From economic survival to recreation: contemporary uses of wild food and medicine in rural Sweden, Ukraine and NW Russia.

BACKGROUND: There are many ethnobotanical studies on the use of wild plants and mushrooms for food and medicinal treatment in Europe. However, there is a lack of comparative ethnobotanical research on the role of non-wood forest products (NWFPs) as wild food and medicine in local livelihoods in countries with different socio-economic conditions. The aim of this study was to compare the present use of wild food and medicine in three places representing different stages of socio-economic development in Europe. Specifically we explore which plant and fungi species people use for food and medicine in three selected rural regions of Sweden, Ukraine and the Russian Federation. METHODS: We studied the current use of NWFPs for food and medicine in three rural areas that represent a gradient in economic development (as indicated by the World Bank), i.e., Småland high plain (south Sweden), Roztochya (western Ukraine), and Kortkeros (Komi Republic in North West Russia). All areas were characterised by (a) predominating rural residency, (b) high forest coverage, and (c) free access to NWFPs. A total of 205 in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with local residents in the three study areas. The collected NWFPs data included (1) the species that are used; (2) the amount harvested, (3) uses and practices (4) changes over time, (5) sources of knowledge regarding the use of NWFPs as wild food and medicine and (6) traditional recipes. RESULTS: In Sweden 11 species of wild plant and fungi species were used as food, and no plant species were used for medicinal purposes. In Ukraine the present use of NWFPs included 26 wild foods and 60 medicinal species, while in Russia 36 food and 44 medicinal species were reported. CONCLUSIONS: In the economically less developed rural areas of Ukraine and Russia, the use of NWFPs continues to be an important part of livelihoods, both as a source of income and for domestic use as food and medicine. In Sweden the collection of wild food has become mainly a recreational activity and the use of medicinal plants is no longer prevalent among our respondents. This leads us to suggest that the consumption of wild food and medicine is influenced by the socio-economic situation in a country.

Knowledge production and learning for sustainable landscapes: forewords by the researchers and stakeholders.

This special issue of AMBIO presents a new approach to sustainability science that goes beyond interdisciplinary research. Using coupled natural and human systems, or landscapes, as multiple case studies in Europe's East and West knowledge production and learning toward transdisciplinary research was applied in Sweden, countries in Central and Eastern Europe, and Russia. First, the research group Forest-Landscape-Society summarizes the research program (2005-2012) behind this special issue of AMBIO and its development to participate in transdisciplinary research. Second, stakeholders at multiple levels provide their views on the new approach presented and reported.

Knowledge production and learning for sustainable landscapes: seven steps using social-ecological systems as laboratories.

There are multiple challenges regarding use and governance of landscapes' goods, functions and intangible values for ecosystem health and human well-being. One group of challenges is to measure and assess principal sustainability dimensions through performance targets, so stakeholders have transparent information about states and trends. Another group is to develop adaptive governance at multiple levels, and management of larger geographical areas across scales. Addressing these challenges, we present a framework for transdisciplinary research using multiple landscapes as place-based case studies that integrates multiple research disciplines and non-academic actors: (1) identify a suite of landscapes, and for each (2) review landscape history, (3) map stakeholders, use and non-use values, products and land use, (4) analyze institutions, policies and the system of governance, (5) measure ecological, economic, social and cultural sustainability, (6) assess sustainability dimensions and governance, and finally (7) make comparisons and synthesize. Collaboration, communication and dissemination are additional core features. We discuss barriers bridges and bridges for applying this approach.

Measurement, collaborative learning and research for sustainable use of ecosystem services: landscape concepts and Europe as laboratory.

Policies at multiple levels pronounce the need to encompass both social and ecological systems in governance and management of natural capital in terms of resources and ecosystems. One approach to knowledge production and learning about landscapes as social-ecological systems is to compare multiple case studies consisting of large spaces and places. We first review the landscape concepts' biophysical, anthropogenic, and intangible dimensions. Second, we exemplify how the different landscape concepts can be used to derive measurable variables for different sustainability indicators. Third, we review gradients in the three dimensions of the term landscape on the European continent, and propose to use them for the stratification of multiple case studies of social-ecological systems. We stress the benefits of the landscape concepts to measure sustainability, and how this can improve collaborative learning about development toward sustainability in social-ecological systems. Finally, analyses of multiple landscapes improve the understanding of context for governance and management.

Learning about the history of landscape use for the future: consequences for ecological and social systems in Swedish Bergslagen.

Barriers and bridges to implement policies about sustainable development and sustainability commonly depend on the past development of social-ecological systems. Production of metals required integration of use of ore, streams for energy, and wood for bioenergy and construction, as well as of multiple societal actors. Focusing on the Swedish Bergslagen region as a case study we (1) describe the phases of natural resource use triggered by metallurgy, (2) the location and spatial extent of 22 definitions of Bergslagen divided into four zones as a proxy of cumulative pressure on landscapes, and (3) analyze the consequences for natural capital and society. We found clear gradients in industrial activity, stream alteration, and amount of natural forest from the core to the periphery of Bergslagen. Additionally, the legacy of top-down governance is linked to today's poorly diversified business sector and thus municipal vulnerability. Comparing the Bergslagen case study with other similar regions in Russia and Germany, we discuss the usefulness of multiple case studies.

Sustained yield forestry in Sweden and Russia: how does it correspond to sustainable forest management policy?

This paper analyzes how sustained yield (SY) forestry is defined and implemented in Sweden and Russia, two countries with different forest-industrial regimes. We first compare definitions of SY forestry in national legislation and policies. Then we study forest management planning in two large forest management units with respect to: delivered forest products and values, how the harvest level of timber is defined, where the harvest takes place, and what treatments are used to sustain desired forest products and values. In Sweden SY forestry is maximum yield based on high-input forest management, and in Russia it is forestry based on natural regeneration with minimum investments in silviculture. We conclude that how SY forestry contributes to SFM depends on the context. Finally, we discuss the consequences of SY forestry as performed in Sweden and Russia related to its ability to support diverse forest functions, as envisioned in sustainable forest management policy.

Legal framework for biosphere reserves as learning sites for sustainable development: a comparative analysis of Ukraine and Sweden.

The Biosphere Reserve (BR) concept aims at encouraging sustainable development (SD) towards sustainability on the ground by promoting three core functions: conservation, development, and logistic support. Sweden and Ukraine exemplify the diverse governance contexts that BRs need to cope with. We assessed how the BR concept and its core functions are captured in national legislations. The results show that the core functions are in different ways reflected in legal documents in both countries. While in Ukraine the BR concept is incorporated into legislation, in Sweden the concept is used as a soft law. In Ukraine managers desired stronger legal enforcement, while in Sweden managers avoided emphasis on legislation when collaborating with local stakeholders. Hence, BR implementation have adapted to different political cultures by development of diverse approaches. We conclude that a stronger legal support might not be needed for BRs, rather SD needs to be recognized as an integrated place-based process at multiple levels.

Multifaceted value profiles of forest owner categories in south Sweden: the River Helge å catchment as a case study.

Forest landscapes provide benefits from a wide range of goods, function and intangible values. But what are different forest owner categories' profiles of economic use and non-use values? This study focuses on the complex forest ownership pattern of the River Helge å catchment including the Kristianstad Vattenrike Biosphere Reserve in southern Sweden. We made 89 telephone interviews with informants representing the four main forest owner categories. Our mapping included consumptive and non-consumptive direct use values, indirect use values, and non-use values such as natural and cultural heritage. While the value profiles of non-industrial forest land owners and municipalities included all value categories, the forest companies focused on wood production, and the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency on nature protection. We discuss the challenges of communicating different forest owners' economic value profiles among stakeholders, the need for a broader suite of forest management systems, and fora for collaborative planning.

Protected area as an indicator of ecological sustainability? A century of development in Europe's boreal forest.

Protected area (PA) is an indicator linked to policies on ecological sustainability. We analyzed area, size, and categories of PAs in the European boreal forest biome in Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia from 1900 to 2010. The PA increased from 1.5 × 10(3) ha in 1909 to 2.3 × 10(7) ha in 2010. While the total PA in the boreal biome was 10.8 %, the figures ranged from 17.2 % in the northern, 7.9 % of the middle, and 8.7 % of the southern boreal sub-regions. The median size of PAs varied from 10 to 124 ha among countries. The categories of less strictly PAs increased over time. The proportion of area occupied by PAs is an important response indicator for conservation efforts. However, the use of PA as an indicator of ecological sustainability needs to consider ecosystem representation, functional connectivity and management categories.

Social and cultural sustainability: criteria, indicators, verifier variables for measurement and maps for visualization to support planning.

Policies on economic use of natural resources require considerations to social and cultural values. In order to make those concrete in a planning context, this paper aims to interpret social and cultural criteria, identify indicators, match these with verifier variables and visualize them on maps. Indicators were selected from a review of scholarly work and natural resource policies, and then matched with verifier variables available for Sweden's 290 municipalities. Maps of the spatial distribution of four social and four cultural verifier variables were then produced. Consideration of social and cultural values in the studied natural resource use sectors was limited. The spatial distribution of the verifier variables exhibited a general divide between northwest and south Sweden, and regional rural and urban areas. We conclude that it is possible to identify indicators and match them with verifier variables to support inclusion of social and cultural values in planning.

Evidence-based knowledge versus negotiated indicators for assessment of ecological sustainability: the Swedish Forest Stewardship Council standard as a case study.

Assessing ecological sustainability involves monitoring of indicators and comparison of their states with performance targets that are deemed sustainable. First, a normative model was developed centered on evidence-based knowledge about (a) forest composition, structure, and function at multiple scales, and (b) performance targets derived by quantifying the habitat amount in naturally dynamic forests, and as required for presence of populations of specialized focal species. Second, we compared the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification standards' ecological indicators from 1998 and 2010 in Sweden to the normative model using a Specific, Measurable, Accurate, Realistic, and Timebound (SMART) indicator approach. Indicator variables and targets for riparian and aquatic ecosystems were clearly under-represented compared to terrestrial ones. FSC's ecological indicators expanded over time from composition and structure towards function, and from finer to coarser spatial scales. However, SMART indicators were few. Moreover, they poorly reflected quantitative evidence-based knowledge, a consequence of the fact that forest certification mirrors the outcome of a complex social negotiation process.

Evaluation of multi-level social learning for sustainable landscapes: perspective of a development initiative in Bergslagen, Sweden.

To implement policies about sustainable landscapes and rural development necessitates social learning about states and trends of sustainability indicators, norms that define sustainability, and adaptive multi-level governance. We evaluate the extent to which social learning at multiple governance levels for sustainable landscapes occur in 18 local development initiatives in the network of Sustainable Bergslagen in Sweden. We mapped activities over time, and interviewed key actors in the network about social learning. While activities resulted in exchange of experiences and some local solutions, a major challenge was to secure systematic social learning and make new knowledge explicit at multiple levels. None of the development initiatives used a systematic approach to secure social learning, and sustainability assessments were not made systematically. We discuss how social learning can be improved, and how a learning network of development initiatives could be realized.

Solving problems in social-ecological systems: definition, practice and barriers of transdisciplinary research.

Translating policies about sustainable development as a social process and sustainability outcomes into the real world of social-ecological systems involves several challenges. Hence, research policies advocate improved innovative problem-solving capacity. One approach is transdisciplinary research that integrates research disciplines, as well as researchers and practitioners. Drawing upon 14 experiences of problem-solving, we used group modeling to map perceived barriers and bridges for researchers' and practitioners' joint knowledge production and learning towards transdisciplinary research. The analysis indicated that the transdisciplinary research process is influenced by (1) the amount of traditional disciplinary formal and informal control, (2) adaptation of project applications to fill the transdisciplinary research agenda, (3) stakeholder participation, and (4) functional team building/development based on self-reflection and experienced leadership. Focusing on implementation of green infrastructure policy as a common denominator for the delivery of ecosystem services and human well-being, we discuss how to diagnose social-ecological systems, and use knowledge production and collaborative learning as treatments.