In December 2004 an earthquake coursed waves that hit Thailand. Over 5000 people died, and Sweden was the tourist country that has been effected the worst. The catastrophe precipitated Sweden in crises and the demand became high for Swedish government to act. Swedes followed the development via media, why media became the crucial element for how the public perceived politicians? acting.

This thesis is about Christmas tree plantations in Sweden, and if its profitable to produce Christmas trees in Sweden. Sweden has 4,3 million households, 3 million of these households buys Christmas trees. 80 % of these Christmas trees are Norway Spruce (Picea abies), which is the most common Spruce in Sweden. Every year over 170 000 Christmas trees are imported to Sweden. The main import comes from Denmark.

This paper investigates decision-making under uncertainty and complexity. The focus point of the study was to investigate how organizations in Stockholm has come to a decisions on how to manage the trial implementation of a congestion tax in terms of their company cars. The study was conducted as a survey with complementary interviews with the decision makers in change of congestion tax problem. The aim of the study was to gain an understanding for the decision making processes, and how and why the companies decided as they did. The theory on which we based our study emanated from both systems theory and business economic theory on decision making.

After the storm Gudrun in 2005, the Swedish Transport Administration started clear-cutting of railroad corridors to reduce the risk of trees falling down on the tracks. Simultaneously, train accidents with moose and roe deer have become more frequent and the costs for consequent delays and repairs of engines are of growing concern. There is reason to assume that tree-clearance of railroad corridors may have contributed to an increase in number of accidents with moose and roe deer because the cleared areas provide attractive forage and thus may attract wildlife. The objective of my study was to investigate how clearing of trees affected the number of accidents with moose and roe deer. I compared deer-train collision frequencies before and after clearance of the selected railroads and compared these with uncleared control railroads in a BACI (before-after control-impact) approach.

Human presence has always influenced the surrounding areas, the forest as well. Structure and species composition have changed during human land use. Knowledge regarding these changes should be of great interest for conservation and forestry. We have analyzed human impact on the tree species composition on five study sites during 2000 years in Ångermanland, Sweden. More specifically the change in tree species composition in percentage amongst alder, birch, spruce and pine over time.

In this study, pollen contamination (measured by the number of seeds pollinated by pollen not belonging to any of the clones on the seed orchard) is compared between open pollination and isolated pollination environments in a Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) seed orchard called Västerhus, located outside Önsköldsvik. In this seed orchard a tent experiment is taking place. Skogforsk has built six large tents covering 12-14 trees with each tent. Fertilization patterns were compared between one tree in a tent with a supplementation of pollen from five clones not represented in the tent and another tree of the same clone subject to open pollination outside the tents. By using DNA markers the paternity was determined for 48 seeds from each tree.

In this study, pollen contamination (measured by the number of seeds pollinated by pollen not belonging to any of the clones on the seed orchard) is compared between open pollination and isolated pollination environments in a Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) seed orchard called Västerhus, located outside Önsköldsvik. In this seed orchard a tent experiment is taking place. Skogforsk has built six large tents covering 12-14 trees with each tent. Fertilization patterns were compared between one tree in a tent with a supplementation of pollen from five clones not represented in the tent and another tree of the same clone subject to open pollination outside the tents. By using DNA markers the paternity was determined for 48 seeds from each tree.

There have previously been very few studies of forests on Seram Island in the Eastern Indonesian archipelago and none before on lowland limestone primary forests. The COLUPSIA project on collaborative land use planning has therefore chosen Seram as one of two project sites. The objective of the COLUPSIA project is to establish collaborative and equitable land use planning. In order to achieve its objective the COLUPSIA project aims to improve understanding of traditional resource management and how it interacts with governmental systems, as well as enhancing knowledge about tropical landscapes and ecosystem services.The aim of this study was to contribute to the COLUPSIA project through describing lowland limestone forest on Seram Island in respect to (1) forest structure, (2) tree species richness and (3) tree species composition. We set up 5 plots, each of 0.2 ha, at one site, Mawalai, and collected data on tree variables (tree diameter ?10 cm) as well as for some other life forms and environmental data.

The purpose of this work has been to explore what ecosystem services a small green area in an urban environment can offer and whether specific trees can be used to maximize regulatory ecosystem services in a cultural-historical environment. Additionally, it investigates whether there is any difference in ecosystem services depending on whether these trees, or trees that better fit into the cultural-historical environment, are used. Through simulations and comparisons with existing trees in Pommerska tomten, Mariestad, Sweden, a pocket park within a national interest area, different hypothetical tree planting options are analyzed and evaluated. To measure ecosystem services, the website My-Tree, developed by the US equivalent of the Department of Agriculture, was used. By inputting data about the tree, such as location, species, vitality, stem diameter, and solar exposure, My-Tree calculates some of the ecosystem services the tree provides.

If customers respond differently to a campaign, it is worthwhile to find those customers who respond most positively and direct the campaign towards them. This can be done by using so called incremental response analysis where respondents from a campaign are compared with respondents from a control group. Customers with the highest increased response from the campaign will be selected and thus may increase the company?s return. Incremental response analysis is applied to the mobile operator Tres historical data.

In Sweden and in Scandinavia the amount of tree species are rather few. However many different forms of trees arise due to mutations and gives rare appearances like cut-leaved and hanging forms. In some cases these trees are interesting as cultivars and a few of them have become popular garden trees. The knowledge of the original trees and early propagation is meagre.In this study a selected group of trees were found through search of literature. Eight tree forms were chosen and investigated in situ.

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the construction of consensus in commune-collaborations. By a review of written material combined with elite interviews we have been able to follow the decision-making and the forming of consensus, in a commune-collaboration called NOSAM, in which they have decided to use consensus as a decision method. The thesis is based on a case study and we have decided to follow a specific issue that has been discussed for some time.We have created an instrument based on the ideal of deliberative democracy, through which we have been able to examine whether the decision-making in NOSAM can be described as a deliberative process or if consensus is formed by other incentives.The study shows that the decision-making in NOSAM cannot be described as a deliberative process, although there are some elements of deliberation. Consensus is formed in a proposition drawn up by the officials for the commune-representatives to agree on. Afterwards, the decision has to be brought up in each commune before reaching a final decision in NOSAM.Our opinion is that having consensus as the decision method leads to difficulties when deciding on bigger issues..

The storm Gudrun in 2005 led to massive windthow damage in forests in southern Sweden. Since then there has been a growing interest in factors influencing wind damage in above all Norway spruce (Picea Abies) stands. Although many other interesting areas still need to be examined. In 2005 there where a lot of stands that suffered different degrees of damage, a lot of these stands weren?t cut, but instead left to grow. The future development of these stands is uncertain and the guidelines are unclear.

Throughout the years more and more charitable organisations have appeared and the competition between them has increased. This has forced the charities to use more marketing strategies in their work in order to strengthen their competitiveness. Research in philanthropy in terms of economy and marketing has been neglected in Sweden and the research that is done today is mainly focused on why individuals donate to charity. A donation, according to the writers of this thesis, has been seen as an economical activity and can therefore be explained and understood through economical models and theories. This thesis aims to see how a contributor to charity makes the decision to donate money, consequently see how the donation decision process actually works from a theoretical model of a buying decision process from marketing literature. The purpose of this thesis is therefore to from a buying decision process concerning products describe the donation decision process for contributors to charity. By achieving this purpose the writers aim to compare if a donation decision process go through certain steps similar to a buying decision process.

Data retrieved from airborne laser scanning represents a new source of forest data. Today, the technology has matured so that it can function in an operational environment. The aim of this study was to compile areas of application of laserdata in forestry. Moreover to analyze costs and accessibility of laserdata. The goal was to provide private forest owners information to support assessments of possible benefits of laserdata.