Forest Planning in Private Forests- Norway

The productive forest area in Norway is approximately 7 mill. ha. Non-industrial private for-est properties, represented by 120 000 owners, cover almost 80 % of this area (Statistics Norway 2003), i.e. the average size of the private forest property is approximately 45 ha. The management of these forest properties have traditionally been combined with agricultural production. This combination is still important, but over the past decades an increasing part of the owners ’ incomes are coming from outside the farm. The forest area in Norway is also highly non-homogeneous with respect to productivity, elevation and terrain. Forest planning in Norway is therefore carried out within a framework of high diversity with respect to the owners ’ education, occupation and goals, and within large variations for natural conditions. The fi rst forest plan in Norway was worked in 1875, but systematic forest planning covering signifi cant areas in private forests started in the early 1950’s. The activities in forest planning reached a peak in the 1990’s. Over the past few years the planning has comprised 300 000-500 000 ha forest land per year. This corresponds to 10-20 years cycles to cover the entire area of pro-ductive private forest land in Norway. The aim of the present paper is to give a brief description of planning in private forests in Norway