The following is a summary of a report produced by the project A richer forest, which is a collaboration between the Swedish Forest Agency and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) in Umeå.
As the demand for wood raw material is expected to continue to grow and the forest owner population continues to change, the goals, values and forest knowledge of forest owners have become increasingly diversified, and the number of forest owners living far from their forest property is increasing. To make it easier for forest owners and entrepreneurs to do business on forest services, a need for more technological solutions in the forest service sector was identified early in the Richer Forests project.
Dronarpiloten has investigated the potential of a service concept that includes images taken with drones. The target groups were small and medium-sized forest enterprises (SMEs) and private forest owners who live far from their forest property, with young forest on their land, preferably new forest owners and preferably female forest owners. A delimitation has been made to the measure young forest clearing in the Swedish part of the project area, which roughly covers Västerbotten and Västernorrland.
Questions to answer during the pilot survey were:
- What support do forest owners consider drone imagery to be for forest decision-making?
- To what extent can still and moving drone images bridge the physical and/or mental distance of the forest owner to the forest?
- How should the stock be imaged to give the clearest picture of its condition?
- What is the willingness to pay/value added for this type of drone imaging service?
- Can SMEs use drones as a communication tool to attract more forest owners and thereby increase orders?
Thirty-four forest owners agreed to participate, and sixteen of them completed the full survey by watching two short sample films of drone footage and answering the questions in an accompanying questionnaire. Interviews were conducted with three smaller companies in the forestry sector to get a picture of their views on drones and what business opportunities they could see for drone imagery in their own operations.
After compiling the survey, a webinar was held with two purposes: to present the results of the survey and to allow forest owners and forest managers to meet and discuss possible drone services. The results showed that the target group for the survey was largely reached and that all participants were decision-makers in forest-related matters on their property, even if they owned the forest together. Only men responded to the survey, and most had been forest owners for over ten years. Most were familiar with their forest and its development over time.
Half of the group had at some point been contacted by a company offering to commission a forestry operation, and all found it 'very easy' or 'quite easy' to communicate about the forest, its location and the need for an operation with the forest service company. When it came to drone data, the results showed that it was important to have documentation both before and after young forest clearing and that traditionally measured stand data such as stem density and mean height were also desired.
The drone operator's manoeuvring is crucial to the usefulness of the material, and it is difficult to get a clear picture of the stock, as seen on a computer screen, if the drone is travelling too fast or wobbling when filming, for example. There is a willingness to pay for relevant drone services, and it would be desirable to be able to customise the content of the service according to one's own needs and thus also be able to influence the price of it. The majority of participants would prefer to buy the service from an independent or other company than the one selling the forestry service in question, but the free text also describes that independence is not the most important thing as long as the data is available, clear and reliable.
The companies see potential in drone material both for their own purposes, for example to make price calculations on young forest clearing, and to offer their customers. As a basis for business discussions and support in follow-up and feedback. The company's own fixed costs for offering drone services can be difficult to influence, and in order to offer affordable drone services to owners of both large and small sites, they would sometimes need to make a small profit on a single site or offer the service as a value-added service in combination with other forestry services to make a financial profit in each individual transaction.
Although participants knew their forest well and found it easy to communicate the forest and action needs with forest service practitioners, there was a high level of interest in drone imagery as support. This indicates a broader and larger customer group than the pilot's target group. As a suggestion, customising the design of drone services to the needs of different customer groups could include at least three different types of services:
- A large proportion of forest owners who have not taken action would be willing to purchase a drone service from an independent company or a company offering the service on a stand-alone basis, without it being linked to forestry service offers.
- A group can be offered the data to support business discussions with the forestry service provider and is not averse to the same company also offering the drone service, as long as the data is reliable and the company has their trust.
- The group that knows the evolution of its forest well could be interested in a slightly simpler service, such as before and after pictures in addition to the commissioned forestry service, in order to follow up the action.
Trust in the company is fundamentally the most important thing in a business context and drone images are seen as a good basis for good dialogue between the client and the service provider. In this dialogue, the company can certainly benefit from being receptive to new ideas and requests for different situations where drones can be used and several ways to design attractive drone services.
