Lean forestry – A paradigm shift from economies of scale to precise and sustainable use of ecosystem services in forests

Abstract

Modern forestry practices are based on the idea of ‘big is beautiful’. Especially in the regeneration phase, the operations are often excessive in relation to the profit that one can expect to gain in decades to come. Excessive operations also constrain the use of ecosystem services. Lean forestry is a novel philosophy of forestry practise that aims to direct the idea of “big is beautiful” in modern silviculture more into “do cost effectively only what is needed to fulfil the goals”. To succeed Lean forestry requires exact spatial information to be able to carry out forestry measures very precisely only where they are really needed to fulfil goals. This kind of a paradigm shift requires systems with new kinds of abilities to remotely sense the surrounding environment and to make better and faster decisions based on sensed data. Automated unmanned offroad vehicle that is able to sense the environment and to make lean decisions is presented as an example of initiatives that can make forestry more cost-effective and simultaneously improve utilisation of wide range of ecosystem services in forests.