The Arctic region is rich in natural resources such as oil, gas, minerals and fish. Climate change causes the Arctic ice melt, making resource extraction possible as well as opening up new transport routes through the Northwest Passage and the Northeast Passage. This has led to competition and cross-border strife among the Arctic States. The two largest states in the Arctic are Russia and Canada, which are also members of the Arctic Council. Russia and Canada are at the moment involved in several disputes regarding the Arctic territory where the ownership of the North Pole is one example.

The way to acquire forest in Sweden from parents has been unequal, men were prioritized over women, which was the traditional inheritance pattern. Research has made this clearer by using gender, which ?values? our stereotypes of sexes and can help us understand inheritance patterns. The gender determined who would inherit but also the form of ownership, praxis, property rights, regulations, power and work invested made by a sibling could influence. The purpose with my study was to find what conditions governed inheritance of forest on the properties I investigated and what influence gender had.

During the early Middle Ages beech forests (Fagus sylvatica L.) spread out over large parts of southern Sweden. They had a crucial role in human survival for hundreds of years. For various reasons, the beech forest area has decreased since the 1600s. Spruce planted on former beech forest land was the primary reason for the decline during the second half of the 1900s, which made many worried about the future of the beech forests and led to a beech forest act in 1974. This study describes the background to the beech forest act based on parliamentary official documents.

The last century, forest fires have decreased in frequency due to efficient fire-suppression along with the growth of the industrial forestry. Since 1990, fire has been reintroduced under controlled forms to recreate burnt habitats. Many species that are dependent on, or benefits from, forest fires have increased since fire was reintroduced. The importance of connectivity is often addressed in ecological research. This is particularly important for species dependent on short-lived habitats such as burnt forests.

Over 90% of forestry work is carried out today by contractors, thereforeclear agreements between the client and the contractor it is of utmostimportance. Contract Packages for work within the forest sector (APSE) is acollection contract templates that the industry jointly developed for thispurpose. The purpose of this thesis is to examine how forest contractors doto keep themselves updated of the current laws and government regulations,which channels are available to accomplish this and what possible obstaclesmay occur. 20 interviews were conducted with contractors engaged inlogging. The results show, among other things, the availability of and whichchannels most contractors use out of which aggravating circumstances existand how strong they are perceived and what is expected of the client in thisregard..

Forest management contributes to the changes in forest structure by turning heterogenous forests of varied age into homogenous forests of similar age and thus affect bird species depending on different structures or habitats which are lost during forestry. In this report, a study was made to investigate how the amount of decidious trees, dead wood and variation in tree diameter affect bird diversity. The purpose of this study was to be able to give forest management guidelines to increase bird diversity. This study was conducted by investigating 65 transects in forests of different structure south of Linköping, Sweden. Along the 65 transects, birds were inventoried as well as the vegetation.

Authorities, municipalities and county councils have great opportunities to pave the way to a sustainable society. In the public sector, the tax revenue is used and therefore it is important that both employees and societal stakeholders feel that they participate in the sector?s decisions and fields of application. Municipalities and county councils are primarily service organisations. The employees? commitment is necessary to be able to reach set goals, to develop procedures and policies that support the overall political goals, in other words, to be successful in the environmental work.

The present study discusses the political integration of immigrants in local government in the muncipality of Växjö from 1971 to 1991 in the form of representation. The main data source consists of lists of people holding local commissions of trust in the various boards and committés appointed by the municipality council, as well as in the council itself. These data are then compared to population statistics from Statistics Sweden. Main findings of the study are that immigrants are insufficiently represented in relation to their proportion of the population. It is suggested that this is a result of structural discrimination and possibly insufficient socialisation..

The question is who should govern and administrate a municipality owned urban forest? Should societies and the public be invited to participatory planning, who are the interested parties, could they be treated like a group and what are their opinions on administration and management? The study is carried out in a municipal owned forest Vitberget Skellefteå that is widely used by associations and individuals for recreation and training.This has led to several discussions in the local media about the management of the forest, especially in connection to harvesting. The work undertaken here has been to identify who has any interest in the management of the area. After identifying the interested parties, a selection of the societies, schools and pre-schools that actively uses the area as well as random individuals met in the area was interviewed. The questions asked can be divided into six main groups:? Communication with the municipality?s managers for the area? Interference from other activities? Views on forest management? Views on nature conservation? The uniqueness of Vitberget? Development opportunitiesThe crucial factors identified as being needed to succeed in managing an urban forest are long-term administration, information and communication.

The objective of this thesis was to investigate what influence nature conservation measures taken at regeneration felling. Factors analysed were the forest owners´ situation and their characters, and information activities from wood-suppliers and the Regional Forest Board (RFB). The inventory was performed with a posted questionnaire followed up by telephone to forest owners and a posted questionnaire to wood-buyers. The forest owners were grouped in three strata, depending on the quality results (D- polytax inventory) of the taken forest conservation measures, and for this investigation forest owners were sampled from the population in the tree groups. In total 73 % (41/56) of the sampled forest owners answered the questionnaire Group A (17 answers): Good judgement Group B (19 answers): Bad judgement Group C (5 answers): This group was formed from the forest owners that were informed, by RFB, about nature conservation measures and culture history consideration before the regeneration cutting.

Over 90% of forestry work is carried out today by contractors, thereforeclear agreements between the client and the contractor it is of utmostimportance. Contract Packages for work within the forest sector (APSE) is acollection contract templates that the industry jointly developed for thispurpose. The purpose of this thesis is to examine how forest contractors doto keep themselves updated of the current laws and government regulations,which channels are available to accomplish this and what possible obstaclesmay occur. 20 interviews were conducted with contractors engaged inlogging. The results show, among other things, the availability of and whichchannels most contractors use out of which aggravating circumstances existand how strong they are perceived and what is expected of the client in thisregard..

Over 90% of forestry work is carried out today by contractors, thereforeclear agreements between the client and the contractor it is of utmostimportance. Contract Packages for work within the forest sector (APSE) is acollection contract templates that the industry jointly developed for thispurpose. The purpose of this thesis is to examine how forest contractors doto keep themselves updated of the current laws and government regulations,which channels are available to accomplish this and what possible obstaclesmay occur. 20 interviews were conducted with contractors engaged inlogging. The results show, among other things, the availability of and whichchannels most contractors use out of which aggravating circumstances existand how strong they are perceived and what is expected of the client in thisregard..

SummaryBackground: Management control is important for all kinds of activities, both in trade and industry and in the public sector since you must economize on scarce resources. There are nevertheless many different views on management control, which have changed with the times. With regard to the public sector in Sweden, the management control systems have changed radically the last half century, especially from the 1980s, due to depressions and increased focus on effectiveness. New approaches have been taken by many municipalities and county councils, both in Sweden and internationally, where the former management control systems have been abandoned in favour of result control, target costing, and activity-based-costing, for example. Another new approach has been the Balanced Scorecard, which was introduced by Kaplan & Norton in a pioneering article in 1992.The Balanced scorecard is a multidimensional tool, originally intended to be used in trade and industry, but with regard to its nature, it has been adopted even by many non-commercial organizations, especially in Sweden.

This thesis focuses on the perception of immigration and refugees in the commonEuropean refugee and immigration policy. It identifies different discourses andstudies their development and interrelated power structures.Using the discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe, documents from theEuropean Council, the Commission, the Justice and Home Affairs Council andParliament debates are analysed. The study is defined in the time span of 1999-2006, i.e. from the European Council's first agreement on developing a commonEuropean asylum system, following the period up till today.Four discourses are distinguished, focusing respectively on rights, security,European Union's needs, and cultural identity. I use Sandra Lavenex theory ofrealism and idealism to analyse one of the main points in the thesis: There is afundamental schism between the one rights-based discourse, focusing on universalhuman rights, and the three sharing a particularistic focus on immigration as asecurity concern.

The understanding of the role of nature for rehabilitation of both physical and psychological afflictions has greatly increased in the last few years. There?s a lot of science that describes the healing effects of nature. The rehabilitation garden in Alnarp has contributed with very positive results from the treatments of patients with burnout syndrome. In the first stages of rehabilitation, the need for calm is very important and a demand-less and stress-free environment is of essence.