Suchergebnisse

The population of the European eel Anguilla anguilla (L.) is in severe decline. In 2007, the European Union decided on a Regulation establishing measures for the recovery of the stock of European eel, obliging its Member States to implement a national Eel Management Plan by 2009. According to this Regulation, Member States will report to the Commission by July 2012, on the implementation of their Eel Management Plans and the progress achieved in protection and restoration. The current report provides an assessment of the eel stock in Sweden as of spring 2012, intending to feed into the coming Swedish post-evaluation reporting. In this report, the impacts on the stock are assessed - of fishing, restocking and of the mortality related to hydropower generation. Other anthropogenic actions, (climate change, pollution, spread of parasites, disruption of migration by transport, etc) probably have an impact on the stock too, but these factors are hardly quantified and no management targets have been set. For that reason, and because these factors were not included in the EU Eel Regulation, these other factors were excluded from this technical evaluation. In this report, focus is on the quantification of the biomass of silver eel escaping (actual, potential and pristine) and the mortality endured by those eels during their lifetime. The assessment is broken down on a regional basis, with different impacts dominating in different areas. For the yellow eel fishery on the West Coast, the assessment presented in the Eel Management Plan is extrapolated to most recent years. Since 2009, the fishery has been restricted severely, and as of spring 2012, it has been closed. In the coming years, this reduction in fishing mortality will lead to a recovery of the West Coast stock to the best possible status given the depleted state of the whole international stock. For the stock in inland waters, a new assessment is presented, in which the dominant contribution from past restocking is put central. Recent changes (increased quantities, shift to west-ward flowing rivers) will have a delayed effect over the coming 10-20 years. The escapement biomass is expected to decrease until 2020 and then to restore to its current (low) value. Assuming that current conditions (2011) are continued, the impact of the fishery will slowly decline, while the impact of hydropower generation will stabilise/increase, at least until 2030. For the East Coast fishery on silver eel, a new assessment indicates a low mortality on a very large stock of silver eel derived from all over the Baltic. Recent restrictions have reduced the East Coast fishery. Protective actions in the whole Baltic (and their delayed effects) will determine the future trend in the East Coast fishery. Comparing the overall status of the national Swedish eel stock to the management targets, it is concluded that 1. Criteria of the Swedish Eel Management Plan have been fulfilled almost exactly; 2. Biomass escaping is about one-fourth of pristine escapement, below the minimum target of 40% set in the EU Regulation; and 3. The 2011 anthropogenic impacts are about half the allowable maximum (according to the ICES/WGEEL post-evaluation framework, at one-fourth of pristine escapement). Following the current closure of the West Coast fishery, the impacts will reduce to one-quarter of that allowable maximum.

Constitutional reform measures, currently in committee, are going to be brought before voters in an election scheduled to take place in the year 2010. Proposed measures meeting all requirements, including voter approval, will then go into effect at the beginning of 2011. Political science professor Torbjorn Bergman and Magnus Blomgren (Ph.D.) are currently engaged in a project that involves analyzing the constitutional reform process. This project is taking place over a three-year time span, from 2008-2010. While previous research has explored constitutional reform efforts retroactively, Bergman and Blomgren have adopted a unique approach in that they seek to analyze the constitutional reform process while it is in progress. Adapted from the source document.

Swedish political science has been based on a science historian perspective that has been an exciting and dynamic field over the last decade. During that time, I have had an idea for a historical thesis project to study the internal quality assessment in the subject during the previous half century. The project has been empirically based on peer reviews from professor added solutions. Adapted from the source document.

The restriction on seed treatments containing neonicotinoid insecticides in the European Union has brought crop protection into focus for oilseed rape (Brassica napus L.). In spring sown oilseed rape, neonicotinoid seed treatments have mainly been used for protection against flea beetles (Phyllotreta spp.), and there is now a need to evaluate alternative control methods. We investigated the effect of reduced tillage and altered seeding date on flea beetle crop damage in spring oilseed rape in eight field experiments over three years in south central Sweden. The average proportion of cotyledon area damaged by flea beetles was not affected by the tillage treatment. Proportion of crop damage was, however, lower in early seeded compared to late seeded plots (0.21 compared to 0.28). We conclude that earlier seeding holds promise to be incorporated into an integrated pest management program for flea beetles in spring oilseed rape, whereas further research on reduced or zero tillage strategies for flea beetle control is warranted.

In the extensive media coverage of the general election in 2010, one feature made a particularly lasting impression. Swedish Radio invited seven prominent members of parliament, each prompted to read and reflect upon modernist Gunnar Ekelof's 1941 poem "En varld ar varje manniska" In an attempt to examine a key aspect of the mutual relation between literature and politics, this article analyses the show and its reception in media, identifying the dichotomization of politics and literature as a central characteristic. Literature -- both from a consumer's and a producer's perspective -- is depicted as independent from, and in every way contrasting, everyday political life. I will thus argue that while Ekelof isn't appropriated ideologically in a traditional manner, e.g. using his poems to support a political argument, he (and literature in general) becomes a means to step out of an official position, instead assuming the role of a fellow man. This should in turn be understood as a claim for political legitimacy stemming from the 1800th century European reinterpretation of public relations in intimate terms. Adapted from the source document.

The main purpose of this essay was to study whether niche parties that were represented in municipal councils in Sweden during the 2007-2010 term of office were politically relevant. Furthermore, factors that might facilitate political relevance for niche parties were studied. Political relevance was studied using two theoretical perspectives. The objective model of political relevance presents four categories of relevance based on the relations between political parties in a political assembly; governing parties, coalition parties, blackmail parties and isolated parties. The subjective model of political relevance relies on the party representatives' own judgments of the relevance of their parties. To study objective and subjective political relevance, party representatives were interviewed. The results showed that seven out of eight niche parties were politically relevant according to the objective model, and six out of eight niche parties were relevant according to the subjective model. For the study of possible facilitating factors, a comparative table was formed using statistics and official data. Percentage of seats and type of majority coalition seemed to affect the possibilities for niche parties to become governing parties. A large percentage of seats and being represented on the municipal executive board and committees seemed to facilitate subjective political relevance.

The article is a study of politicians' views on literature based on motions and debates in the Swedish parliament 2000 -- 2010. The aim is to investigate the political agenda for literature and the functions ascribed to literature, reading and books during the period. The first part examines the uses of the concepts literature, reading, and books and these notions are traced into ideology as well as theoretical traditions within literary studies. The ways these concepts are used has political consequences for regulations and support of literature and book trade as a whole. Literature is throughout the period and by most speakers credited with a particular value and becomes a symbol of a better and more democratic world. This utopian vision of literature is significant as it is transformed into real-life politics and regulations. Adapted from the source document.

This dissertation studies the development of the environmental issue from a discursive perspective. Through an analysis of views on nature and the environment in several NGOs and main political organs, the dissertation tries to explain how a certain view became hegemonic. The analysis pertains to the period between the publication of Silent Spring in 1962 and the introduction of the concept sustainable development by the UN in 1987. From a realistic starting point and with critical discourse analysis (CDA) as its method, the dissertation aims to identify causal powers and mechanisms that have generated and institutionalized the environmental discourse. An analytical model is developed and applied on three levels; a sociolinguistic, institutional, and macrosocial level; which also reflect the methodological progression of the study from description to explanation. The result shows that the discursive practice was hegemonized by a Western view promoting economic growth. This discourse gradually gained ground at the expense of an anti-systemic discourse which posited structural societal changes as the answer to environmental problems. Mechanisms such as the exclusion of some views and actors from common discursive practices were crucial for the process of homogenizing the discourse and developing consensus. Through incorporating that part of the environmental movement which did not fight the dominant economic and political system, the UN turned it into support for its own project, which is part of the process of hegemony. At the same time the environmental objectives of the hegemonic discourse were established in the institutional spheres. The institutionalization of the environmental issue changed the focus from social critique to a question of development and technology, something which helped displace the original critical and partially anti-systemic character of environmental discourse. Through turning the critical and negative account of the situation into a more harmonious and hopeful vision, for instance in terms of sustainable development, a foundation was laid for the later development of ecological modernization. When the hegemonic discourse invested the concept of sustainable development with emphases on progress and economic growth, it encapsulated the environmental issue within the framework of the prevailing social system. ; With summary in English and Spanish/Con resumen en inglés y en español

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the implementation of a political aim – formulatedfrom a context of sustainable development. In 2006 both the Swedish national Parliament andthe municipality of Växjö (among others) stated that 25% of publically served food wouldstem from organic production by the end of 2010. The thesis investigates the outcome of theimplementation of this policy in a local perspective - looking at one part of the public sectorby focusing on four differently organized schools within Växjö municipality. School food in Sweden has a specific institutional setting. It holds the almost unique statusas a non-charged, legal right to all pupils in the compulsory school system. School food as apublic good is affected by the EU legislation of public procurement. The thesis studies theoverall institutional framework (i.e. legislation and regulations) fundamental to school food.With the institutional framework in mind the thesis also describes different organizationalactivities connected to school food. Thus the thesis involves four geographical levels: Theregional (EU), the national, the local and the individual level. The latter is defined in theorganized context from a number of individual professionals. Some of these individuals arefurther considered as so called street level bureaucrats – officials sandwiched between superiorsand their clients. The thesis builds a conceptual framework based on institutional, organizational and streetlevel theory together with policy analysis. Methodologically the thesis is formed around andcarried out as a local case study through a number of semi-structured qualitative interviews.The empirical and analytical part of the thesis is further structured around the three theoreticalconcepts. From the thesis´ purpose three guiding questions were outlined. The main implications of the thesis are that a number of factors were found to be involvedin the policy implementation. The most significant factors for the policy implementation arefirstly the formulation of the political goal, and secondly the individual professionals actuallybuying the food for the schools. As long as the policy of the school food is non-forcing (i.e. anaverage aim of the public sector, and not included in the legislation) the final outcome of thefood depends on the decisions made by the buyer. There is disagreement of the policy intention and of whether organic food is more sustainablethan other food. Thus I end the thesis by suggesting a change of concepts if the politicalaim is to reach sustainability. I encourage a system to control the food´s total ecological footprint.This would be achieved by formulating the policy around a suggested level of the ecologicalfootprint. The level would be calculated and set where experts say it´s in accordancewith sustainable development. From this the street level bureaucrats can sum up the componentsof the lunch they buy and serve. No matter if the individual product is labeled organic,local, conventional, or… This would – according to me – improve the chances for Växjö actually to live up to itslogo: the greenest city in Europe. At least this idea could awake a debate. ; Opposition kl. 13.15

The World Health Organisation reports a big deficit in the supply of animal protein in developing countries. Pig production in the tropics has been recommended as a likely solution to this deficiency, which also provides important sources of income (Ajala, 2007; Kagira et al., 2010; Lekule & Kyvsgaard, 2003). Pigs have high reproducibility with early maturation and a short generation interval as well as high feed conversion efficiency and comparatively small space requirements. Therefore, in many countries it is a governmental goal to promote pig production (Ajala, 2007; Kagira et al., 2010; Lekule & Kyvsgaard, 2003; Muhanguzi et al., 2012; Mutua et al., 2010).

The European Commission expects the use of biomass for energy in the EU to increase significantly between 2010 and 2020 to meet a legally binding target to cover at least 20% of EU's total energy use from renewable sources in 2020. According to estimates made by the member states of the EU, the direct supply of biomass from forests is expected to increase by 45% on a volume basis between 2006 and 2020 in response to increasing demand (Beurskens LWM, Hekkenberg M, Vethman P. Renewable energy projections as published in the national renewable energy action plans of the European Member states. ECN and EEA; 2011. http://https://www.ecn.nl/docs/library/report/2010/e10069.pdf [accessed 25.04.2014]; Dees M, Yousef A, Ermert J. Analysis of the quantitative tables of the national renewable energy action plans prepared by the 27 European Union Member States in 2010. BEE working paper D7.2. Biomass Energy Europe project. FELIS Department of Remote Sensing and landscape information Systems, University of Freiburg, Germany; 2011). Our aims were to test the hypotheses that European private forest owners' attitudes towards supplying woody biomass for energy (1) can be explained by their responses to changes in prices and markets and (2) are positive so that the forest biomass share of the EU 2020 renewable energy target can be met. Based on survey data collected in 2010 from 800 private forest owners in Sweden, Germany and Portugal our results show that the respondents' attitudes towards supplying woody biomass for energy cannot be explained as direct responses to changes in prices and markets. Our results, furthermore, imply that European private forest owners cannot be expected to supply the requested amounts of woody biomass for energy to meet the forest biomass share of the EU 2020 renewable energy target, at least if stemwood is to play the important role as studies by Verkerk PJ, Anttila P, Eggers J, Lindner M, Asikainen A. The realisable potential supply of woody biomass from forests in the European Union. For Ecol Manag 2011;261: 2007-2015, UNECE and FAO. The European forest sector outlook study,II 2010-2030. United Nations, New York and Geneva; 2011 [abbreviated to EFSOS II] and Elbersen B, Staritsky I, Hengeveld G, Schelhaas MJ, Naeff H, Bottcher H. Atlas of EU biomass potentials; 2012. Available from: http://www.biomassfutures.eu [accessed 14.10.2013] suggest. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Det är uppenbart att det mediala intresset för stadsodling har vuxit påtagligt de senaste åren. En sökning i databasen Retriever visar en ökande användning av begreppet "urban odling" och en starkt ökande användning av ordet "stadsodling". Olika medier påverkar så klart varandra. Radioprogrammet Odla med stadsgrönt började sändas våren 2009. Medier påverkar politiken som i sin tur påverkar medier. Den förste oktober 2009 lämnades motionen "Stadsodling viktig i hållbara städer" in till riksdagen. Såväl media som politik påverkar och påverkas av praktiken. Våren 2009 började projektet Barn i stan odla i stadsdelen Seved i Malmö, ett projekt som uppmärksammats flitigt i media. Samma år började organisationen Stadsjord odla i stadsdelen Högsbo i Göteborg, även det flitigt uppmärksammat i media. Den statliga Delegationen för hållbara städer har beviljat bidrag till åtminstone fyra planeringsprojekt med inriktning mot stadsodling: SLU (sökt 2009), Plantagon (två projekt sökta 2010) samt Falun kommun (sökt 2012). Även investeringsprojekt har haft inslag av stadsodling, till exempel Malmö stads ansökan "Hållbar stadsomvandling Malmö, Fokus Rosengård" ( sökt 2010). Stadsodling finns med som ett inslag i flera aktuella stadsförnyelse- och stadsbyggnadsprojekt. Det har fått fungera som en symbol för kombinationen av ekologisk och social hållbarhet. En viktig fråga att reflektera över är därför hur hållbar stadsodling är. Vad kan vi ha för nytta av stadsodling? Hur kan odling ta plats i städerna? Hur kan vi stadsodla på ett hållbart sätt?

During the spring of 2020, the corona pandemic created an entirely new context for university employees to work within. In a matter of weeks, it became customary to replace physical meetings with digital alternatives whenever possible. Conferences, seminars, meetings and doctoral thesis defences – among other activities – were moved to digital platforms. Meanwhile, many activities were either postponed or cancelled. The crisis resulted in a vast decrease in air travel and significantly reduced physical mobility. Increased digitalisation and reduced emissions from aviation were central to SLU's policies and strategies prior to the corona pandemic. A part of SLU's ambition of becoming a climate-neutral university by 2027 is to significantly reduce emissions from business trips and, since 2016, SLU is requested by the Swedish government to increase the share of digital and travel free meetings. SLU is also developing a new strategy for 2021-2025. A better understanding of the implications of increased digitalisation is highly relevant in this work. This study aims to provide a better understanding of how SLU staff members experienced the drastic reduction in travel and the increased use of digital solutions during the spring of 2020. We also want to shed light on what types of activities – that originally were intended to include a business trip – could be replaced by a digital alternative with maintained or improved quality and what activities that on the contrary were difficult or impossible to carry out using a digital alternative. In order to fulfil our aims, we conducted a mixed-methods study based on semistructured interviews and an online survey. The results from the survey indicate that a majority (83%) of the respondents have experienced that their work in general was either mainly positively affected, equal parts negatively and positively affected, or not affected at all by the decrease in business travel and increase in digital meetings. The respondents also painted a picture as to what activities that can work well and what activities that will be difficult to perform digitally after the corona crisis. Fieldwork stood out as the least suitable activity to perform digitally, as 60% of the respondents could imagine replacing 0% or 0-25% of the fieldwork with digital solutions. What stood out on the opposite side was that a vast majority thought that between 50-100% of project meetings, administrative meetings and seminars could be replaced with digital options. As for workshops, conferences, and reviews and presentation of research, the opinions varied much more. These findings also resonate with the experiences that were brought up in the interviews. Summary Some of the main findings in the interviews was that digital meetings were perceived as more efficient, but that they lacked in terms of social and creative aspects. Furthermore, informants largely agreed that brainstorming, spontaneous discussions and forming of new relationships was harder to achieve digitally. On the other hand, well-structured interactions with a clear agenda between people that had previously met in person worked excellent on digital platforms. Many informants expressed that they were surprised regarding how well the digital meetings had worked and pointed to the many benefits of replacing travel with digital solutions in terms of increased equality, accessibility, efficiency, reduced stress and reduced emissions. Looking forward, participants talked about a better mix of digital and physical activities. Many believed that some activities – for example establishing new relationships and performing fieldwork – to a larger extent than other activities require travel for maintained quality. Other types of activities – such as administrative meetings, project meetings, seminars and presentations – were considered possible to replace with digital solutions to a higher degree with maintained, or even enhanced, quality of work and life. The study concludes: * A majority of the SLU employees that participated in our study reported that it in general had worked well to replace longer business trips with digital alternatives during the spring of 2020. * Our quantitative findings illustrate that an overwhelming majority of the respondents thought that their work and research either had been mainly positively affected, equal parts positively and negatively affected, or not affected at all by them not being able to travel. * Certain types of fieldwork and data collection, as well as activities requiring spontaneous discussions and networking were experienced as the most difficult to perform digitally. * Well-structured interactions with a clear agenda and people that had previously met in person, as well as activities such as administrative meetings, project meetings and seminars, were perceived as most suited to perform digitally. * The study recommends a better mix between digital and physical meetings in a post-corona context. SLU should strategically make use of digital solutions and replace longer business trips to improve the work situation of the employees, the quality of their work in addition to reducing GHG emissions.

In 1974, Sweden adopted a new Constitution. In Contrast to the previous one from 1809, which was based on ideas of separations-of-powers and which literally defined the monarch as a powerful political actor, the new constitution placed the parliament (The Riksdag) at the center of political decision making and removed the king from political power. At the time, this removed a huge discrepancy between the letter of the constitution and the "living constitution" which placed emphasis on parliamentary sovereignty of the Westminster type. Hut 35 years later, ideas of separation-of-powers and the necessity of control of suspicious politicians have grown stronger. A constitutional revision in 2010 introduces measures that are akin to what has recently been labeled the Madisonian turn in Western politics. Adapted from the source document.

This study investigates the contribution of forest carbon sequestration to a cost-efficient EU climate policy from 2010 to 2050 under conditions of uncertainty. We note that there is a trade-off between sequestration and alternative uses of forests such as bioenergy and timber production. A dynamic and probabilistic cost-minimization model is developed, which includes fossil fuel use within the EU Emissions Trading System and forest management in the EU-27 countries. The results suggest that if policy makers wish to meet emissions targets with 80% certainty, this goal will be eight times more expensive than when they were unconcerned with uncertainty. Policy makers' risk attitudes affect forest management strategy primarily through the inclusion of wood products, where potential carbon emissions reductions are high but also highly uncertain. Excluding wood products from a climate strategy can be expensive if policy maker are insensitive to uncertainty.