The study charted forest professionals' experiences of forest conservation in their work, opinions on new means of ensuring biodiversity of forests, principles of forest management, and the development of client interaction in securing biodiversity. The survey is part of the METSO collaborative research project funded by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (2013-2016). The respondents were first asked about the type of tasks that are included in their daily work (e.g. consultation of forest owners, creating forest management plans), and about their experiences of new work methods, such as Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) techniques, and new forest management methods made possible by recent changes to the Forest Act. Experiences of voluntary forest conservation were examined, as well as whether the respondents had participated in trainings regarding the new Forest Act or the METSO biodiversity programme. The respondents were also asked to evaluate their own expertise and areas of development both personally and in the industry more generally. Views on the motives and goals of forest management planning as well as experiences of the professional-client relationship and different types of client interaction were surveyed with a set of attitudinal statements. The study also surveyed attitudes towards voluntary forest conservation as well as forest inventories, their usefulness and reliability. The respondents were asked about changes in their work tasks within the previous three years. In addition, their wishes for development in their work practices were queried with an open-ended question. The final questions covered work motivation, perceptions of own expertise, new work methods and tools, and the reliability of devices, software and databases used by the respondent's organisation. The respondents' views on ideal work practices and tools were also examined, especially relating to Terrestrial Laser Scanning. Background variables included gender, year of birth, position of employment, time worked in the current position, education history, and time worked in the industry.

2017