Title: Experiences of physical activity in a flat country Regular physical activity provides many chronic diseases and is an important contributor to health promotion. According to Swedish goals for public health, community planning ought to provide opportunities for exercise in all groups of the population and exercise in daily life should be uncomplicated, even in rural areas. The purpose of this study was to explore how individuals living in a flat country experienced their opportunities for exercise on a regular basis. Four semi-structured interviews were carried out with a phenomenological approach and for the analysis a phenomenological-hermeneutic method was used, resulting in two main themes and nine sub themes. The first main theme ?The reciprocal relation between physical activity and the landscape? showed that the informants experienced that they had good opportunities in the landscape for physical activity, it was easy to exercise on a regular basis, provided there was motivation.

Svartedalens nature reserve a social richness worth develop. The nature reserve of Svartedalen is an area of high biological and social values. The reserve is located close to several densely populated areas. The reserve has been classified as a national area of interest for nature conservation and outdoor life, and as a Natura 2000 area according to both the bird- and habitat directions. The reserve is the largest landarea in Västra Götaland, 3 410 hectares, where a resolution has been made about all these forms of protection. The foundation Skogssällskapet owns 1 956 hectares of the reserve, at 1 384 hectares of the property they pursue FSC-certified silver culture, according to current management plan.

Saproxylic lichens in managed forests have less substrate available than in unmanaged forests due to the shortage of dead wood. However, a suitable substrate for these lichens could be dead branches on living trees. To this date, there has not been any systematically collected data about theabundance of dead branches on living trees and the lichens growing on these branches in managed forests. The aim of this study was to see where dead branches were located on living trees of Pinus sylvestris and Picea abies, how large the surface area of these branches was and what lichens grewof wood on these branches. The study was made in Finspång, Sweden, where 11 forest stands of P.sylvestris and P.

The traditional Swedish way of dealing with browsing damages made by moose, is to reduce the moose population. However, a growing way of dealing with damages made by several ungulate species, including wild boars in particular is to redistribute them with supplementary food sources. Attracting them to settle in habitats less vulnerable to damages made during foraging. This study we tracked collared moose in southern Sweden from January throughout April in the year of 2009. From the tracking data their ?favourite? positions was selected and visited in order to study the features that attracts moose during winter.

The increasing road traffic in Sweden will require investments in the infrastructure that the tax withdrawal of today will not allow according to a new government report, SOU 2006:33. An existing willingness to pay for those investments has therefore become an alternative to increases in taxation to be able to cover the costs. A proposal to let the willingness to pay, alternatively increases in taxation that act proportional, decide how a cost is distributed can be said to be related, but not fully correspond, with different theories of justice described by Robert Nozick and John Rawls. It can therefore be interesting to see how the two different theories of justice are edified and how they distribute a joint cost. The aim of the first part of the thesis is to present and criticize Rawls' and Nozick's theories of justice in a common formulated economic model.

The purpose of this report is to make an evaluation of the self-monitoring for scarification which Stora Enso is using and this study deals with the effects and importance of scarification. A comparison is made in this study with the purpose to highlight any differences between some of the leading forestry companies and significant forest organizations in Sweden. The companies represented in this report are Korsnäs, Mellanskog, SCA, Sveaskog and Södra. In the beginning of this study an interview form was set up together with Daniel Forsberg at Stora Enso. Stora Enso is the head object of this report and seven interviews were made within that company. At the other companies only three interviews were made within each one, with an exception to Mellanskog who wished four.

Essingeleden in Stockholm is the most heavily congested road segment in Scandinavia and it is ofgreat importance for as well traffic within the city as for transit traffic. The capacity of Essingeledenand Norra Länken is not enough to accommodate all traffic. At times it is not moving at all, whichresults in long queues and an augmented risk of accidents. Consequently measures for increasing thecapacity on E4/E20, which will reduce congestion and the risk of accidents, are implemented byTrafikverket. In fall 2012 one lane of three at Pampas will be closed and so will the exit fromEssingeleden to Norra Stationsgatan, called Parkeringsbron.

During some time there has been a debate whether or not logging contractors? profitability can be considered poor. The contractors? situation is important for maintaining long term relationships and continuity in the forest industry. A thorough analytic picture is however missing.

Within the next five years about 15 % of the Swedish forest owners that will undergo a succession of ownership. Presently the most common way to acquire a forest estate in Sweden is to acquire it within the family. To decide to let go after a whole life as a forest owner and manager of your own land is for many people a hard decision to make and often requires a long process. The complex process that a succession of ownership often is includes both questions about economy, legal aspects and regulations, taxes and questions of more personal nature, often called soft issues. These personal aspects or soft issues are important and can if handled poorly or not at all negatively affect relationships in the family for a very long time.

A high amount of dead wood is one of the most important prerequisites for high biodiversity on forest land in Sweden. Dead wood is most abundant in young forests, thinned forests, woodland key habitats and protected forest land. In old-growth forests most of the dead wood consists of logs and snags, whilst in managed forests a huge proportion of dead wood is made up of logging residues like stumps and FWD, fine woody debris (< 10 cm diameter). All these different types of dead wood may serve as substrates for epixylic bryophytes and lichens. However, few studies have been conducted on the relative importance of these different fractions of dead wood for the occurrence of bryophytes and lichens, especially when considering dead wood on thinned forest land.

The Apollo butterfly, Parnassius apollo, is categorized as Near Threatened (NT) in IUCN Red List. Today in Sweden it is found only in strongly fragmentized populations. In the county of Stockholm, P. apollo exists exclusively in some islands of the archipelago and with one mainland population in Stora Vika. This study has the purpose of expanding the knowledge of the local conditions for the butterfly in the south parts of the county of Stockholm and thereby contributes to a sustainable land management that can preserve the Apollo butterfly.A comparative study was done between areas where the butterfly today have: a stable population (Stora Vika, Utö and Ålö), has disappeared (Muskö and Yxlö) or is strongly declining (north part of Ornö).

This MSc thesis is divided into two parts. The first part deals with the need for information from forest campartments selected for clear cutting, in connection with planning in an integrated forest- and sawmill enterprise. A review of literature is followed by a case stud y, where present conditions in a Swedish forest company are compared with current research in the area. The seeond part consists of a simulation stud y, which aims at camparing the accuracy of inventory estimates using different methods. The estimates are delivery forecasts, covering one month consumptian of timber in a large sawmill.

The depth-to-water-index (DTW-index) is derived from digital elevation models (DEM) to map soil wetness, in terms of distance from soil surface to the ground water table. The aim of this GIS based study was to investigate the existence of a relationship between DTW-index and forest site productivity (SP). The belief of such an assumed relationship was based on knowledge that the ground water level is related to site properties that can either promote or impede tree growth. Data primarily comprised rasters of the Krycklan catchment in northern Sweden and depicted DTW-index and a laser scanned vegetation height. The 100th height percentile of each pixel in the vegetation raster was assumed to mirror the top-height, letting it act as a relative measure of SP within a delineated area of equal stand age.

The concept of vulnerability is the capacity or the sensitivity to become damaged. Vulnerability are characterized by one or more of the following terms; a system´s sensitivity to exposure to shock, stress or interference, the state of the system in relations to a threshold of damages, and the system´s ability to adapt to the changing circumstances. Vulnerability in this study is referring to the sensitivity of the circumstances that lead to sustainable livelihood that can´t be maintain and that there is an inability to cope with and manage stress. The choice of making a study in this area is based on that action needs to be taken to moderate the vulnerable aspects of society, in this respect in relations to storms. Analyzes of the social vulnerability to climate change or natural events is needed for effective actions.

This thesis includes a review of scientific studies of tree injuries following mechanized thinning. Interviews have been made with drivers of single grip harvesters and forwarders in forest thinning and a number of essential factors have been identified as the most important to take into account in order to minimize and/orprevent injuries to stems and roots of remaining trees..