Key Points • Understanding the impacts of SDG 16 on forests and people requires attention to the power dynamics that shape how all 17 SDGs are interpreted and implemented across the Global North and South. • As SDGs were agreed upon by nation states, SDG 16 places a strong emphasis on state power and the rule of law. • Yet inclusive governance requires the involvement of diverse actors, and consideration for customary laws and other non-state forms of rulemaking at global to local scales. • Many national laws governing forests and land use favour political elite, large-scale industry actors and international trade. • The development and strengthening of legal frameworks that support all of the SDGs – including those relevant to human rights, income inequalities, land tenure, gender and environmental protection – requires equal or greater priority than law enforcement. Otherwise, law enforcement will reinforce inequities and unsustainable practices. • SDG 16 provides an opportunity to overcome the stereotypes of the Global North as the referential role model for peace and democracy, by highlighting the role of the North in fostering market inequalities and global conflicts, and drawing attention to barriers to democratic and inclusive participation within the Global North. • How transparency, accountability and justice are conceived and prioritised shapes their impact on forests, as well as the degree to which their achievement either empowers forest-dependent peoples or excludes them from meaningful and informed engagement.
After the Vienna Congress in 1815, the Allied ministers did not return home, but continued their negotiations in Paris. They deliberated on the measure of reparation payments and arrear payments that France owed to the other European states. The new peace also rested on financial securities. The United Kingdom of the Netherlands assumed a large part in these conferences, since through the mass of private claims it was France's largest creditor. In this article we demonstrate how, as one of the essentials of the new concert diplomacy of 1815, smaller powers such as the Netherlands were allowed to weigh in on the Four Powers' deliberations in Paris. The political conundrums regarding these financial securities and reparationshave not been charted and analysed before. Through previously unstudied sources,such as the minutes of the Paris Ministerial Conference, we discuss the influence a secondary power could exert provided they deployed smart financial experts. Under that condition large political and financial gains could be made.
Three tense events involving the US Army and the Kiowa, Comanche and Apache nations in Oklahoma in the decades after the end of the Great Plains Wars seemed destined to end in violence: The Ghost Dance in 1890−91, the death of three Kiowa boys in a blizzard in 1891 and the transfer of Geronimo and around three hundred Chiricahua Apache Indians to Oklahoma in 1895. In all of these events a US Cavalry officer, Hugh Lenox Scott, played a key role as a soldier-diplomat. Through his linguistic skills and inter-cultural competence, Scott, assisted by Iseeo, a Kiowa army scout and close friend of Scott's, managed to prevent the three situations from erupting in violence. These outcomes are in stark contrast to what happened around the same time in the Northern Plains, where violence erupted on several occasions, most conspicuously at Wounded Knee in December 1890, when US troops killed between 150 and 200 Lakota Indians. The purpose of this micro historical study is to highlight how the military, in concrete action, could promote peace and development in their dealings with American Indians and to explore the significance of personal relations, tolerance and trust for the maintenance of peace. These factors were crucial for the more peaceful development on the Southern Plains compared with in the north. In promoting peace, moreover, Scott not only acted as a diplomat in relation to the Indians; he also successfully advised his superior commanders not to send troops into the field in order to uphold order and quell any possible unrest. Such deployment of troops, Scott was convinced, was like putting a keg of gunpowder in front of an open fire and risked sparking uncontrolled and lethal violence between the soldiers and the Indians, to the detriment of the latter, as happened at Wounded Knee. Based on his long service as a soldier-diplomat, Scott later in life developed a general theory about the military as a peacemaking institution. According to Scott, it was politicians and the people who made war and the task of the military was to conquer the peace. His styling of the US soldier as the "harbinger of peace and mercy", however, depended on Scott ignoring the many instances when the US military had failed to maintain peace and order, both in relation to the American Indians and in colonies overseas. ; Förmedlare i imperialistisk expansion: Möten och kontakter i USA:s gränsland (1876−1916)
Klep, Christ, Somalië, Rwanda, Srebrenica. De nasleep van drie ontspoorde vredesmissies (Dissertatie Utrecht 2008; Amsterdam: Boom, 2008, 385 blz., ISBN 978 90 8506 668 2)When the Home Front meets Foreign Parts. The Aftermath of Commissions of Inquiry into derailed Peace MissionsPeace Missions take place in difficult and volatile circumstances. It is therefore hardly surprising that some peace missions become 'derailed'. Christ Klep zooms in on three 'derailed' missions in his book and focuses on the value of Commissions of Inquiry which are subsequently set up as a result of public and political pressure. Do they succeed in revealing the 'how' and the 'why' of such derailments and – above all – identifying those who are responsible? Based on a broad spectrum of questions and extensive source materials, Klep concludes that 'the number of escape routes from the labyrinth of responsibility is practically infinite'; a clear message for all those taking part in international and domestic politics. It is here that the author skillfully and expertly succeeds: exposing the complex entanglement of domestic and foreign policy, even concerning events that sometimes happen away from the capital city.
Klep, Christ, Somalië, Rwanda, Srebrenica. De nasleep van drie ontspoorde vredesmissies (Dissertatie Utrecht 2008; Amsterdam: Boom, 2008, 385 blz., ISBN 978 90 8506 668 2).ResponseThe validity of my comparative approach (Somalia-Rwanda-Srebrenica) still stands, in my opinion. At the level of political responsibility and the process of coming to terms with events, the similarities are stronger than the differences. My estimation that the Inquiry reports were 'hijacked' by almost all of the stakeholders involved (especially the Canadian, Belgian and Dutch governments) is more of a matter of fact and a political reality than a reproach that ought to have legal implications. Finally, the question of how far the three governments that were involved learned lessons from the three affairs is difficult to answer. Was it not also the wider developments (for example, the switch from the 'blue' missions to the more robust 'green' missions) that compelled the lessons to be drawn out?
Lawns have a significant influence on the cityscape as one of the essential elements of green spaces and an important part of people's everyday lives. Most people in the Western world view lawns as a compulsory element of the urban landscape, almost an icon, without questioning their social, symbolic, ecological or aesthetic values. This research is a part of the conceptual framework and methodological approaches that are being used in an ongoing transdisciplinary collaboration project to study lawns in Sweden as a social and ecological phenomenon.The overall aim of this study was to investigate social and cultural perceptions of lawns, as well as motives behind decisions about the establishment and management of lawns in Sweden. Two multifamily housing typologies, the 'Million Programme' and People's Homes', were examined due to their dominance in Swedish cities. We also studied how an alternative vision of conventional lawns can be applied and accepted by urban residents. We estimated lawn cover in multi-family housing areas and links to people's perception and use of lawns. Questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and observational studies were used (N = 300). Our results showed that people like lawns even if they do not always directly use them. Lawns cover the most significant amount of outdoor spaces in all multi-family residential areas and accompany people everywhere from the house to the schoolyard or park. The total lawn cover in the study areas was 27.8%. Lawns were particularly valued as important places for different outdoor activities (playing, resting, picnicking, walking, socialising) and enjoying the green colour. However people do not want to use a vast monotonous lawn, but a variety of spaces that provide good conditions for different senses (sound, smell, touch and sight) and activities. Alternative lawns were also appreciated by many citizens, politicians, planners and managers. The implementation of new types of lawns requires special planning and design solutions adjusted for each particular neighbourhood.
In this paper, we discuss the bridging potential of "interspecies" solidarity between the often incommensurable ethics of care and justice. Indeed, we show that the Environmental Communication literature emphasizes feelings of care and compassion as vectors of responsibility taking for animals. But we also show that a growing field of Political Animal Rights suggest that such responsibility taking should instead be grounded in universalizable terms of justice. Our argument is that a dual conception of solidarity can bridge this divide: On the one hand, solidarity as a pre-political relation with animals and, on the other hand, as a political practice based on open public deliberation of universalizable claims to justice; that is, claims to justice advanced by human proxy representatives of vulnerable non-humans. Such a dual conception can both challenge and validate NGOs' claims to "speak on behalf of animals" in policy following the Aarhus Convention, indeed underwriting the Convention by insights from internatural communication in solidarity as relation, and by subjecting it to rational scrutiny in mini-publics in solidary as practice.
Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) has emerged as a promising climate change mitigation mechanism in developing countries. This article examines the national political context in 13 REDD+ countries in order to identify the enabling conditions for achieving progress with the implementation of countries' REDD+ policies and measures. The analysis builds on a qualitative comparative analysis of various countries' progress with REDD+ conducted in 12 REDD+ countries in 2012, which highlighted the importance of factors such as already initiated policy change, and the presence of coalitions calling for broader policy change. A follow-up survey in 2014 was considered timely because the REDD+ policy arena, at the international and country levels, is highly dynamic and undergoes constant evolution, which affects progress with REDD+ policy-making and implementation. Furthermore, we will now examine whether the 'promise' of performance-based funds has played a role in enabling the establishment of REDD+. The results show a set of enabling conditions and characteristics of the policy process under which REDD+ policies can be established. The study finds that the existence of broader policy change, and availability of performance-based funding in combination with strong national ownership of the REDD+ policy process, may help guide other countries seeking to formulate REDD+ policies that are likely to deliver efficient, effective and equitable outcomes.Policy relevance Tropical forest countries struggle with the design and implementation of coherent policies and measures to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. Evidence on which factors and configurations are crucial to make progress towards these challenging policy objectives will be helpful for decision makers and practitioners at all levels involved in REDD+. Key findings highlight the importance of already initiated policy change, and the availability of performance-based funding in combination with strong national ownership of the REDD+ process. These findings provide guidance to REDD+ countries as to which enabling conditions need to be strengthened to facilitate effective, efficient and equitable REDD+ policy formulation and implementation.
Illegal hunting has constituted an expression of contested legitimacy of wildlife regulation across the world for centuries. In the following report, we critically engage with the state of the art on the illegal hunting phenomenon. We do so to reveal emerging scholarly perspectives on the crime. Specifically, we aim to capture the complexity of illegal hunting as a socio-political phenomenon rather than an economically motivated crime. To do so, we adopt a critical perspective that pays particular attention to the societal processes that contribute to the criminalization of historically accepted hunting practices. To capture perspectives on illegal hunting, fifteen researchers from various countries participated in an illegal hunting workshop in Copenhagen 16-17th June 2014. A primary contribution of the research workshop was to bring together criminologists, sociologists, anthropologists and geographers, each equipped with their own research perspective, to engage in a critical and interdisciplinary discussion on how to apprehend and constructively address the challenges of illegal hunting in contemporary society. A majority of those that attended were primarily based in the Nordic and the UK context, which motivated a strong focus on the illegal hunting that currently takes places in these countries. Similar trends of illegal hunting were identified across Europe, many of which traced from EU legislation on the reintroduction of large carnivores or other controversial wildlife conservation projects. In the workshop, proceedings took the form of individual presentations, plenary discussions and group work. Common themes that emerged from these presentations were: illegal hunting as communicating socio-political resistance; the targeting of specific species based on its symbolism or environmental history; illegal hunting as symptom of class struggles; the role of rewilding and domestication of nature on wildlife regulation; corruption, complicity and conflicts of loyalty in enforcement, and discrepancies and discontinuities in legality. These themes were framed in an understanding of illegal hunting as a complex, multifaceted expression that transgresses livelihood based motivation. Critical discussions conceptualised illegal hunting as a crime of dissent. This meant situating crimes as everyday forms of resistance against the regulatory regime. In so doing, the relationship between hunters and public authorities was highlighted as a potential source of disenfranchisement. In this interactionist perspective, illegal hunting tells us not just about the rationales of the offenders. It also elucidates the broader context in which non-compliance with regulation serves as symptoms of democratic and legitimacy deficits on the state level. Erratic transitions in legislation and a subsequent discord between legal, cultural and moral norms in society were identified as factors that contribute to the conflict. Crucially, the research workshop and the report contribute with three perspectives. First, it emphasizes the need to uncover the grey areas of complicity in wildlife crime. Previously corruption, bribery and selective law enforcement have been associated with wildlife trafficking in the global south, but this understanding is too blunt for the complicity that exists in many other contexts. Here conflicts of loyalty exist across several strata of society and differ in degrees. In highlighting this fact, we show a more opaque and contingent climate of complicity around illegal hunting in Northern Europe and elsewhere. Second, as crimes of dissent seeking to publicise injustices, illegal hunting and its associated resistance tactics are counterproductive by constituting a 'dialogue of the dead'. With this is mean that such communication is prone to distortion, misunderstanding and exaggeration and does no favors to hunters. There is consequently a need to move to a clarity of messages, as in institutionalised diogue processes. Third, hunting regulation cannot be seen in isolation to the broader differences in society in terms of values, economic factors and development. Research questions for future scholarship concluded the workshop and are summarized in the report. In terms of illuminating the junctures at which additional research is needed, these questions may provide important guidance. Above all, the report is intended as help for policy-makers, wildlife managers and law enforcement in better understanding and responding to the complexities of illegal hunting. We hope this will lead to more long-term preventative measures that address the core of the issue rather than proximate causes. The workshop was organized by the Environmental Communication Division of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. The event constituted a part of the FORMAS funded research project Confronting challenges to political legitimacy of the natural resource management regulatory regime in Sweden - the case of illegal hunting in Sweden whose members include Erica von Essen, Dr. Hans Peter Hansen and Dr. Helena Nordström Källström from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Professor Tarla R. Peterson from Texas A&M University and Dr. Nils Peterson from North Carolina State University.
Mångbruk av skog är ingen ny företeelse i Sverige. Skogen har alltid på olika sätt haft betydelse för människors försörjning. Dagens definition av mångbruk är att skogen används för flera olika syften (t.ex. skogsbruk, naturturism, rennäring, naturvård m.m.) som kan vara kommersiella eller icke-kommersiella. Inom ramen för det nationella skogsprogrammet har frågan om mångbrukets outnyttjade potential aktualiserats. Beroende på vem eller vilka man frågar, och vilken erfarenhet de har av mångbruk, finns det emellertid olika uppfattningar om mångbrukets potential att skapa fler jobb och hållbar tillväxt i hela landet. I den här rapporten syntetiserar vi kunskap om mångbruk av skog baserat på tidigare och nu genomförda studier och kartlägger och analyserar förutsättningarna för att bedriva mångbruk av skog. Utifrån studiens frågeställningar har vi kommit fram till följande slutsatser: • Naturturism är en primär form av mångbruk med utvecklingspotential för jobbskapande på landsbygden. • Även vidareförädling av olika råvaror och äventyrsbaserade aktiviteter har potential att utvecklas inom ramen för mångbruk. • En väl fungerande samhällsinfrastruktur är en viktig förutsättning för alla former av mångbruk som bygger på att verksamheten ska attrahera besökare. • Icke-kommersiella former mångbruk är en självklarhet för många skogsägare. Man anger självhushållning (av främst viltkött, bär och svamp) samt rekreationsbefrämjande åtgärder (som t. ex. att ordna en grillplats för lokalbefolkningen). • Många skogsägare har inte intresse av att utveckla mångbruk på sin mark, men ställer sig ofta positiva till att andra gör det. • Allemansrätten är en central förutsättning för mångbruk, men det är viktigt att upprätta formella avtal vid kommersiell verksamhet på annans mark. • Mångbruk kan ofta bedrivas i skogen oavsett hur den sköts, även om det finns exempel där särskilt trakthyggesbruk kan upplevas som störande. • Det finns potential att utveckla mångbruk i anslutning till skyddade områden - på så sätt skulle mångbruk kunna fungera som en brygga mellan att bruka och bevara skogslandskapet. • Genom att skapa dialogplattformar som möjliggör för olika aktörer att få en holistisk bild av skogslandskapet och dess nyttjande kan olika mångbruksverksamheter bättre utvecklas både parallellt och integrerat. • Mångbrukets utmaningar liknar andra småföretagares utmaningar vad gäller efterlevnaden av komplicerade regelverk som är anpassade till mer storskaliga företag vad gäller till exempel livsmedelshantering. • Därutöver innebär mångbrukets lokalisering till glesbygd att det finns utmaningar med att bedriva säsongsbunden verksamhet och svårigheter med att finna arbetskraft. Dagens skogspolitik främjar i princip mångbruk, men i studierna som denna rapport bygger på framkommer att mångbruksfrågan är sektorsövergripande och att insatser inom exempelvis närings- och landsbygdspolitiken också behövs för att nå mångbrukets fulla potential. Följande slutsatser från rapporten utgör förslag till hur genomförandet av det nationella skogsprogrammets vision och målet "Mångbruk av skog för fler jobb och hållbar tillväxt i hela landet" kan realiseras, och hur målen "Ökad sysselsättning", "Stärkt hållbar tillväxt" och "Landsbygdsutveckling med beaktande av skogens sociala värden" kan uppnås: • Utveckla politik och styrning för mångbruk inom ramen för hållbar landsbygdsutveckling. • Stärk landsbygdens infrastruktur för att möjliggöra mångbruk av skog. • Etablera arenor för samverkan och erfarenhetsutbyte rörande mångbruk. • Sprid kunskap om mångbruk och satsa på entreprenörskap. • Utveckla former för avtal mellan mångFoto: Maria Groth/Mostphotos bruksentreprenörer, markägare och andra rättighetsinnehavare. • Se över om skyddade områden kan öppnas upp för mångbruk. • Förenkla regelverk för landsbygdsföretagande. • Se över möjligheterna till riktade ekonomiska stöd till mångbrukare på landsbygden.
Adaptation research and practice too often overlooks the wider social context within which climate change is experienced. Mainstream approaches frame adaptation problems in terms of the consequences that flow from biophysical impacts and as a result, we argue, ask the wrong questions. A complementary approach gaining ground in the field, foregrounding the social, economic and political context, reveals differentiation in adaptation need, and how climate impacts interconnect with wider processes of change. In this paper, we illustrate how this kind of approach frames a different set of questions about adaptation using the case of Nepal. Drawing on fieldwork and a review of literature, we contrast the questions that emerge from adaptation research and practice that take climate risk as a starting point with the questions that emerge from examination of contemporary rural livelihoods. We find that while adaptation efforts are often centred around securing agricultural production and are predicated on climate risk management, rural livelihoods are caught in a wider process of transformation. The numbers of people involved in farming are declining, and households are experiencing the effects of rising education, abandonment of rural land, increasing wages, burgeoning mechanisation, and high levels of migration into the global labour market. We find the epistemological framing of adaptation too narrow to account for these changes, as it understands the experiences of rural communities through the lens of climate risk. We propose that rather than seeking to integrate local understandings into a fixed, impacts-orientated epistemology, it is necessary to premise adaptation on an epistemology capable of exploring how change occurs. Asking the right questions thus means opening up adaptation by asking: 'what are the most significant changes taking place in people's lives?', along with the more standard: 'what are the impacts of climate change?' Viewing adaptation as occurring between and within these two perspectives has the potential to reveal new vulnerabilities and opportunities for adaptation practice to act upon.
The 'socioenvironmental state' conceptualisation probes how contested, shifting, emergent boundaries of the state contain the possibilities for transformative change in the Anthropocene. The paper outlines a research programme capable of addressing the questions: who becomes authorised to govern change, who is required to make changes on the ground, and what subjectivities and pathways emerge in the context of rapid rate change? The conceptualisation unpacks three boundaries: state– society, its socionatural emergence, and the relationships between boundary-making and belonging to address these questions and better account for the successes and failures of attempts at governing an uncertain, rapidly changing world. In this analysis, 'environmental change' arises as a stochastic, relational becoming – ecologies and resources are emergent with the social-politics of governing them – suggesting that more analytical attention is required on how 'environmental challenges' and their 'drivers of change' are conceived and delimited. Together, these theoretical insights help reveal the way that the micro-politics of local resource use and the contradictory acceptance and refusals of authority and subjection are not only products of, but also productive of, larger scale political economies, socionatures, governance, and political struggles. The aim is to contribute towards a reimagination of political authority that begins to capture the complex interplay between our attempts at governing a changing world and the inadvertent authorisations, inclusions, and exclusions that we produce in those efforts. The paper partially illustrates the conceptual ideas with an account of forestry and climate change in Nepal. In a context wherein programmes to govern resources have become of global concern, probing the implications of these points is crucial. It is not only that states govern resources with particular consequences for 'environmental change' or 'sustainability', but also that the act of governing resources (re)produces the socioenvironmental boundaries of the state with profound implications for how future transformations can unfold.
Local natural resources (LNRs) are essential for the socioeconomy of rural societies. The United Nations (UN) Agenda 21 and "Our Common Future" state that local spatial planning is central for the prospect of balancing ecological, social and economic sustainable development (SuD). Stakeholder participation in spatial planning enhances acceptance and improves preconditions for successful planning outcomes. Consequently, it is important to increase knowledge about LNRs and the use of them and to integrate such knowledge in local spatial participatory planning with a landscape perspective. These opening statements apply to Swedish boreal municipalities and describe the intentions of Swedish municipal comprehensive planning (MCP). The purpose of this work was to examine and analyze the preconditions for integrating MCP with a landscape perspective in rural municipalities. The thesis is based on case studies in Swedish, rural, municipal contexts reported in five papers. In Papers I & II, local businesses in Vilhelmina Municipality were surveyed to describe the societal importance of LNRs. The results showed that LNRs are vital to 78 % of the businesses, of which half are based on forest farming, and there are strong bonds between entrepreneurs, their businesses, the municipality and LNRs. Papers III & IV present and discuss the characteristics of MCP in theory and practice. An e-mail survey was sent to municipal officials in all Swedish mountain municipalities. MCP-stakeholders in municipalities in Bergslagen, in central Sweden, were interviewed. Respondents in both case studies stated a belief that MCP can offer prospects in planning for SuD. However, resources and stakeholder participation in planning are generally scarce, especially in rural municipalities. Paper V illustrates how new knowledge on forest land use (to support MCP) can be gained by combining spatial and temporal data on forest condition, owners and land use values in a geographic information system (GIS). This thesis provides scientific and practical contributions to aid in efforts aiming for SuD. It is done by framing MCP theoretically and contextually and by suggesting that MCP should be extended to include forest land use and by stressing the rural context in local spatial participatory planning. Opportunities in MCP have to be embraced, but local governments need enhanced knowledge about local land use, specifically forest land use. Moreover, stakeholder participation needs to be developed, requiring more resources. In the case of a Swedish rural municipality, it is crucial that efforts are made to develop MCP as a tool, not just in theory but also in practice.
The subject of this study is the strategic cooperation of the permanent members in the Security Council in the period 1946 2000. Because of their right of veto the cooperation of the permanent members has a significant influence on the functioning of the Council. The most important aspects of the cooperation that were investigated are the intensity of the cooperation and the ef-fectiveness of this cooperation in preventing and ending wars. To investigate these aspects, for both the intensity and the effectiveness measuring instruments were constructed. These measuring instruments were based on comprehensive sets of so-called 'leading indicators' and statistical methods and techniques. The intensity of the cooperation increased gradually from 1946 until 1990 (the end of the Cold War). Then it started to increase rapidly until 1996. From 1996 a slight decrease can be discer-ned. The strong increase in the strategic cooperation of the permanent members in the security Council can be established in all the majors forms of cooperation in the Council: the numbers of adopted strategic resolutions and presidential statements, the numbers of employed means (like peacekeeping missions and enforcement actions) and the amounts of money that were spent on peacekeeping activities. Further it was established that the response times of the Council regarding potential and waged wars dropped significantly since the end of the Cold War. The effectiveness of the cooperation of the permanent members in the Council was, insofar this was measurable with the applied method, not good for many years, but after the Cold War a clear improvement can be discerned. This goes for the prevention of wars, as well as for post war peacebuilding and the ending of wars. Also the numbers of potential and waged wars in which the Council not intervened dropped significantly since the end of the Cold War, as well as the use of vetoes. The large number of potential and waged wars in which the Council did not intervene during the Cold War was nearly exclusively caused by 'non decisions' (the non placing of wars on the agenda), and not by the use of vetoes by permanent members, as is often assumed in literature. Further, a comparison of two phase classifications of the Cold War showed that the great powers, even when there are great tensions among them, are prepared to cooperate in the Security Council to resolve strategic matters, if they consider this in their interest. Analyses of the adopted strategic resolutions during the Cold War revealed that cooperation here was nearly exclusively limited to issues that were not core issues of the Cold War. From this it can be concluded that cooperation against third party states was a basis of cooperation of the great powers in the Security Council. Finally, the results of this study show clearly that the Security Council was regarded and used to a large extent by the permanent members in the period 1946 2000 as an instrument of foreign policy to pursue their national interests, and not as an instrument of the world community to prevent and end wars.
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.
