4.- Ensure a well-trained workforce through attractive skills development and education

Established 75 years ago, Solør VGS Sønsterud has since been a national leader in training for forestry operations. The campus is currently part of Solør VGS with around 500 students aged 16-18 years and 135 employees. Teaching takes place both indoors and outdoors and allows pupils a practical approach to forestry. The curriculum follows the yearly season with planning, forest culture and logging. 

Drones are used as a supplement to teaching, where they film objects and stock as a basis for work in teaching. This is to visualize select challenges or to show before/after an activity. When training operation of forestry machines, drones allow students and teachers to see the work from a birds-eye perspective. Used correctly, this may lead to increased learning both for those who observe, but especially for those who are observed and who get to see themselves at work. The time every pupil can spend operating forestry machines is limited, it is therefore important to make good use of the time available. By filming every student operating a forestry machine, the learning outcome will be increased for the students by allowing them to see themselves and get positive and constructive feedback. Drones allow prioritization of areas for improvement.

Established 75 years ago, Solør VGS Sønsterud has since been a national leader in training for forestry operations. The campus is currently part of Solør VGS with around 500 students aged 16-18 years and 135 employees. Teaching takes place both indoors and outdoors and allows pupils a practical approach to forestry. The curriculum follows the yearly season with planning, forest culture and logging.
Drones are used as a supplement to teaching, where they film objects and stock as a basis for work in teaching. This is to visualize select challenges or to show before/after an activity. When training operation of forestry machines, drones allow students and teachers to see the work from a birds-eye perspective. Used correctly, this may lead to increased learning both for those who observe, but especially for those who are observed and who get to see themselves at work. The time every pupil can spend operating forestry machines is limited, it is therefore important to make good use of the time available. By filming every student operating a forestry machine, the learning outcome will be increased for the students by allowing them to see themselves and get positive and constructive feedback. Drones allow prioritization of areas for improvement.

The online School of Forestry has been established in collaboration between the Norwegian Forest owners' associations, the State Forest, and the Forestry Extension Institute. The aim is to jointly develop the course content to increase the level of forestry expertise in all stages of forestry. The courses are open for everyone, although the target group are the organisations' employees. The system allows each organisation to make individual additions and adaptations to the courses. Several courses will be presented on the platform, mainly in the topics of silviculture, planting and soil preparation. The course content may be used by all organisations, with their own individual additions and adaptations.

Skogkurs is intended to be the common body for competence in business development and management of forests and other land resources. Through its activities, Skogkurs will contribute to increasing competence among actors in the forestry industry, and disseminate forest and nature knowledge to schools and the public. Skogkurs has 36 member organizations. “Active forestry” is a nationwide offer with courses aimed at forest owners, forestry workers and forestry operators. The courses are also relevant for other groups that use forestry tools, either professionally or in their spare time. The courses provide practical guidance, have a small group size and skilled authorized instructors. These are short, targeted, locally adapted courses that are given close to home or in the workplace. The teaching program “Teach with the Forest” offers lessons from kindergarten to higher learning educator programs.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Food contributes significantly to the financing of the activities. About half of the development projects where Skogkurs has project management are partly funded through one or more of the forestry's own funds. Adult education funding, funding from the Norwegian Environment Agency and project funding from other partners also make important financial contributions to Skogkurs' activities.

Improved work safety through a sensor node network which connects to anyone carrying such a node and provides information about the current danger situation over a license-free band using Bluetooth low energy (BLE). For example: in a tree felling operation with a harvester which is supported by a forest worker, any person with such a little IT-device in his / her pocket (such as supervision personal, field forester, …) will get information about the position of the harvester and the work the harvester is doing. On the other hand, also the harvester has the information about these people. Risk alert warnings are sent to actors automatically, risk zones and risk status can be retrieved from actors, offenses of critical overlaps in risk safety zones are identified. The system is using u-Blox M8N GPS modules and map visualization on screens. The information gets translated to a danger situation depending on the individual work-situation (for example larger danger area when the harvester is cutting a tree than while driving). Communication of 150 - 700m, up to 9 slave nodes and battery allows 50h usage. GPS accuracy around 2.5m under forest conditions. The system may connect to a Cloud. This opens further data processing options, such as inclusion of passers-by via GSM-net or team-oriented data analysis for work-safety education needs. 

The qualification course delivers a Certificate of Advanced Studies (CAS). It is a part-time professional training course designed for company managers and engineers to build up management competences regarding newest economic and engineering procedures and leadership activity competences regarding forestry operations and forestry administration. It amounts to 360 hours or 12 ECTS. Good feedback from former participants about usability of the professional education training.

The significant increase in the number of forestry contractors in last few years has been increasing competition, however at the same time requires a reflection on the objective quality of contractors. In sustainable management of forests, the criterion for the selection of contractor should not be only the lowest service price, but it should include also environmental, social and business aspects of the relationship between the client and the contractor. Platform MojGozdar (MyForester) enables the integration of all stakeholders in the forest-wood value chain, including providers of forestry services, users of services (forest owners, forest managers) and administrators of basic data bases about business entities. It is a transparent and objective web-based information system for assessing the suitability of contractors, who perform work in the forest. The methodology for evaluating is consisted of an automatic assessment of the formal suitability of the forestry contractors and direct evaluation of the service by consumers.

Detailed description is available at http://www.crojfe.com/site/assets/files/4529/triplat_77-90.pdf

Heat entrepreneurs produce heat for customers by using renewable solid bio-fuels. In recent decades this operational model has become more common in Finland. Different skill sectors have formed around heat entrepreneurship such as training, research, consultation and equipment production. A heat entrepreneurship knowledge cluster has been built in South Ostrobothnia Finland.

The HECSO development project has assembled the heat entrepreneurship knowledge cluster of South Ostrobothnia. The knowledge cluster has been made to utilise, in many different ways, the companies located in the region, other actors in the region and the internationalisation of the whole province.
A principal component of internationalisation is the knowledge cluster’s training package on heat entrepreneurship, which is on offer to interested foreign target groups. Vocational Adult Education Sedu is responsible for the training. The training package lasts for one week, and is compiled through co-operation with the Finnish Forest Centre and regional heat entrepreneurs and machine and equipment manufacturers.
Heat entrepreneurship is the production of local renewable energy, where an entrepreneur or company sells heat at an agreed price to a user. In the best scenarios there can be many heat purchasers. Heat is conveyed to the customer from the heating plant by a district heating network. Generally the fuel is the entrepreneur’s own forest or locally procured wood, but it can also be wood refining by-products, wood for re-cycling and peat.

The knowledge cluster consists of heat entrepreneurs, heat entrepreneurship units, research, training and the supply of machines and equipment for the whole production chain. The knowledge cluster can also be utilized internationally by offering knowledge and training opportunities to foreign target groups.

The marteloscope plots have exact defined surfaces with each tree numbered and measured for long-term studies. Using software and mobile devices, the demo concept allows direct feedback on silvicultural decisions and related ecological and economic effects during training. Evaluation of different management strategies and their consequences can be objectively discussed by forest practitioners, authorities, decision makers, scientists or other interested groups directly on site. Silviculture is based on scientific principles. With well-documented observation plots and marteloscopes, we provide instructive visual and practice objects and also learn ourselves from their development. The aim is to preserve silvicultural knowledge and make it accessible for practice.