Älvkarleby

Since 1990, when I moved to Älvkarleby I’ve been working idealistically with conservation together with the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation in Älvkarleby (http://alvkarleby.krets.snf.se).

The felling is now (2005) more extensive than ever. It seems like most of the forests older than 80 years but not yet key habitats will disappear. The Swedish Society for Nature Conservation is busy checking felling announcements. Remaining environmental values are rapidly and easily extinguished at the despair of inhabitants of the municipality (for example click here).

In December 1995 I got the Conservation Award of the Municipality. In the main ideal work that I had done, a digitalized summary of most facts about biotypes worth protecting is included as is data for sites with red listed species within the municipality. This data base can be used as a municipal GIS.

In 1994 I made a summary of all areas in the Municipality of Älvkarleby known to be of interest for conservation and digitalise it. I was working with County Administrative Board materials of different types, results from the survey of the Uppland landscape flora and a mapping of hot spots in CIR photos. The hot spot mapping includes deciduous forests, hardwood forests, swamp forests, meadows, nutritious swamps and two types of old forests. The material has been used in the continuous handling in the Municipality Administrative Board.

The nature data base was updated in spring 2005. New facts were included and the structure of the data base has been changed to be more searchable. Here is an overview of the results.

Other jobs that’s been done in Älvkarleby are:
– vegetation mapping and studies of landscape change in the Båtfors area, within Marma Military Exercise Area, aerial photo interpretation of coniferous lime forests and an illustrated leaf let map of the Waterfall area between Älvkarleby and Älvkarleö.

Figure: Overview of Älvkarleby along the river (Landsat TM). Objects with varying conservation values are here shown as vegetation types. Green is deciduous forests, brown is herbaceous forests, yellow is grass- and herb land, lined yellow is humid or swamp forests and green triangles are sites for specific species. The red ring marks the office and house of NaturGis and Tommy Löfgren.

Some White-backed Woodpeckers still remain in the area of lower River Dalälven…