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Come with us on a journey around the Swedish landscape and countryside – to mountain heaths, surging rivers and spongy mires, into ancient forests, through meadows and oak landscapes all the way out to the Baltic and North Seas and their archipelagos.In this brochure we inform people about society's commitment to protecting the natural environment. It also gives some examples of areas that have been protected since the Swedish Parliament set environmental objectives in order to achieve a favourable natural environment in Sweden 1999. In the year 1909, the Swedish Parliament passed an act relating to National Parks in order to protect the natural environment for the benefit of science and tourism. Protecting the environment by site protection according to the environmental code is vital in order to preserve valuable nature in Sweden for future generations. Welcome to the natural world!

Aim: Rarity—an important measure for conservation biogeography—can vary over many orders of magnitude. However, it is unclear which regional-scale abiotic conditions drive processes affecting rarity of endemic species on islands. To support conservation efforts, we (1) assess the main abiotic drivers of endemic rarity, (2) determine how well existing protected areas (PAs) coincide with hotspots of endemic rarity and (3) introduce and evaluate a new hypervolume-based rarity estimator. Location: La Palma (Canary Islands). Methods: We recorded all present endemic vascular plant species in 1,212 plots covering the entire island. We calculated endemic rarity (corrected range-rarity richness for endemics) using a rarity estimation approach based on kernel density estimations (hypervolume approach). We performed a sensitivity analysis based on multiple linear regressions and relative importance estimations of environmental drivers to estimate the performance of the hypervolume-based rarity estimation compared to standard methods (occurrence frequency, convex hulls, alpha hulls). Results: Climate variables (mean annual temperature, climatic rarity, precipitation variability) best explained archipelago endemic (AE) and single-island endemic (SIE) rarity. Existing PAs covered the majority of AE and SIE rarity, especially national and natural parks as well as the Natura 2000 sites. In our study system, hypervolumes performed better than standard measures of range size. Main conclusion: Both AE and SIE rarity on La Palma show a clear spatial pattern, with hotspots of endemic rarity found at high elevations and in rare climates, presumably owing to geographical and climatic constraints and possibly anthropogenic pressure (e.g., land use, introduced herbivores, fire). Areas of high rarity estimates coincide with the distribution and extent of PAs on La Palma, especially since the recent addition of the Natura 2000 sites. The hypervolume approach is a promising tool to estimate species range sizes, and can be applied on all scales where point/plot data are available. ; European Union ; Elite Network of Bavaria

ABSTRACT Nature™ Inc. describes the increasingly dominant way of thinking about environmental policy and biodiversity conservation in the early twenty‐first century. Nature is, and of course has long been, 'big business', especially through the dynamics of extracting from, polluting and conserving it. As each of these dynamics seems to have become more intense and urgent, the capitalist mainstream is seeking ways to off‐set extraction and pollution and find (better) methods of conservation, while increasing opportunities for the accumulation of capital and profits. This has taken Nature™ Inc. to new levels, in turn triggering renewed attention from critical scholarship. The contributions to this Debate section all come from a critical perspective and have something important to say about the construction, workings and future of Nature™ Inc. By discussing the incorporation of trademarked nature and connecting what insights the contributions bring to the debate, we find that there might be what we call an intensifying dialectic between change and limits influencing the relations between capitalism and nature. Our conclusion briefly points to some of the issues and questions that this dialectic might lead to in future research on neoliberal conservation and market‐based environmental policy.

In this eloquent and sympathetic book, Evernden evaluates the international environmental movement and the underlying assumptions that could doom it to failure. Beginning with a simple definition of environmentalists as ";those who confess a concern for the non-human,"; he reviews what is inherent in industrial societies to make them so resistant to the concerns of environmentalists. His analysis draws on citing such diverse sources as Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger, and TIME, and examines how we tend to think about the world and how we might think about it.The book does not offer solutions to environmental questions, but it does offer the hope that there can be new ways of thinking and flexibility in human/environmental relations. Although humans seem alienated from our the natural world, we can develop a new understanding of `self in the world.'The second edition has a new preface and an epilogue in which Evernden analyses the latest environmental catch-phrase: sustainable development

Multinational corporations are not merely the problem in environmental concerns, but could also be part of the solution. The oil industry and climate change provide the clearest example of how the two are linked; what is less well-known is how the industry is responding to these concerns. This volume presents a detailed study of the climate strategies of ExxonMobil, Shell and Statoil. With an innovative analytical approach, the authors explain variations at three decision-making levels: within the companies themselves, in the national home-bases of the companies, and at an international level. The analysis generates policy-relevant knowledge about whether and how corporate resistance to a viable climate policy can be overcome. The analytical approach developed by the authors is also applicable to other areas of environmental degradation where multinational corporations play a central role. The book is invaluable to students, researchers and practitioners interested in national and international environmental politics and business environmental management.

Grasslands are one of California's most important ecosystems in terms of both biodiversity and economic value. Bringing together the large amount of research conducted in recent years on California's grasslands, this comprehensive, state-of-the-art sourcebook addresses the pressing need to understand this unique habitat. Providing an authoritative summary of current grassland science and management, leading scholars examine the history of grasslands from the Pleistocene through European settlement; describe resources that influence grassland structure and productivity focusing on water, nutrient dynamics, global environmental change, and soil biology; explore genetics, ecological interactions, grazing systems, and fire; and discuss grassland management, restoration, and public policy

In Engineering Vulnerability Sarah E. Vaughn examines climate adaptation against the backdrop of ongoing processes of settler colonialism and the global climate change initiatives that seek to intervene in the lives of the world's most vulnerable. Her case study is Guyana in the aftermath of the 2005 catastrophic flooding that ravaged the country's Atlantic coastal plain. The country's ensuing engineering projects reveal the contingencies of climate adaptation and the capacity of flooding to shape Guyanese expectations about racial (in)equality. Analyzing the coproduction of race and vulnerability, Vaughn details why climate adaptation has implications for how we understand the past and the continued human settlement of a place. Such understandings become particularly apparent not only through experts' and ordinary citizens' disputes over resources but in their attention to the ethical practice of technoscience over time. Approaching climate adaptation this way, Vaughn exposes the generative openings as well as gaps in racial thinking for theorizing climate action, environmental justice, and, more broadly, future life on a warming planet.Duke University Press Scholars of Color First Book Award recipient

"New initiatives recognize that resource wealth can provide a means, when properly used, for poorer nations to decisively break with poverty by diversifying economies and funding development spending. Extractive Industries: The Management of Resources as a Driver of Sustainable Development explores the challenges and opportunities facing developing countries in using oil, gas, and mining to achieve inclusive change. While resource wealth can yield prosperity it can also, when mismanaged, cause acute social inequality, deep poverty, environmental damage, and political instability. There is a new determination to improve the benefits of extractive industries to their host countries, and to strengthen the sector's governance. Extractive Industries provides a comprehensive contribution to what must be done in this sector to deliver development, protect often fragile environments from damage, enhance the rights of affected communities, and support climate change action. It brings together international experts to offer ideas and recommendations in the main policy areas. With a breadth of collective insight and experience, it argues that more attention must be given to the development role of extractive industries, and looks to the future to explain how action on climate change will profoundly shape the sector's prospects."

The thesis deals with the question of why no international legally binding instrument for forest policy exists so far. The thesis shows that the problem definition presents a form of control for the decision making process and for the problem solution. Therefore, it is demonstrated how locations, reports and non-human objects are related to the development of international forest policy within United Nations. In the development of international forest policy, the policy problem was framed as "deforestation and degradation of tropical forests". In the second phase of policy formulation, the "deforestation and degradation of all forests" moves to the centre of interests. The thesis analyses furthermore the formation of meaning of the policy narratives that are intertwined with international forest policy. The identification of global environmental discourses that transfer a certain kind of meaning of policy and of problem solution, that operate with discursive practices and technologies of power, and that use rhetorical devices, allows to show which rules and practices influence how natural resource policy arises. In this way it can be shown how policy problems come into being and how they are understood. Furthermore, it allows identifying policy change in a non-decision-making process.

It is estimated that every year the world's population uses 1.5 times the planet's renewable resources. This trend can only increase as the middle classes everywhere are growing and extreme poverty is decreasing. In this context, the circular economy is attracting growing interest from citizens, entrepreneurs, governments and the academic world. To avoid the depletion of natural resources, this economy of "tomorrow" proposes the intensification of recycling - even the end of waste -, sustainable management of resources, collective policies governing production, as well as the use of goods and services. services rather than private policies that promote ownership and unlimited growth. This book, written under the auspices of the Institute for the Environment, Sustainable Development and the Circular Economy (EDDEC), presents the reflections of 50 experts, particularly in environment, industrial or chemical engineering, management, but also in economics, geography, anthropology and philosophy. In an accessible language, it takes stock of the need to turn to a model that respects nature and specifies the stakes of the survival of humanity.