An AI application for identifying insect damage by Metsä Group and CollectiveCrunch in use
Metsä Group press release on 20 June 2023 at 2.00 p.m.
Metsä Group and CollectiveCrunch, a leading company in the application of artificial intelligence to forestry, have developed an application based on artificial intelligence, machine learning and open remote survey data for identifying and visualising insect and storm damage.
The application has been opened for the use of forest specialists handling owner-members’ wood trade and forest management services. Forest specialists can now familiarise themselves with the application and use it for advising owner-members. The application will also be opened in the Metsäverkko service for owner-members’ use as soon as possible, probably in August 2023. The application will be visible in Metsäverkko as a new map layer.
The new map layer will first display the areas in Finland that have suffered the worst spruce bark beetle damage. The coverage will extend to other areas in Finland in stages. In the future, it will also be possible to use the new map layer to identify forests that suffer from storm damage or draught, are excessively dense or are otherwise at risk of damage.
“Our goal is to be a forerunner in online forest services. Our latest application is an excellent tool for maintaining the vitality of forests. Map content that indicates various types of damage to trees, such as insect damage caused by the spruce bark beetle, will be updated several times during the summer. The application will even detect damage that is not yet visible to the human eye. Based on this data, the expansion of the damage can be prevented. In the future, we will also use the new application to identify the scope of storm damage, for example. We can quickly see the areas with the worst damage, which will ensure the use of harvesting equipment at sites where the situation is most severe,” says Olli Leino, Director, Digitalisation, from Metsä Group’s Wood Supply and Forest Services.
“Our solution is a great example of the results of cooperation between the leading expertise in the industry and the latest technology. It has been a pleasure to be involved in developing this multifaceted solution, which provides the forest sector with an increasingly comprehensive understanding of the health of forests while promoting biodiversity and the preservation of ecological balance,” says Jarkko Lipponen, CEO of CollectiveCrunch.
Metsäverkko is an online service offered by Metsä Group to help forest owners manage their forest assets. Some of the Metsäverkko services such as the future map content indicating insect and storm damage are only available to Metsä Group’s owner-members. The owner-members will be informed of any new functionalities that are introduced in Metsäverkko specifically for their use.
Images for media use.
For further information, please contact:
Olli Leino, Director, Digitalisation, Metsä Group, tel. +358 400 662 517
Juha Laine, Senior Vice President, Marketing and Communications, Metsä Group, tel. +358 50 346 0350
Jarkko Lipponen, CEO, CollectiveCrunch, jl@collectivecrunch.com, tel. +358 40 481 4629
Metsä Group’s Wood Supply and Forest Services
metsagroup.com/metsaforest
Metsä Group’s Wood Supply and Forest Services provides and develops the services offered to the members of Metsä Group's parent company, Metsäliitto. The cooperative consists of more than 90,000 Finnish forest owners who together own about half of Finland’s private forests. We provide all the forest services required to engage in sustainable forest management and raise the value of forest assets.
We procure all the wood used by Metsä Group from sustainably managed forests in the Baltic Sea region, most of it from our owner-members in Finland. We also supply significant volumes of energy wood, bark and sawdust for further processing.
In 2022, our sales totalled EUR 2.1 billion, and we have around 750 employees.
