Tropical rain forests only cover around six percent of the world?s land area and contain around 70 % of the world´s animals and plants. Tropical rainforests have been, and still are, negatively affected by human activities. These activities lead to forest degradation which has negative impacts on production and biodiversity. Between 1970-1980 forests in Borneo, Sabah, Malaysia, was subjected to intense logging.

Many Tropical rain forests has been lost or degraded as a result of human activities and environmental factors. Since the level of biodiversity is high in the tropics, maintaining these areas is of great importance. Forests like these are often assumed to benefit from forest restoration and rehabilitation. The INIKEA project area in Eastern Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, aims to improve biodiversity and/or species richness in the degraded forest through enrichment planting with indigenous species. The objective of this thesis was to evaluate how different treatments (liberation, gap-cluster planting and line planting) affect the biodiversity of natural regeneration in different forest types in the Rain forest Restoration Experiment, located in the INIKEA project area.

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 stretch from the riparian zone of a major river, through the mouth and upstream in tributaries forms a range of differing habitats. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of these different habitats on the riparian frog community in primary rain forest in Borneo; i.e. examine whether any gradients could be demonstrated in terms of species composition, diversity and density of frogs, as well as which environmental characteristics that seem to be of most importance in forming habitats of high conservational value. A major river, Segama, and three of its tributaries were investigated. The surveys were carried out at night by searching for frogs visually and acoustically along the streams, from the shore of the Segama river and 400 metres upstream in the tributaries.

Understory vegetation and fungi are regarded as important ecological drivers of processes like productivity and nutrient cycling in boreal forests. Whilst those processes are linked to soil water content, relatively little is known about the sources of soil water for these forest components. During early autumn in boreal forests, temperature falls and large events of rain are frequent which may influence soil water availability. To better understand the autumn plant-soil-fungi water relationships in this ecosystem, I used stable isotopes techniques in this study to examine the water sources for ericaceous shrubs and fungi in a Scots pine forest following a large, early autumn rain event. I hypothesize that ericaceous shrubs of two functional groups (evergreen vs.

Tropisk regnskog i Sydostasien är ett av de områden som hyser störst biodiversitet i världen, av vilken stora ytor är hotat. Ön Borneo drabbades av en katastrof åren 1982-1983 efter att väderfenomenet El Niño orsakat torka med vidsträckta skogsbränder som följd. Detta lämnade stora ytor av Borneos skogar i ett undermåligt, sekundärt tillstånd. På grund av detta startades INIKEA projektet med syfte att rehabilitera skogar i regionen kring Tawau vid östkusten av delstaten Sabah i Malaysia. I denna studie undersökte jag resultatet av rehabiliteringsarbetet på krontaket i tre olika skogstyper genom att ta hemisfäriska foton med en digital systemkamera (DSLR).

Soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks and fluxes in forest ecosystems are influenced by natural and human disturbances. In the tropical regions the highest impacts on disturbance in forest C cycles are related to human activities such as conversion of natural lands to cropland and pasture areas and to forest plantations. The disturbances in the forest C cycles will release CO2 emissions to the atmosphere triggering global warming. In this study the focus was set in subtropical soils in Brazil, south extreme region of Bahia. The aim of the study was to investigate whether reforestation of Eucalyptus plantations under former pasture areas will help mitigate climate change through carbon sequestration.

I denna rapport predikteras livslängden, med avseende på utmattning, för en hjullastarskopa. Två av de mest kritiska svetsarna utvärderas enligt IIW:s (International Institute of Welding) rekommendationer genom nominella spänningsmetoden, hot spot-metoden och effective notch-metoden. Beräkningarna utförs med hjälp av finita elementmetoden. Genom att utföra töjningsmätningar på hjullastarskopan i drift erhålls spänningsdiagram. Dessa uppmätta spänningsdiagram analyseras med rain-flow count-metoden.

To curb greenhouse gases and mitigate climate change is one of the biggest challenges human society face today. Carbon dioxide (CO2) has accumulated rapidly in the atmosphere as a consequence of burning of fossil fuels and deforestation. The aim of this study is to explore two methods to store carbon dioxide in geological formations and biological sinks. The aim is also to discuss the two mitigation options from a sustainable perspective and whether it can lead to a better environment and benefits for local and global societies. The research questions are: Which method to store carbon dioxide, geological or biological, is the most effective? Which method to store carbon dioxide, geological or biological, has the greatest potential to promote sustainable development for local communities?The method used is a comparative case study and presents four case studies that explore the potential for CO2 storage offshore in Norway and Brazil; and in tropical forests in Mexico and Brazil.

In the tropics, logging and wild fire can result in degraded secondary forests with lower biodiversity than in the natural forest. One way to limit forest degradation is to rehabilitate the present large areas of secondary forests. However, there is a lack of knowledge concerning the ecology of tropical tree species and further studies would be advantageous for future rehabilitation efforts of degraded rainforest. The objective of this study was to investigate how mother trees in secondary forest and different site factors affect the abundance and spatial distribution of natural regeneration of non-pioneer tree species in a tropical rainforest in Sabah, Malaysia. The study took place in the INIKEA Forest Rehabilitation Project area, which suffered from wild fire in 1983 and has been selectively logged over both before and after the fire. Natural regeneration and site variables were inventoried in plots, while mother trees were inventoried in the whole survey area.

The global climate-change means increasing mean-temperature and higher precipitation in Sweden, which leads to shorter periods of frozen ground in the forest. At the same time the harvesting machines are getting bigger and more powerful. The forest industry aim at an even wood flow, and the ground damage has to be as low as possible. The two biggest causes for ground-damage is the bearing capacity of the forest ground and the ground-pressure of the harvesting machines. The aim of this study was to find out some rules for the machine choice considering ground pressure, when harvesting on ground with low bearing capacity.A field study, using a Valmet 890.3 forwarder, was carried out where different ground pressures and their effect on the ground were tested on two different types of ground.Additionally, an inventory of damaged harvesting grounds was made.

This is a study about how Swedish travel magazines write about tropical islands with a history of colonization. The study investigates how the islands of Mauritius, the Seychelles, Haiti, the Maldives, the Dominican Republic, Aruba, Zanzibar and Guadeloupe are being portrayed in four Swedish travel magazines.Travel articles published in the travel magazines Vagabond, Allt om Resor, Res and Escape 360° during the period January 2004 to December 2009 have been analyzed through critical discourse analysis.The study concludes that the travel magazines tend to idealize and aestheticize the tropical islands. The islands are being presented as paradises on earth. They are described as fairy tales, magical, dreams and as playgrounds for Westerners. The inhabitants of the tropical islands are being judged by how well they attend to the tourists? needs and wishes.

This report is a joint venture with SCA Forest, Ångermanlands forest man-agement area. The purpose of the study is that SCA Forest wants to know what the landowners in Ångermanlands forest management area think about SCA Forest and who they deliver their timber to. SCA Forest is the largest private landowner in Europe, with an area of about 2.6 million hectares. Today, SCA offers lumber, wood products, tis-sue and packaging and has factories all over the world. SCA Forest has five forest management areas in the north of Sweden, with the headquarters in Sundsvall. A questionnaire was sent to 265 landowners, where they had to answer 15 questions with possibilities to give comments. The survey was sent out on 21 of February with a response requested by 3 of March 125 landowners responded to the survey, giving a response rate of 47%.

This rapport is about how often private forest owners follow the measures proposed in their forest management plan. The survey is made in cooperation with the forest-owners association Norrskog. The private forest owners are relatively satisfied with the forest management plans and with the measures proposed. There are some differences between those who live on or near their property and those who live many miles away. The forest owners who live on their property are those who follow the proposed measure of precommercial thinning to the largest extent. That group also values precommercially thinned stands higher than thinned stands. The complete opposite is the case for the group that lives far away from their property. Almost all of the respondents thought that the forest management plan would be or had been a good help in the decision making about the forest..

The purpose of this report is to find out what different preferences forest owners have in the region where Norrskog have their operation area, what they prefer and think about Norrskog. The purpose is also to compare some of the questions to a similar study that was made in 2008. The study is made in cooperation with Norrskog which is a forest owner cooperative. Norrskog has about 13 000 members which is about half of all forest owners in the region. To get the answers from the forest owners, questionnaires were sent out by mail. 371 were sent out and 102 came back. There were more members of Norrskog that responded than it was nonmembers. The results indicate that the forest owners have long term perspectives, their priorities are to nurse the forest so they can get the profit later on.