Forest owners will have to take much greater responsibility than before to avoid disturbing or threatening protected species during felling and other forestry operations. These are some of the consequences of guiding judgments both nationally and in the EU. To support the forestry industry, Metria has developed the map service Artlager, which is based on open data from the species portal.
All wild birds and certain designated plant and animal species are protected by the Species Protection Ordinance. This means that it is forbidden to harm them, their habitats, breeding areas or nesting sites. In forestry, species protection means that forestry measures must be adapted so that there is no prohibited impact on the protected species.
The forest owner is obliged to
Prior to felling, the forest owner is obliged to acquire the knowledge needed to ensure that protected species are not affected in a way that contravenes the law. This means that the landowner or operator is responsible for finding out what species are present in the forest and ensuring that they are not harmed.
The Artlager map service provides the forest industry with the necessary knowledge about which threatened species are present on forest properties. The service is based on information in the species portal, where species observations from all of Sweden's wild plants, animals and fungi are collected daily.
The service shows all observations of threatened or vulnerable species. For each observation there is detailed information about: species, species family, number, red list category, date of observation, whether validated or not, uncertainty in meters, whether protected by law and link to the species database.
The map service is available via Metria Maps and can be integrated into the systems used for purchasing and planning forestry measures. The service is updated once a week, which means that the business has access to current data on which threatened species may be present on the forest property where the forestry measures are to be carried out.
Artportalen is a system for observations of Sweden's wild plants, animals and fungi. The system consists of a database with several associated services for reporting, searching and managing the species observations. The species portal is open for everyone to use for reporting and searching among the millions of finding data contributed by private individuals as well as professional nature conservation officials and researchers. The Species Portal is developed and operated by the Species Information Center at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences on behalf of the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency.