of the developments, and are constantly moving forward. And that we succeed in taking advantage of the fantastic raw material that the forest represents, she continues. VIVEKA BECKEMAN In order to create the kind of legitimacy needed to run a modern, sustainable forestry, the sector has to show that it can be done without jeopardising biodiversity, for example. – I believe in digitalisation and technological development, in this context. This means that we constantly emit less carbon dioxide, we have smarter processes all the way along, and finally we successfully extract more forest raw material. All of this shows precisely why the Mistra Digital Forest programme is so incredibly important, says Viveka Beckeman. A good example of a digital project that has created great value, is the laser inventory carried out by Lantmäteriet in 2010, where the whole of Sweden was laser scanned from the air. Among others, this has helped BillerudKorsnäs to become more efficient in their thinning work. – After the laser inventory, an aid was developed where areas for thinning could be found utilising data from the inventory. Thanks to this, we can plan for thinning more easily, and constantly maintain a high level of production, something that is important when we are all actively working to create a more sustainable future, says Göran Andersson, forest manager at BillerudKorsnäs. Of course, BillerudKorsnäs is already working with a number of digital tools, in particular they help the company to keep track of forest holdings. – Generally speaking, we run a business over large areas and we are constantly handling large felling volumes. Without digital tools, it would be virtually impossible to do this with current staffing levels. Access to these sorts of tools is crucial for our efficiency and our competitiveness, Göran Andersson continues. 4 P h o t o : F r e d r i k P e r s s o n