| Summary: | Since the 1980s, there has been a change in the way reforestation is being carried out in the south of Sweden. Landowners have to an ever greater extent chosen to plant Norway spruce (Picea abies) independent of the fact that it would be better, due to local conditions, to plant Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris). The reason behind this is that Scots pine has a higher rate of game damage than Norway spruce. The damage is mainly caused by elk (Alces alces) and roe deer (Capreolus capreolus). Since there are ways to manage forests with a balance between wildlife and tree production, a collaboration was started between the forest industry and the Swedish Forest Agency (Skogsstyrelsen). It is called” More Scots pine” (Mera tall) and the aim is to change the attitudes of and to teach landowners what can be done to decrease game damage and how to succeed with reforestation when using Scots pine. This study is a comparison of regeneration areas that were harvested during the 2002/03 season and the 2012/13 season, to see if there is a change of landowners choice of plant species. The result of this study showed that there’s an increase of the proportion of Scots pine on regeneration sites, 19,5% in 2002/3 to 29,9% in 2012/13. There were also changes in site adaption in regeneration sites, 12,5 % adapted sites in 2002/03, to 28,6% in 2012/13. Game damage was measured in regeneration sites from season 2012/13 on 24 % of Scots pine plants treated with game repellent and on 35 % of the untreated plants. Game damage on spruce measured 11 % on treated plants and 47 % of untreated plants.
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