Changing and competing land use, where we make use of a growing share of resources, potentially undermines the capacity of forests to provide multiple functions such as timber, biodiversity, recreation and pasture lands. The governance challenge is thus to manage trade-offs between human needs…

Fossil pollen and plant macrofossils over the last 2000 years are documented from three small forest hollows in Southern Sweden. One of the sites is inside a 5 ha highly prized old growth mixed Fagus sylvatica and Picea abies forest of high biodiversity which has been protected since 1940. The…

Around 100years ago, when Crown land in the interior of northern Sweden was privatized, part of the forest land was set aside as forest commons. Today, there are 33 such forest commons jointly managed and owned in common mainly by private forest owners. The forest commons may be looked upon as a…

National parks are often places where people have previously lived and worked-they have been formed by a combination of natural and human processes that embody an identifiable history of cultural and political values. Conservation of protected areas is primarily about how we perceive such…

A mail survey of nonindustrial private forest (NIPF) owners in two counties in northern Sweden was conducted to investigate the risk preferences of NIPF owners and their perceptions of the return and risk of timber investment relative to investment alternatives outside forestry. We also used the…

In Canada, where public ownership of forestland is prevalent, a central decision facing policy makers is how to allocate timber resources to private forest companies. Debates tend to focus around what proportion of the annual harvest should be devoted to markets as opposed to long-term contracts…

This paper presents a futures study of international forest trends. The study, produced as part of the Swedish Future Forest program, focuses on global changes of importance for future Swedish forest use. It is based on previous international research, policy documents, and 24 interviews with…

This report examines the role of European Union (EU) member States, both collectively and individually, in the current reported wave of foreign land investment in Africa that has led to the current use of the term ‘land grabbing’.It discusses whether this role is consistent with the EU’s…

This issue offers seventeen articles distributed among the following aspects of the climate change theme: two articles on Climate Change Impact; three articles on Climate Change Mitigation; nine articles on Climate Change Adaptation; and three articles that straddle all aspects of the climate…

Commissioned by the Platform for Agrobiodiversity Research and FAO this study was carried out by Local Initiatives for Biodiversity, Research and Development (LI-BIRD) with the intention of providing support for the current work undertaken by the Agriculture and Food Security thematic working…

The National Medium-Term Priority Framework (NMTPF) 2011-2015 builds on the experience acquired with NMTPF 20006-2010, which dealt with FAO assistance in a comprehensive way. Its overall goal is to pursue the development of sustainable agriculture, fisheries and forestry as a contribution to the…

Environment and Natural Resources Management Working Paper 45. Reducing “Energy Poverty” is increasingly acknowledged as the “Missing Development Goal”. This is because access to electricity and modern energy sources is a basic requirement to achieve and sustain decent and sustainable living…