Suchergebnisse

The concept of integrated pest management (IPM) has been accepted and incorporated in public policies and regulations in the European Union and elsewhere, but a holistic science of IPM has not yet been developed. Hence, current IPM programs may often be considerably less efficient than the sum of separately applied individual crop protection actions. Thus, there is a clear need to formulate general principles for synergistically combining traditional and novel IPM actions to improve efforts to optimize plant protection solutions. This paper addresses this need by presenting a conceptual framework for a modern science of IPM. The framework may assist attempts to realize the full potential of IPM and reduce risks of deficiencies in the implementation of new policies and regulations.

Many urban trees are located on private property in residential areas, but these trees are infrequently included in urban forest strategies and plans, meaning that for most local governments, the complete urban residential tree population, its potential for supplying ecosystem services and its dynamics are unknown. This thesis examined the assessment methodologies of ecosystem services provided by trees in the attempt to provide valuable information about residential trees. The abundance of trees on individual residential properties was tested against potential decision-driving variables, collected using field work, remote sensing, questionnaire surveys and spatial property information. While residents reported positive attitudes to trees and benefits they provide, this did not necessarily result in greater tree abundance on individual properties. It was found that long-term of validation of sampling methods is required for monitoring of urban trees. Remote sensing could be seen as a reliable and non-invasive way to determine canopy cover using publicly available information in residential areas. This thesis improved understanding of residential urban trees and the ecosystem services they provide as the part of the urban forest. These assessment should include social and spatial variables influencing their development to allow residential trees to become integrated into local governance arrangement structure in order to develop informed management approaches for the entire urban forest.

Sustainability reporting has grown in importance and transparency over the years. The reporting has in many countries gone from being voluntarily to become mandatory. This is the case within the EU, which adopted the non-financial reporting directive (2014/95/EU) in 2014. Sweden applied the directive in 2017 in the Annual Account Act. At the same time as the requirements have increased research has showed there is a gap between the content of the disclosed reports and companies' actual sustainability activities. To create a reliable and transparent external sustainability report there is a need to take internal activities into account and collect data for reporting from internal management and control systems. Previous research has also recognised that sustainability needs to be a part of the corporate strategy in order to ensure that sustainability becomes a part of the business operations. In order to contribute to a deeper understanding of any deficiencies between the information provided in sustainability reports and the internal activities the aim of this study is to investigate and explain the implementation of environmental strategies in company's management and controls system. Swedish companies operating in industries with a high environmental impact, the forest-, paper-, mining-, and steel industry, are selected as research objects in this study. A deductive method in combination with a hermeneutic method is applied. Management control systems, corporate sustainability strategy, legal requirements, the Global Reporting Initiative and accounting postulates form the theoretical framework. The empirical result shows there is a gap between the communicated environmental strategies and the implementation in the company management control system in each of the three industries. The result of the study raises questions regarding what the goal is for the communicated environmental strategies and to what extent the strategies are implemented. Another conclusion is that the companies in the three industries do not comply with the GRI framework, when reporting a limited number of environmental performance indicators. In addition, despite of a mandatory regulation for disclosing of non-financial information and the use of a common framework there is no common reporting standard for companies in the studied industries. External stakeholders need to have access to relevant non-financial information to assess companies' impact on the environment. Current legislation and standard frameworks provide a high level of flexibility regarding what to report. In order to achieve a common standard this study shows a need to add a conceptual sustainable framework for accounting and reporting, enforcement mechanisms and regulated common standards to achieve a more transparent and reliable reporting practice.

The forestry and reindeer herding sectors utilize the same land in northern Sweden, and adversely affect each other's productivity. The common pool resource character of this situation has made it difficult to find ways to resolve conflicts that could threaten the two sectors' continued co-existence. A consultation procedure that was introduced to reduce conflicts does not appear to be effective, since conflicts between the two actors still occur. One reason for this failure might be found in the power distribution between forestry and reindeer herding. Earlier research has shown that a co-management system in which the allocation of power between the stakeholders is uneven is difficult to maintain in the long term. However, it is unclear just how uneven the power distribution is between the two actors in this case, and the consequences the disparity might have for the viability and stability of the management system. Focusing on the power relations within the consultation procedures, this paper explores the potential of the present institutional system to take the different interests of the stakeholders into account and to use the consultation procedures as tools for co-managing the forest resources in northern Sweden.

This paper aims at documenting the experience of the Environmental Research Center at the Royal Scientific Society in stakeholder participation in greywater management (treatment and reuse) in the rural communities in the northeastern Badia of Jordan. Stakeholders participating in the management process included local people, nongovernmental organizations, community-based organizations, governmental authorities, scientists and experts from universities and research institutions. The local stakeholders committee, NGOs, CBOs and local people have participated in capacity-building programs, data collection, situation analysis, problems identification, selection of types and locations of treatment technologies and construction and operation of treatment units and reuse projects. Experts, scientists and governmental entities contributed to the development of a treatment technology selection matrix and identification the best technology that suits the study area. The study reveals that the incorporation of input from a broad range of sectors and stakeholders during the project insured cooperative management of the greywater resources and enhanced project quality and ownership.

The question under investigation in this dissertation is whether the management- and market-oriented reforms of public institutions in Sweden of the 1980s and 1990s have affected municipal politics in the direction of more or less conflict. The analysis takes its point of departure from Arend Lijphart's model of majoritarian versus consensus democracy. Majoritarian democracy refers to a form of democracy in which the central role of electing decision-makers and holding them accountable is emphasized. Majoritarian democracy therefore underlines the importance of conflict in politics. Consensus democracy refers to a form of democracy in which the importance of representing the preferences of political minorities, not only those of the majority, is emphasized. Consensus democracy therefore underlines the concern for consensus between political actors. In this study, four municipalities with different political majorities and reform ambitions within the county of Stockholm were chosen for comparative analysis . The study shows that the reforms in all likelihood have affected the political work in a more majoritarian direction. This applies in particular to the efforts of introducing new forms of management. The political relations have become more conflict-oriented and more coordinated or centralized within each political party and between the parties of a leftist and rightist orientation respectively. The political relations within the municipal committees have also become more conflict oriented, primarily by a more public and pronounced expression of divergent views. These results clearly strengthens the argument in Swedish debate that municipal politics is increasingly becoming more similar to national politics, where it is only the political parties in parliamentary majority that governs public administration. The results of this investigation therefore have implications on the organization of municipal politics in Sweden, as it is currently based on a more consensual form of democracy.

Wild animals are used for research and management purposes in Sweden and throughout the world. Animals are often subjected to similar procedures and risks of compromised welfare from capture, anesthesia, handling, sampling, marking, and sometimes selective removal. The interpretation of the protection of animals used for scientific purposes in Sweden is based on the EU Directive 2010/63/EU. The purpose of animal use, irrespective if the animal is suffering or not, decides the classification as a research animal, according to Swedish legislation. In Sweden, like in several other European countries, the legislation differs between research and management. Whereas, animal research is generally well-defined and covered in the legislation, wildlife management is not. The protection of wild animals differs depending on the procedure they are subjected to, and how they are classified. In contrast to wildlife management activities, research projects have to implement the 3Rs and must undergo ethical reviews and official animal welfare controls. It is often difficult to define the dividing line between the two categories, e.g., when marking for identification purposes. This gray area creates uncertainty and problems beyond animal welfare, e.g., in Sweden, information that has been collected during management without ethical approval should not be published. The legislation therefore needs to be harmonized. To ensure consistent ethical and welfare assessments for wild animals at the hands of humans, and for the benefit of science and management, we suggest that both research and management procedures are assessed by one single Animal Ethics Committee with expertise in the 3Rs, animal welfare, wildlife population health and One Health. We emphasize the need for increased and improved official animal welfare control, facilitated by compatible legislation and a similar ethical authorization process for all wild animal procedures.

During the 1990's the diversity idea entered the Swedish socio-political debate under the name 'mångfald'. The concept originated in the United States and discusses how organizations can be more efficient if they combat discrimination and acknowledge differences. This development attracted the attention of mass-media and led to the publication of books, articles and reports that advocated or commented the concept. It had also had effects on policymaking and various types of consultancy work. The present thesis focuses on studying the dissemination of the diversity concept. This is a way of describing how change takes place through the introduction of new ideas and practices and how various forces and obstacles influence this process. In this dissertation it is the ethnic dimension of the diversity concept that is under the spotlight because this is the aspect which has been given most attention in Sweden. Another limiting factor is that the main object of interest it is diversity as a question involving working life and organisation. This thesis consists of three parts. The first part focuses on how the concept was developed in the USA and discusses the prerequisites in Europe for the dissemination of the diversity idea. The conclusion is that although some economic and structural developmental trends are basically the same in Europe and the United States, there are some obstacles due to contextual differences. In the second part the introduction and the dissemination of the diversity concept in Sweden in the 1990's is studied. The main conclusions of this study are that the idea is 're-invented' in a number of different ways as it is diffused in the Swedish context. The idea, that can be labelled as an essentially contested concept, is modified by different actors in several ways. The contextual differences between the USA and Sweden are another reason that the idea becomes modified and watered down during the dissemination process. The third part investigates how the diversity concept is disseminated and implemented in the municipal organization the City of Malmö. Several obstacles to the dissemination process are revealed, for example the complex nature of the organization and the different views on the benefits of a diversity management strategy. These studies of the dissemination of the diversity idea in Sweden points to the fact that the impact of the idea is rather shallow despite the attention that it has attracted in different arenas.

Postgraduate quality management can be carried out from two approaches: the first, (competitive) is based on compliance with academic, scientific and administrative standards, and the positioning of universities in world lists of best institutions; the second (humanist-social) in the commitment of the universities with the solution of the problems of sustainable development. The objective of this article is to review the recent information backing the competitive and social-humanist approaches to quality in postgraduate studies, and on this basis support what should be the meeting point between both approaches in Latin American universities. For this purpose, articles published predominantly in Latin America, and also from Asia and Africa, were analyzed. From the points of view expressed in the reviewed documents, reflections on quality management in postgraduate studies were formulated from the Latin American perspective. It was found that the competitive approach predominates in postgraduate quality management worldwide, and that the social responsibility of universities, and of postgraduate studies in particular, implies a commitment to solving local, regional and national problems, only achievable with a solid social-humanist approach. Latin American universities must combine compliance with competitive standards with postgraduate social responsibility objectives, and assign greater weight to the latter in accreditation systems.

The SURE-Farm project aims to analyse, assess and improve the resilience and sustainability of farming systems in Europe. Farming systems face a whole range of social, ecological, economic and political disturbances and changes, such as sharp market fluctuations, severe weather events, climate change, new technologies, changes in consumer preferences and in governance structures and so forth, operating at a range of scales (local, regional, national and global). Some stresses on the farm system can be predicted (e.g. retirement of farmers), while other shocks are more uncertain and unpredictable (e.g. flooding, sudden price drop, illness). Project's WP2 aims to comprehensively understand farmers' risk behaviour and risk management (RM) decisions, and to develop and test RM strategies and decision support tools that farmers can use to cope with increasing economic, environmental and social uncertainties and risks. WP2 contributes to the development of RM in EU farming systems by understanding and eliciting farmers' risk perceptions and preferences; learning about farmers' adaptive behaviour; learning capacity and preferred improvements of current RM tools; designing and analysing improved strategies to deal with extreme weather; and co-creating improved RM tools and map-related institutional challenges.