The biodiversity of the Swedish forest has degenerated since the beginning of the 19th century when fire suppression and large scale logging first occurred. Together with a changed land use, these actions today have had a negative influence on many forest dwelling species, due to gradual reduction of natural processes, successions and different structures from the forest ecosystem. The Swedish Forest Act, together with different environment certifications, have today encouraged private persons and forest companies, among them Holmen Skog, to work actively to improve nature conservation. The aim of this study was to, by field inventories of already existing nature values, literature studies, recommendations from scientific reports and ecological gap analysis as a basis, make a management plan, for a non-production area, to conserve or improve the prerequisites for biodiversity. ?Storskogsberget? is located in the coastal area of Västerbotten County, 35 km from the city of Umeå.

Title: The key to the positive spiral - A study of musicians views of their practicing. The purpose with this paper is to make clear how continuous practicing on one element affects not just the specific part but also other things. Is it possible to find a positive spiral where everything can be better if you focus your practicing on one thing? Can this element if it is done daily in a qualitative way transform to a key which will help you to unlock the door to the positive spiral? Are there more keys to find? I am going to reflect my ideas in this paper through a philosophical, psychological and the brain sciences perspective. Quality in action is going to be compared with the quality that you need to set a successful goal, and to reach the state of mind called flow you will need both these qualities.

Running water-pathways have played an important roll in Sweden and frequently been manipulated. One profound change was made during the period of logging when streams were cleared from obstacles as big boulders, sharp bends and side-streams. Dams and different constructions gave control of the stream water and the streams became channel-like with a homogen structure. This interference gave problems for many fish populations and resulted in a shortage of feeding habitat, over-wintering habitat, spawning habitat, unnatural flow regimes, sedimentation, unnatural temperature fluctuations. Many of these historical changes of the watersheds are now subjects for restoration, ie., bring back the streams to what we believed it was before the change. However, what once existed in terms of complexity is now gone and difficult toreplace.

Fire has historically been of great ecological importance in the boreal forests of Sweden. The forest fire regime has, however, varied between different parts of the country. The objective of this thesis is therefore to investigate the fire history in Fulufjället National Park and, on this basis, give suggestions for future fire management. The reconstruction of fire history was done by cross-dating fire scars in samples taken from living and dead Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris). Local fire chronologies were established at 17 points in the forests in and around Fulufjället National Park by cross-dating fire scars on 54 samples. The oldest year-ring dated from year 968.

The goal of this master thesis project was to develop computer models of some plausiblepretreatment techniques and to assess the potential benefits/costs of using pretreatment andanaerobic digestion for waste management of organic waste from a system perspective. Forthis purpose a computer program called ORWARE has been used. ORWARE (organic wasteresearch) is a program for making life cycle assessments of waste management. As the mainpart of the project work the ORWARE system has been provided with three new models ofpretreatment techniques. The additions consist of: One model of pretreatment with ultrasound,one model of thermal hydrolysis and one model of a screw press.

According to the Swedish strategy for forest protection, additionally 40 000 ha productive forestland will be protected in the county of Västerbotten, between 1999 and 2010. A national project was carried out to distinguish the proportion of forest with a high biological value, in all counties. The project resulted in demarcation of small landscape areas or small ?biological value regions? (bvr), with higher concentrations of forests with conservation values and red listed species than the surroundings. In Västerbotten, 26 such bvr?s were identified and the Counties Agency and Forest Agency in Västerbotten developed a regional strategy for forest conservation to standardize the forest protection process.

The expansion of the Swedish hydro power has contributed positively to the reduction of the environmental impacts from the fossil fueled power production. In the same time the extensive expansion has been proved to cause negative ecological and local environment impacts of a stream. This, in turn, has been affecting the biodiversity and fish stock negatively, which has been reduced. One of the underlying problems is the lack of possibility for the fish to pass the plants, but it is also directly correlated to the mortality rate of the fish passing through the turbine, which this study is investigating.The mortality rate has been computed for three different locations in Sweden, Untra, Tännfallet and a third one whose location is confidential, and is denoted as Case 1, 2 and 3. The model used to calculate the mortality rate in this investigation is based by existing blade strike models and knowledge and are investigating the death due to mechanical injuries from collision with a runner blade in the turbine.

Since 1993 the Swedish Forestry Administration conducts a nation-wide inventory of wood-land key habitats covering all forest land in Sweden. The inventory aims at mapping and describing habitats where redlisted species occur or can be expected to occur. According to the inventory stand history is crucial to the presence of red-listed species. However, the current knowledge of stand history in woodland key habitats is very limited. The purpose of this work is to describe stand history in woodland key habitats, i.e. fire history, human activities - mainly cuttings - and structural changes.

Statistik från Skolverket (2006) visar att ungefär var femte elev i Upplands-Bro Kommun inte klarar det nationella ämnesprovet i svenska för skolår 5. Då vi har vår verksamhetsförlagda utbildning i denna kommun blev vi nyfikna på att undersöka detta närmare. Vi valde att utgå från ett lärarperspektiv och en lokal bild av lärarnas uppfattningar av det nationella ämnesprovet i svenska och hur de arbetar för att komma åt problemet. För att ta reda på det använde vi oss av intervjuer med åtta behöriga lärare. Vår studie utgår från två frågeställningar: Vilka faktorer kan enligt lärarna i Upplands-Bro Kommun påverka att en elev inte når de nationella målen i svenska? Vilka målstrategier har lärarna i Upplands-Bro Kommun för att eleverna ska uppnå de nationella målen? Med hjälp av teoretisk litteratur formas vår bakgrundsdel, med utgångspunkt från Skolverkets rapport (2001), ?Utan fullständiga betyg?, Bronfenbrenners utvecklingsekologiska teori, målen i svenska, det nationella ämnesprovens bakgrund och syfte, skolans ansvar och styrdokument och delar ur dagens skoldebatt.

Collaborative planning ? a comparative study of theory and practice Why There is today, according to my experience, a growing interest and demand for a more inclusive and transparent planning process. Also, if we are going to be able to reach a truly sustainable society it is my belief that there is a need for a more integrated collaboration between different actors. Where the social, economic and ecological values can influence and benefit from each other. The question then is, how can the planning system accommodate that kind of collaboration? Purpose My aim for this thesis has been to study a selection of the theoretical work that exist about collaborative planning.

A zoonosis is a disease or infection that is naturally transmitted between vertebrate animals and humans. The majority of infectious diseases that affect humans are zoonoses. Environments where wild animals, domestic animals and humans live in close proximity with no or small boundaries in the ecological system favor the transmission of diseases between animals and humans. The above described situation is more common in low income countries, where humans and animals live in high density and zoonoses are generally more common. The study was conducted in Cambodia.

Grasslands which have been actively managed for a long time and which in modern times have not been subject to cultivation such as fertilization are called semi-natural grasslands. These rare and species-rich areas hold an ecological, biological and historical value and if the management stops these areas will likely diminish. More effective agricultural systems and a declining number of grazing animals have in Sweden, among other countries, made semi-natural grasslands less valuable as foraging areas. Shrubs and fast growing plants rapidly colonize abandoned semi-natural grasslands, threatening biodiversity. The objective of this experiment was to determine the effects of breed and season on diet composition, with special reference to four competitive species found in wet areas ? in cattle grazing heterogeneous semi-natural grasslands ? and thereby contribute to improved management of these areas.

I mars 2012 startade en brand i en industrifastighet i Kiruna. Branden var vid räddningstjänstens framkomst relativt begränsad. Efter misslyckade försök att återfinna och dra ut gasflaskor, spärrades ett område av på grund av explosionsrisken. Resultatet blev att branden inte kunde begränsas eller bekämpas, trots att styrkan försökte kyla branden i skydd av närliggande objekt. Räddningsinsatsen avslutades nästan 39 timmar efter ankomst.

Utan vatten inget liv. Människor är beroende av rent vatten för sin överlevnad. I många länder orsakar idag bristen på rent vatten sjukdomar och för tidig död. Världens problem med sötvatten i form av brist och svåra föroreningar orsakade av människan kan te sig kolossala. Befolkningsökning och ändrade levnadssätt påverkar.

Biodiversity is under threat in Sweden and many species are on the brink of extinction. This is mainly due to the large-scale drainage projects during the 19th and 20th century and the increasingly intensive land use in agriculture and forestry. The intensive land use with sharply defined boundaries between the production units has in many cases led to either overgrazing or overgrowing. As a result many species have been pushed back to "leftover" habitats like shooting ranges, power line corridors, roadsides, dumps, embankments and other similar areas. Therefore the question has been raised, wether or not it is needed to re-introduce large herbivores into the wild in order to maintain the biodiversity that is related to the extensive land use.This study has been conducted as a literature review and will focus on the European bison?s (Bison bonasus) impact on other species and biodiversity; conditions for reintroducing large herbivores in Sweden are also discussed.Free roaming populations of large herbivores have a positive impact on plants, insects and many other groups of organisms.