Suchergebnisse

The current report deals with the effect of transport time and associated transport conditions on animal welfare and meat quality. The work is part of the EU EU and Animal Welfare Agency /Swedish Board of Agriculture, funded project CATRA (QLK5—1999-01507: Minimising stress inducing factors on cattle during handling and transport to improve animal welfare and meat quality: www.bt.slu.se/catra/). The project was composed of eight work packages: Baseline survey, Effect of transport time (below 14 hours and long distance more than 14 hours), Effect of vibration and motion (to be conducted both in laboratory and field conditions), Optimising pre-and post-transport handling, Air quality in the vehicles, cattle transport logistics including route optimisation, and development of control system. The purpose of the project was to gather sufficient data and to develop methods for controlling and minimizing stress inducing factors during handling and transport of cattle; develop guide-lines and recommendation for end-users, such as meat and vehicle industries and the policy makers, to improve animal welfare and meat quality on the European level. This could be fulfilled through optimization of design of handling areas, transport vehicles, and transport-associated conditions, and by promoting an IT-supported effective logistic system. Hence cattle welfare and meat quality will be improved, thereby enhancing the economic competitiveness of producers and abattoirs. As part of CATRA, this part of the project is the work done in Sweden regarding the effect of transport time, with the objective of determining the effect of transport time (up to ll hours) on animal welfare and post mortem meat quality, when cattle are transported from farms to abattoirs by commercial vehicles. The ultimate objective is to optimise transport time in relation to welfare and meat quality taking into consideration other stress inducing factors. Animals on which the experiments performed were cows, heifers, bulls and calves. Response parameters that were considered were: blood parameters (cortisol, glucose, lactate, CK,), clinical parameters (heart rate, postural stability), meat parameters (bruising score, PH-24, tenderness), and ethological parameters. Input parameters considered were parameters for loading facilities (ramps, lifts), penning systems (stocking density, social group, standing orientation, design of loading compartment), air quality (air speed, relative humidity, evenness of temperature in the compartment, level of NH3, CO2), vibration, transport time, resting time, and feeding regimes. Simultaneous and continuous measurement of heart rate, body temperature, air quality parameters, and video recording was conducted from farm to the abattoirs. Blood samples were taken before and after transport, and also during resting. The results obtained indicated that the transport and handling events are stressful for the animals as a whole, and loading and un-loading are among the most stressful events in the studied conditions. Regarding transport time, the results showed that transport time after six hours is particularly stressful for the animals when transported with usual vehicles without special equipments. In this case, it was reported a significant correlation between transport time and animal stress evaluated by physiological parameters. However, less detrimental effect of transport time on meat quality has been observed. It may therefore be concluded that transport time has influences more on animal welfare than meat quality when transported in conventional vehicles. Transport preceding and initiating conditions and processes such as keeping system, preparation, loading, planning and management, as well as unloading and lairage at the end of the transport chain are important challenges bearing various possibilities to improve welfare and meat quality. Loading and unloading facilities (such as ramp, driveways, and side-block) and quality, of floor have significant influence on both welfare and meat quality. Cattle from tied housing systems are more stressed by transport than untied cattle and there is a greater risk to develop bad carcass- and meat quality. As regard to air quality, the concentration level of ammonia and carbon dioxide increase with transport time and it occasionally passes the acceptable level when only natural ventilation is used. During the field experiment no detectable methane has been found. To prevent thermal stress, the installation of mechanical ventilation system (both for cooling and heating purposes) is recommended. The conclusions deduced from the current studies are as follows: - Transport conditions, as a whole is stressful for animals and compromise their welfare. - Loading and unloading activities are the most stress inducing factors identified using the heart rate measurements and behaviour observations - Result of the analysis of blood parameters showed that level of stress correlates with transport time. Calves are most sensitive to transport time followed by bulls, and cows are relatively less sensitive to transport length. - Transport time after six hours is stressful for the animals when transported with usual vehicles without special equipments. However, less detrimental effect of transport time on meat quality has been observed, - The evenness of temperature in the loading pens depends on season and number of stops - Concentration level of ammonia and carbon dioxide increase with transport time and it occasionally passes the acceptable level.

Biodiversity conservation is an important contemporary issue on global, EU and national policy agendas. However, in the face of human economic development, the important question is how to protect, maintain and restore biodiversity, without compromising economic and social dimensions of sustainability. Two sectors that can to a large extent influence biodiversity are forestry and road infrastructure development. Forestry is a sector very important for biodiversity conservation, since a large amount of protected and threatened species resides in forest ecosystems and many natural processes crucial for biodiversity occur in the forest. In addition, forests and woodlands form a network of habitats for many area-demanding species. Due to intensive forest management and fragmentation of forest and woodlands many elements of biodiversity are threatened, including species, habitats and processes. Road infrastructure development is another process that can negatively influence biodiversity. A growing network of transport infrastructure without doubt affects the functionality of the forest habitat networks. Negative effects include traffic mortality due to road collisions and barrier effect for individuals caused by high traffic volume, noise, wide roads and fencing. Cumulative effects of the infrastructure development can also lead to a loss of different elements of biodiversity at the landscape scale. Poland, with a legacy of less intensive forest management and still without a well-developed road infrastructure, is fortunate in terms of biodiversity maintenance. Due to economic underdevelopment of some regions of the country, Poland is rich in natural values including specialized species, functional habitat networks and ecological processes. However, after entering the European Union, Poland has started a process of rapid economic development, mainly with the help of EU funding. Enhancing road infrastructure is presently a key issue of economic development in this country. Dramatic growth in the amount of new roads can have large scale consequences for the biodiversity of the country, and can even influence biodiversity at the European scale. Policies aiming at biodiversity maintenance underline the need for implementing sustainability ideas in the planning and management for biodiversity. Traditionally, economic, environmental and social pillars of sustainability are identified. To be able to balance these three dimensions in the efforts for biodiversity conservation, there is a need to incorporate social dimensions in the nature science research concerning biodiversity. Especially, consideration of local attitudes is necessary in planning for biodiversity conservation. The aim of this thesis is to examine actors' attitudes and underlying values in two situations of conflict related to biodiversity conservation in Poland. One case concerns forest management in a biodiversity hot-spot, Białowieża forest and the other is about a development of a controversial road project of Augustów bypass. The results show that differences in attitudes may have various sources. The knowledge possessed by actors, their values, as well as scale at which they perceived biodiversity issues were identified as the main reasons for different attitudes. It was observed that in general, the actors whose attitudes were more "ecologically oriented" had to a large extent a cognitive view, that is their attitudes were mainly based on cognition (ecological knowledge) while "socially" or "economically oriented" actors' attitudes were more connected to emotions. In addition to differing attitudes, lack of trust was recognized in both cases as a factor escalating the conflict. The results showed also that legal issues are crucial to consider when biodiversity conservation is at stake. The results may have implications for the practical biodiversity conservation, since they show that both learning and legal incentives would be beneficial for the biodiversity conservation in controversial planning cases. This calls for the need for neutral forum for efficient public participation, communication and trust building between the actors and learning about important issues

The aim of this thesis is to understand the decision-making processes concerning ice-breaking along the coast of Norrland, with the specific aim to analyse the activities of regional interest groups in the Norrland region and government agents at different administrative levels at the key stages of the decision-making processes: initiation, drafting and decision-making. The thesis also explores how institutional factors at different administrative levels affected the agents that were involved at those stages of the decision-making processes. As navigation along the northern Swedish coast must negotiate winter conditions which causes ports to freeze over, the government ice-breaking service functions as an instrument to compensate the export firms in Norrland for these constrains. Year-round navigation in the north Swedish coastal waters was achieved through a series of decision-making processes that took place during the period from 1940 to 1975. These decision-making processes are important to study since ice-breaking was an integrated component of the expanding heavy basic industries in Norrland and thereby for the rapidly growing exports during the 1950s and 1960s. This period is the decisive point in the economic history of the Norrland region regarding how the natural resources should be exploited and how exports should be advanced. This study concludes that the decision-making processes were initiated by government agents at different administrative levels. Official investigatory commissions were set up at several occasions to deal with issues related to the government ice-breaker service by the ministries responsible for ice-breaker policy. It is also demonstrated that the decision-making processes concerning ice-breaker investments were initiated by the government boards that were responsible for the operation of the ice-breaker service. In this respect, the study concludes that the government activities during the initiation stages should not be confused as a sign of regional interest group passivity on these issues. The activities of the interest groups during the initiation stages were primarily intended to draw attention to the problems caused by winter to regional shipping, in order to put the issue on the political agenda. As the decision-making processes proceeded into the drafting stages, the participation from regional interest groups was much more significant as the government offered interest groups forums and procedures for structural consulting through various organisational arrangements. The regional interest groups that participated in those arrangements were industrial firms in the heavy basic industries sector. In those cases other regional interest groups participated, they would promote the interests of those firms. As a result, the final drafts from committees and government bodies included arguments that favoured an expansion of ice-breaking to promote the growth of the heavy basic industries in the Norrland region. The analysis of the decision-making stages suggests that a combination of institutional factors at different administrative levels contributed to the outcome of the decision-making processes. One result is that the general aims of macro policy such as trade policy, growth policy and regional development policy were favourable towards an expansion of the government ice-breaker service, which would benefit the export industries in the Norrland region. Another result is that the sectoral organization within the government maritime bodies contributed significantly to the outcome of the decision-making processes. Large-scale planning and operational experimentation was allowed to take place within the ice-breaker service, which convinced the government that ice-breaking and winter navigation was a feasible transport alternative.

Flyget tvingas ta hänsyn till fåglar kring flygplatser, speciellt de större fåglarna. I viss mån kan man påverka förekomsten av fåglar inom flygplatsområdet genom skötsel, skrämsel och jakt. Fåglarna som rör sig kring och över flygplatsområdet kan man däremot inte kontrollera på samma sätt. Dessa fåglar tvingas man anpassa sig till genom fördröjda starter och landningar med förluster av pengar och goodwill till följd. Även om kollisionsriskerna är extremt små och moderna flygplan mycket tåliga medför varje verklig eller misstänkt incident att planet måste ställas på marken för inspektion och eventuell reparation. Till mycket höga kostnader. Värdet av att ha god koll på fågellivet kring flygplatser är därför stort. Om den kunskapen dessutom kan leda till förslag till praktiska åtgärder som kan minska antalet fåglar som finns "på fel plats vid fel tillfälle" kan en del av problemet med fåglar kring flygplatsen minskas. Av dessa skäl inledde Swedavia Umeå Airport och institutionen för Vilt, fisk och miljö vid Sveriges Lantbruksuniversitet i Umeå ett samarbete för att kartlägga stora fåglars närvaro och rörelser kring Umeå Airport. Här redovisas resultaten av en pilot-studie som genomfördes under 2019. Umeå Airport ligger intill Umeälven nära Umeå stads centrum. Flygplatsen ligger också i utkanten av Umedeltat, ett slättlandskap med jordbruksmark, våtmarker, skogsdungar och gles bebyggelse (Figur 1). Markerna kring flygplatsen är rika på häck- och stannfåglar och ligger dessutom i (minst) två viktiga flyttstråk, ett längs kusten och ett över Norra Kvarken till och från Finland. Som rastlokal är Umedeltat kanske mest känd för förekomsten av stora mängder gäss, svanar och tranor. Antalen av dessa "stora fåglar" anses dessutom ha ökat och förväntas allmänt att fortsätta öka. Även trafikmängden vid Umeå Airport har vuxit och förutspås växa ytterligare i framtiden. Förutom för kommersiellt personflyg används Umeå Airport för sjuk- och godstransporter, SAR och nöjesflygningar (inklusive fallskärmshoppning). Flygplatsen används normalt i ringa omfattning av militärflyg men kan behöva göra det under vissa omständigheter. Sammantaget gör detta Umeå Airport till en av landets flygplatser där den potentiella konflikten mellan flygtrafik och fåglar är som störst. Under andra halvåret 2019 genomförde personal från SLU dels en kartläggning av gässens, svanars och tranors närvaro kring Umeå Airport, dels observationer av dessa och andra fåglars flygrörelser kring flygplatsen. I pilotprojektet ingick också samtal och exkursioner med Swedavias personal och fortlöpande resultatredovisning muntlig och via e-post. Planerade försök med och utvärdering av skrämsel av stora fåglar (främst kanadagäss) kunde dock inte genomföras av praktiska skäl men olika alternativ undersöktes och diskuterades inför framtiden. Pilotstudien skedde samtidigt som ett omfattande vägbygge över Röbäcksslätten drogs igång. Vägbygget bedöms dock ha haft ringa inverkan på fåglarnas närvaro och rörelser. Däremot påverkades de stora fåglarna av den omfattande verksamheten med skrämsel som Länsstyrelsen Västerbotten drog igång hösten 2019. Detta ledde till att provocerade gäss flög över flygplatsen vilket i sin tur ledde till att Länsstyrelsens program fick ändras så att aktiva skrämselåtgärder inte längre förekom. Totalt sett bedömer vi dock att de resultat som pilotprojektet kom fram till är relevanta för situationen kring Umeå Airport ur ett flerårsperspektiv.

The IENE 2014 conference puts emphasis on the "greening" of transport infrastructure: both in respect to a wiser use of marginal infrastructure habitats to favour biodiversity and certain ecosys- tem services, and in respect to a more permeable and safer infrastructure that minimises the direct impact on wildlife. Transportation and infrastructure are recognised as signi cant drivers in the global loss of biodiverity. Their impacts on nature are well described and there is ample evidence for the negative effects of traffic and transportation infrastructure on nature. Even though roads and railroads may occupy but a small proportion of an area, they a ect the entire landscape, cause the death of millions of wild animals, and disturb surrounding habitats through pollution, noise and alien species. The overall impact is evident, but there are means to minimise the pressure, to adjust infrastructure facilities and, to some degree, introduce beneficial services for wildlife. Such measures can and should be implemented as a standard in infrastructure development and maintenance. Knowledge about their functionality and e cacy is, however, not always satisfying. Technical innovations and new mitigation concepts need to be tested and evaluated. Their func- tionality and e ectiveness also depends on the interplay between the transport sector and other sectors of society. Communication, knowledge transfer, and public education are just as essential here, as legal frameworks, policy, technical development and environmental science. European policy (e.g., Green Infrastructure) is developing clearly in this direction, recognizing the transport sector and transportation facilities as important players in the endeavour towards a greener and sustainable future. Obviously, this calls for international collaboration in research and practice, for enhanced exchange of knowledge between disciplines, and for the development of harmonised standards and pro- cedures that can be referred to by international actors. IENE provides this interdisciplinary arena through its conferences and workshops. The IENE 2014 international conference emphasises that transport infrastructure can be planned and designed as an ecologically well-adopted, safe and e cient system, while acknowledging that certain impacts can never be avoided. IENE, together with the Swedish Transport Administration, the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, the Danish Road Directorate and numerous other partners, invites scientists, practitioners and planners, governmental agencies and private companies, NGO's and anybody with an interest in the above to the IENE 2014 conference in Sweden. We welcome new partner- and sponsorships and o er a well-approved and international network for communication and presentation.

Good political science is about making true and important statements about politics. Its first task is to allow this objective to guide practical research -- and teach how to work. Good political science is not paralyzed by the difficulties of reaching one's own ideals. Nor is it more difficult to achieve those ideals than those of anybody more important. Good political scientists note that difficulties are reflected on them, but never let them reduce involvement in political science tasks. Only by way of exception may good political science consist of a discussion of good political science. Adapted from the source document.

When Anna Johanna Grill travelled from Sweden to England in 1788, she was impressed by the vast array of consumer goods in shops. In her travel diary, she writes how the shopkeepers displayed goods in myriad of ways that fooled people into shopping. How did shops look like in Anna Johanna Grill's hometown Stockholm in the eighteenth century and the early nineteenth century? Were there distinctive shopping streets? Who sold goods, who shopped them and what goods were available? How were goods displayed in shops and marketed? How households act in organising their purchases and consumption?
From a microhistorical case studies, this richly illustrated anthology widens the perspective to social, economic and cultural practices in everyday urban life. The chapters demonstrate how shopping streets and shops with their range of silk fabrics, accessories, fashion plates, blacksmithing, wigs and hair pomades not only met the desires of consumers, but also enabled dreams of novel identities and social accession for themselves and their families.

Is it really meaningful to talk about "good" science? We hesitate. We desire good (state) science stumbling near a positivist scientific view. We wish for political science theory -- and practice as much as possible to emulate natural science theory and methodology -- to be objective, to look for hard facts, causal relationships, universal laws, and by using the "right" methods to reach the "right" or "true" knowledge and thus make us the "real" knowledge producers. At the same time we believe it is important to keep the discussion on good science not only alive but also always ongoing. Perhaps this is an ongoing discussion about our research efforts and research ideals of what constitutes good science? It is our guiding principle when we formulated the following manifesto for the good of science. Adapted from the source document.

What is good politics? It is both a knowledge of philosophical, organizational and normative questions. It is about how and where the political science branch of the social science tree grows, of what political scientists really should do and how political science education should be conducted. By extension, it is also about which frames political order, power and social organization can best be analyzed within. There are big questions. Are there any good answers or just bad? Or could it even be that the question of what distinguishes good from bad politics leads to awkward enough paradigmatic, epistemological, and other difficult or insoluble problems that maybe we should refrain from imposing or even trying to answer it? Well, it would actually be pretty bad. Adapted from the source document.

The present study examines the Swedish eco-label Good Environmental Choice (Bra Miljöval); an eco-label that has attained great recognition in Sweden since its initiation in 1989. The focus of the study is on the control function behind this particular label and how the criteria writing and control mechanism are organized. Good Environmental Choice is operated by the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (Naturskyddsföreningen). One of the aspects that distinguish Good Environmental Choice from many other contemporary eco-labels, such as KRAV, FSC and Fairtrade, is that the control of compliance with the criteria is kept internally within the organization. The same person, or group of people, who have been participating in the process of writing the criteria, or standard behind the label, may carry out the control. Thus, the way Good Environmental Choice organizes its eco-label, differs from the norm that has evolved during the past decades with clearly independent regulatory functions: standard setting by one actor, certification by private companies specialized in the control function, and accreditation of certification firms by yet another actor. Given the divergent organization of this particular ecolabel, the study uses a qualitative approach and investigates how the particular way of organizing the Good Environmental Choice label has evolved, how it has been justified, and how people engaged in its organization perceive their work. In the discussion, possible explanations are proposed for the high levels of recognition and credibility of this particular eco-label. Some of the challenges of this way of organizing eco-labels are also reflected upon. At a general level, the study contributes to nuance the knowledge about the workings of certification labels and the prominent position they have today in bridging the gap of trust between consumers and (often distanciated) producers.

This article points out that Henrik Enroth often seeks to reveal things that are not obvious. An invitation to manifest good political science is in that sense an invitation not only to hold anybody to things they want to stand up for, but also to implicitly discern what is especially important to say in political science right now. We may manifest walls around the points of contention, but these texts are actually surprisingly consistent: The main thread associates the good political science with life. Adapted from the source document.