Johan Törnblom

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.

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.

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.

Maintaining Cultural and Natural Biodiversity in the Carpathian Mountain Ecoregion: Need for an Integrated Landscape Approach

Landscapes located in the periphery of economic development, such as in parts of the Carpathian ecoregion, host remnants of both near-natural ecosystems and traditional agricultural land use systems. Such landscapes are important both for in situ conservation of natural and cultural biodiversity, and as references for biodiversity restoration elsewhere in Europe. This paper first reviews the contemporary understanding of benchmarks for biodiversity conservation in terms of ecosystems with natural disturbance regimes and pre-industrial cultural landscapes. Second, after providing a historical background, we review the challenges to natural and cultural biodiversity conservation and discuss current development trajectories. Third, we provide concrete examples from six Carpathian areas with different proportions of natural and cultural biodiversity. Fourth, we discuss the need for a diversity of management systems toward protection, management and restoration, spatial planning, and multi-sector governance for conservation of natural and cultural landscapes’ biodiversity. Finally, we stress the need to encourage integration of management, planning and governance of social and ecological systems to maintain natural and cultural biodiversity. The natural vegetation of the Carpathian Mountains is mostly forests and woodlands. Natural disturbances as wind, snow, frost, fire and flooding as well as insects and fungi resulted in forests characterized by old and large trees, diverse horizontal and vertical structures, and large amounts of dead wood in various stages of decay. While some near-natural forests remain, in most of the Carpathian ecoregion pre-industrial cultural landscapes evolved. Human use created traditional village system with infield houses, gardens, fields, meadows and outfield meadows and pastures, and woodlands which not only provide ecosystem services but also represent cultural heritage. The maintenance of natural and cultural biodiversity may require active management of species, habitats and processes. However, designing management systems that emulate natural and cultural landscape’s disturbance regimes is a major challenge requiring collaboration of private, public and civic sector stakeholders, and integration of social and ecological systems. Maintaining and restoring the traditional village system’s social capital as well as functional networks of protected areas and implementing sustainable forest management in managed forests are thus crucial. The Carpathian ecoregion forms a quasi-experiment with new country borders that have created stark contrasts among regions regarding natural and cultural biodiversity. This ecoregion can therefore be seen as a landscape-scale laboratory for systematic studies of interactions between ecological and social systems to support the development of an integrated landscape approach to biodiversity conservation and cultural heritage.

Prioritizing Dam Removal and Stream Restoration Using Critical Habitat Patch Threshold for Brown Trout (Salmo trutta L.): A Catchment Case Study from Sweden

ABSTRACT Catchments form an important terrestrial-aquatic habitat complex for biodiversity conservation and human well-being. Riparian and stream components are debated about how much habitat need to be maintained or restored in rivers subject to habitat degradation and fragmentation. Using brown trout as a focal species we tested the hypothesis that presence of suitable habitat in lotic stream sections can be predicted using habitat modelling. We modelled brown trout habitat at the catchment scale in terms of quality, size, juxtaposition of stream segments using digital elevation data, and presence of dams. The habitat models were validated against presenceabsence data for local brown trout populations. A self-reproducing brown trout population was defined as having three year-classes. We identified the required minimum length (270 m) of a lotic stream section hosting a local brown trout population, corresponding to 3500 m2. Adjacent areas of lotic stream habitat between dams had a significant positive effect on brown trout presence. The abundance of brown trout was significantly positively correlated to habitat quality, and negatively to hydropower water regulation. Critical habitat loss thresholds can be used for gap analysis regarding selection of dams to be removed and where restoration measures will be most effective in a catchment.