Kati Vierikko

Meeting the ecological, social and economic needs of sustainable forest management at a regional scale

Abstract Sustainable forest management (SFM) has a long tradition in Finland, and modern sustainability concepts link economic, ecological and social aspects. The ecological aspect refers to the maintenance of biodiversity and the long-term functionality of forests, while the economic aspects concern continuity of timber supply. Socially sustainable forest management takes multiple use into consideration. These three components of SFM are commonly regarded as competing, or even exclusive, suggesting that there are trade-offs between them. Relationships between components of SFM, however, differ across spatial and temporal scales. Interdisciplinary research is needed to explore the interaction between sustainability components. This study explored the interrelationships between ecological, social and economic sustainability at the regional scale. Regional differences of sustainability components were also studied. Two economic, two social and eight ecological variables were included in the analyses. The study covered 41 regional municipality complexes in central Finland. The results show trade-offs between some ecological components and economic ones. Grouse abundance and numbers of old-growth forest patches decreased when forestry activity increased. There was some support for the idea that socially active communities compete less intensively with ecological components of forests than communities where forestry has a central role.

Policy interpretations and manifestation of biocultural diversity in urbanized Europe: conservation of lived biodiversity

Abstract Biocultural diversity, which refers to the inextricable link between biodiversity and cultural diversity, has been predominantly associated with the traditional ways in which indigenous people in tropical countries interact with the natural environment. But it does not have to be restricted to these circumstances. Biocultural diversity may also be regarded as an interesting concept for understanding how people in industrialized and globalized societies deal with nature. This paper explores biocultural diversity in 20 European cities by considering (i) how biocultural diversity is interpreted in urban planning and governance, and (ii) what actual manifestations of biocultural diversity are present in these cities. Despite the fact that the concept of biocultural diversity was hardly recognized by city authorities, interviewees gave many examples of how biodiversity and cultural diversity are taken into account in (in) formal city policies. The research revealed two main manifestations of biocultural diversity within urban Europe: biocultural diversity grounded in ecological features, and cultural values as a basic foundation for biocultural diversity. Consequently, urban biocultural diversity was found to have two spatial levels: the city level and the site level. The former is the domain of governmental policy makers who discuss biocultural diversity in ‘green space networks’ in a rather static way. The latter is the domain where citizens participate in decisionmaking and the management of green spaces; it is here that cultural dynamics are most acknowledged.

Environmental justice for the governance of aquatic environments

ABSTRACT Environmental justice sheds light on the distributive and procedural aspects of planning and decision-making. We examined the challenges arising from the perspective of environmental justice on multi-level and participatory environmental governance by exploring the governance of aquatic environments in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. We found three main challenges and potential responses to them. First, even though most of Helsinki’s shoreline is free and/or accessible by road and accordingly used actively by people for recreational purposes, many parts of the shoreline are perceived as inaccessible, reflecting a need to combine factual and perceived accessibility of aquatic environments in detail during the planning processes and to discuss reasons for possible discrepancies between these two. Second, there was a remarkable seasonal variation in the use of aquatic environments, so more attention should be paid to social-demographic factors explaining the distribution of the use of urban nature. Third, it seems to be difficult to capture the variety of perceptions of people and to integrate them into planning and decision-making processes even on a local scale, and this challenge is likely even more pronounced on higher levels of planning and governance. Thus, better integration of regional and local-scale planning procedures should be encouraged. Building on these observations, we conclude that integration of procedural and distributive environmental justice into the practices of the governance of aquatic environments could remarkably decrease unwanted trade-offs and potential conflicts in their use and management.