The Rocky Road of Social Sustainability : The Impact of Integrated Biodiversity Conservation and Development on the Local Realities in Ranomafana National Park, Madagascar

The objective of this study is to examine the social impacts of the integrated conservation and development project (ICDP) aimed at biodiversity conservation and local socio-economic development in the Ranomafana National Park (RNP), Madagascar. Furthermore, the study explores social sustainability and justice of the ICDP in Ranomafana. This ethnographically informed impact study uses of various field methods. The research material used consists of observation, interviews (key-person and focus group), school children's writings, official statistics and project documents. Fieldwork was conducted in three phases in 2001, 2002 and 2004 in twelve villages around the park, as well as in neighbouring areas of Ranomafana. However, four of those twelve villages were chosen for closer study. This study consists of five independent articles and a concluding chapter. Social impacts were studied through reproductive health indicators as well as a life security approach. Equity and distribution of benefits and drawbacks of ICDP were analysed and the actors related to the conservation in Ranomafana were identified. The children and adolescents' environmental views were also examined. The reproductive health indicators studied showed a poor state of reproductive health in the park area. Moreover, the existing social capital in the villages seemed to be fragmented due to economic difficulties that were partly caused by the conservation regulations. The ICDP in Ranomafana did not pay attention to the heterogeneity of the affected communities even though the local beneficiaries of the ICDP varied according to their ethnicity, living place, wealth, social position and gender. In addition, various conservation actors (local people in various groups, local authorities, tourist business owners, conservation NGOs and scientists) contest their interests over the forest, conservation and its related activities. This study corroborates the same type of evidence and conclusions discussed in other similar cases elsewhere: so called social conservation programmes still cannot meet the needs of the people living near the protected areas; on the contrary, they even have a reverse impact on the people's lives. A fundamental misunderstood assumption in the conservation process in Ranomafana was to consider the local people as a problem for biodiversity conservation. Major reasons for the failure of the ICDP in Ranomafana include a lack of local institutions that would have been able to communicate as equals with the conservation NGOs as well as to transfer the tradition of the authoritarian governance in conservation management together with the over-appreciation of scientific biodiversity, and lack of will to understand the local people's rights to use the forest for their livelihoods.

Evolutionary and conservation biology of the Finnish house sparrow

Recently it has been recognized that evolutionary aspects play a major role in conservation issues of a species. In this thesis I have combined evolutionary research with conservation studies to provide new insight into these fields. The study object of this thesis is the house sparrow, a species that has features that makes it interesting for this type of study. The house sparrow has been ubiquitous almost all over the world. Even though being still abundant, several countries have reported major declines. These declines have taken place in a relatively short time covering both urban and rural habitats. In Finland this species has declined by more than two thirds in just over two decades. In addition, as the house sparrow lives only in human inhabited areas it can also raise public awareness to conservation issues. I used both an extensive museum collection of house sparrows collected in 1980s from all over Finland as well as samples collected in 2009 from 12 of the previously collected localities. I used molecular techniques to study neutral genetic variation within and genetic differentiation between the study populations. This knowledge I then combined with data gathered on morphometric measurements. In addition I analyzed eight heavy metals from the livers of house sparrows that lived in either rural or urban areas in the 1980s and evaluated the role of heavy metal pollution as a possible cause of the declines. Even though dispersal of house sparrows is limited I found that just as the declines started in 1980s the house sparrows formed a genetically panmictic population on the scale of the whole Finland. When compared to Norway, where neutral genetic divergence has been found even with small geographic distances, I concluded that this difference would be due to contrasting landscapes. In Finland the landscape is rather homogeneous facilitating the movements of these birds and maintaining gene flow even with the low dispersal. To see whether the declines have had an effect on the neutral genetic variation of the populations I did a comparison between the historical and contemporary genetic data. I showed that even though genetic diversity has not decreased due to the drastic declines the populations have indeed become more differentiated from each other. This shows that even in a still quite abundant species the declines can have an effect on the genetic variation. It is shown that genetic diversity and differentiation may approach their new equilibriums at different rates. This emphasizes the importance of studying both of them and if the latter has increased it should be taken as a warning sign of a possible loss of genetic diversity in the future. One of the factors suggested to be responsible for the house sparrow declines is heavy metal pollution. When studying the livers of house sparrows from 1980s I discovered higher levels of heavy metal concentrations in urban than rural habitats, but the levels of the metals were comparatively low and based on that heavy metal pollution does not seem to be a direct cause for the declines in Finland. However, heavy metals are known to decrease the amount of insects in urban areas and thus in the cities heavy metals may have an indirect effect on house sparrows. Although neutral genetic variation is an important tool for conservation genetics it does not tell the whole story. Since neutral genetic variation is not affected by selection, information can be one-sided. It is possible that even neutral genetic differentiation is low, there can be substantial variation in additive genetic traits indicating local adaptation. Therefore I performed a comparison between neutral genetic differentiation and phenotypic differentiation. I discovered that two traits out of seven are likely to be under directional selection, whereas the others could be affected by random genetic drift. Bergmann s rule may be behind the observed directional selection in wing length and body mass. These results highlight the importance of estimating both neutral and adaptive genetic variation.

Rot bilong mipela

In my master's thesis I explore the political significance of logging in Papua New Guinea (PNG). In commercial logging the post-colonial state of PNG, its local communities, transnational companies and non-governmental organizations come interestingly together. The central research questions are what forms of political awareness and mobilization does commercial logging bring up in the small scale communities and how – if at all – does logging change the relationship between these communities and the state of PNG. The thesis is based on three months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in 2007 in a village located in the East New Britain province of PNG. The village, inhabited mainly by the Mengen people, was an interesting case, because logging operations had been conducted in the area with the permission of the people, while on the other hand some villagers had formed a conservation association of their own. Parliamentary elections were also held in PNG during the time of my fieldwork. During my stay in the village I took part in the village life and conducted interviews. In addition to this, much of my material is based on informal discussions with people. On my way to and from the village I also interviewed several Papua New Guinean NGO-workers in the national and provincial capitals. In my thesis I show that environmental conservation in the village is part of a larger attempt to protect local autonomy, culture and the environment, i.e. it is a ”localistic” movement. Locals supporting conservation, as well as those supporting logging, take actively part in national parliamentary as well as local level politics. In my thesis I have attempted to unpack the notion of ”local” by examining internal power relations of the community and describing various lines of thought and opinions that base on local cultural values. Along with this, commercial logging seems also to elicit the role of the state in two-fold way in East New Britain. On the one hand, the government seeks to use logging roads built by logging companies as the basis of its own national infrastructure, even though the company roads are often of manifestably poor quality and short-lived. On the other hand, problems caused by logging, such as land disputes, create a need among local communities for the state and its services. Central themes in my thesis are the local values invested in the environment, as well as the ways in which the locals produce their environment both conceptually as well as physically. As subsistence farmers the locals depend economically on the condition of their environment. However, the value of the environment goes beyond economical questions. For example, the environment holds proof of the history of the community. Conversely, also the state and companies attempt to conceptualize, modify and administer the environment. This is done through processes such as mapping and road building, both crucial political questions in East New Britain. Here the anthropological discussion about space and place, as well as political geography are central. The diverse ways of conceptualizing the environment, as well as logging, cause often disputes about the ownership of land areas. Because of this I discuss local ways of holding the land communally, as well as PNG's land legislation and ways of dispute management. Land tenure and disputes are political questions that the locals have to deal with and in some cases these questions also create a need for the judiciary system of the state. The disputes affect also political activity, which I discuss at some length in my thesis as well. Interestingly, the locals, regardless of their political views and affiliations, establish transnational connections ranging from NGOs to government departments and multinational companies.

Agricultural expansion and climate change in the Taita Hills, Kenya: an assessment of potential environmental impacts

The indigenous cloud forests in the Taita Hills have suffered substantial degradation for several centuries due to agricultural expansion. Currently, only 1% of the original forested area remains preserved in this region. Furthermore, climate change imposes an imminent threat for local economy and environmental sustainability. In such circumstances, elaborating tools to conciliate socioeconomic growth and natural resources conservation is an enormous challenge. This dissertation tackles essential aspects for understanding the ongoing agricultural activities in the Taita Hills and their potential environmental consequences in the future. Initially, alternative methods were designed to improve our understanding of the ongoing agricultural activities. Namely, methods for agricultural survey planning and to estimate evapotranspiration were evaluated, taking into account a number of limitations regarding data and resources availability. Next, this dissertation evaluates how upcoming agricultural expansion, together with climate change, will affect the natural resources in the Taita Hills up to the year 2030. The driving forces of agricultural expansion in the region were identified as aiming to delineate future landscape scenarios and evaluate potential impacts from the soil and water conservation point of view. In order to investigate these issues and answer the research questions, this dissertation combined state of the art modelling tools with renowned statistical methods. The results indicate that, if current trends persist, agricultural areas will occupy roughly 60% of the study area by 2030. Although the simulated land use changes will certainly increase soil erosion figures, new croplands are likely to come up predominantly in the lowlands, which comprise areas with lower soil erosion potential. By 2030, rainfall erosivity is likely to increase during April and November due to climate change. Finally, this thesis addressed the potential impacts of agricultural expansion and climate changes on Irrigation Water Requirements (IWR), which is considered another major issue in the context of the relations between land use and climate. Although the simulations indicate that climate change will likely increase annual volumes of rainfall during the following decades, IWR will continue to increase due to agricultural expansion. By 2030, new cropland areas may cause an increase of approximately 40% in the annual volume of water necessary for irrigation.

Word order and tonal shape in the production of focus in short Finnish utterances

This paper presents results from a study on the production of Finnish prosody. The effect of word order and the tonal shape in the production of Finnish prosody was studied as produced by 8 native Finnish speakers. Predictions formulated with regard to results from an earlier study pertaining to the perception of promi- nence were tested. These predictions had to do with the tonal shape of the utterances in the form of a flat hat pattern and the effect of word order on the so called top-line declination within an adver- bial phrase in the utterances. The results from the experiment give support to the following claims: the temporal domain of prosodic focus is the whole utterance, word order reversal from unmarked to marked has an effect on the production of prosody, and the pro- duction of the tonal aspects of focus in Finnish follows a basic flat hat pattern. That is the prominence of a word can be produced by an f 0 rise or a fall, depending on the location of the word in an utterance. The basic accentual shape of a Finnish word is then not a pointed rise/fall hat shape as claimed before since it can vary depending on the syllable structure and the position within an ut- terance.

A Comparison of Managers’ Perception of Short-Termism in Finland, Sweden and the U.S

Increased media exposure to layoffs and corporate quarterly financial reporting have created arguable a common perception – especially favored by the media itself – that the companies have been forced to improve their financial performance from quarter to quarter. Academically the relevant question is whether companies themselves feel that they are exposed to short-term pressure to perform even if it means that they have to compromise company’s long-term future. This paper studies this issue using results from a survey conducted among the 500 largest companies in Finland. The results show that companies in general feel moderate short-term pressure, with reasonable dispersion across firms. There seems to be a link between the degree of pressure felt, and the firm’s ownership structure, i.e. we find support for the existence of short-term versus long-term owners. We also find significant ownership related differences, in line with expectations, in how such short-term pressure is reflected in actual decision variables such as the investment criteria used.

Finnish Short-Term Stock Returns

Functioning capital markets are a crucial part of a competitive economy since they provide the mechanisms to allocate resources. In order to be well functioning a capital market has to be efficient. Market efficiency is defined as a market where prices at any time fully reflect all available information. Basically, this means that abnormal returns cannot be predicted since they are dependent on future, presently unknown, information. The debate of market efficiency has been going on for several decades. Most academics today would probably agree that financial markets are reasonably efficient since virtually nobody has been able to achieve continuous abnormal positive returns. However, it is clear that a set of return anomalies exists, although they are apparently to small to enable substantial economic profit. Moreover, these anomalies can often be attributed to market design. The motivation for this work is to expand the knowledge of short-term trading patterns and to offer some explanations for these patterns. In the first essay the return pattern during the day is examined. On average stock prices move during two time periods of the day, namely, immediately after the opening and around the formal close of the market. Since stock prices, on average, move upwards these abnormal returns are generally positive and cause the distinct U-shape of intraday returns. In the second essay the results in the first essay are examined further. The return pattern around the former close is shown to partly be the result of manipulative action by market participants. In the third essay the focus is shifted towards trading patterns of the underlying stocks on days when index options and index futures on the stocks expire. Generally no expiration day effect was found. However, some indication of an expiration day effect was found when a large amount of open in- or at-the-money contracts existed. Also, the effects were likelier to be found for shares with high index-weight but fairly low trading volume. Last, in the forth essay the attention is turned to the behaviour of different tax clienteles around the dividend ex-day. Two groups of investors showed abnormal trading behaviour. Domestic non-financial investors, especially domestic companies, showed a dividend capturing behaviour, i.e. buying cum-dividend and selling ex-dividend shares. The opposite behaviour was found for foreign investors and domestic financial institutions. The effect was more notable for high yield, high volume stocks.

Short-term Price Behavior and the Effect of Foreign Investors in Finnish Equity Markets (summary section only)

As globalization and capital free movement has increased, so has interest in the effects of that global money flow, especially during financial crises. The concern has been that large global money flows will affect the pricing of small local markets by causing, in particular, overreaction. The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to the body of work concerning short-term under- and overreaction and the short-term effects of foreign investment flow in the small Finnish equity markets. This thesis also compares foreign execution return to domestic execution return. This study’s results indicate that short-term under- and overreaction occurs in domestic-buy portfolios (domestic net buying) rather than in foreign-buy portfolios. This under- and overreaction, however, is not economically meaningful after controlling for the bid-ask bounce effect. Based on this finding, one can conclude that foreign investors do not have a destabilizing effect in the short-term in the Finnish markets. Foreign activity affects short-term returns. When foreign investors are net buyers (sellers) there are positive (negative) market adjusted returns. Literature related to nationality and institutional effect leads us to expect these kind of results. These foreign flows are persistent at a 5 % to 21 % level and the persistence of foreign buy flow is higher than the foreign sell flow. Foreign daily trading execution is worse than domestic execution. Literature which quantifies foreign investors as liquidity demanders and literature related to front-running leads us to expect poorer foreign execution than domestic execution.

An Empirical Investigation of Value-at-Risk in Long and Short Trading Positions

This paper uses the Value-at-Risk approach to define the risk in both long and short trading positions. The investigation is done on some major market indices(Japanese, UK, German and US). The performance of models that takes into account skewness and fat-tails are compared to symmetric models in relation to both the specific model for estimating the variance, and the distribution of the variance estimate used as input in the VaR estimation. The results indicate that more flexible models not necessarily perform better in predicting the VaR forecast; the reason for this is most probably the complexity of these models. A general result is that different methods for estimating the variance are needed for different confidence levels of the VaR, and for the different indices. Also, different models are to be used for the left respectively the right tail of the distribution.

Short-Horizon Asymmetric Mean-Reversion and Overreactions: Evidence from the Nordic Stock Markets

This paper examines the asymmetric behavior of conditional mean and variance. Short-horizon mean-reversion behavior in mean is modeled with an asymmetric nonlinear autoregressive model, and the variance is modeled with an Exponential GARCH in Mean model. The results of the empirical investigation of the Nordic stock markets indicates that negative returns revert faster to positive returns when positive returns generally persist longer. Asymmetry in both mean and variance can be seen on all included markets and are fairly similar. Volatility rises following negative returns more than following positive returns which is an indication of overreactions. Negative returns lead to increased variance and positive returns leads even to decreased variance.

Owners' Way or the Highway: Short-term Expectations and Owner Impatience

Increased media exposure to layoffs and corporate quarterly financial reporting have created arguable a common perception – especially favored by the media itself – that the companies have been forced to improve their financial performance from quarter to quarter. Academically the relevant question is whether the companies themselves feel that they are exposed to short-term pressure to perform even if it means that they have to compromise company’s long-term future. This paper studies this issue using results from a survey conducted among the 500 largest companies in Finland. The results show that companies in general feel moderate short-term pressure, with reasonable dispersion across firms. There seems to be a link between the degree of pressure felt, and the firm’s ownership structure, i.e. we find support for the existence of short-term versus long-term owners. We also find significant ownership related differences, in line with expectations, in how such short-term pressure is reflected in actual decision variables such as the investment criteria used.

Detection, epidemiology and host spectrum of cowpox and Borna disease virus infections

Several orthopoxviruses (OPV) and Borna disease virus (BDV) are enveloped, zoonotic viruses with a wide geographical distribution. OPV antibodies cross-react, and former smallpox vaccination has therefore protected human populations from another OPV infection, rodent-borne cowpox virus (CPXV). Cowpox in humans and cats usually manifests as a mild, self-limiting dermatitis and constitutional symptoms, but it can be severe and even life-threatening in the immunocompromised. Classical Borna disease is a progressive meningoencephalomyelitis in horses and sheep known in central Europe for centuries. Nowadays the virus or its close relative infects humans and also several other species in central Europe and elsewhere, but the existence of human Borna disease with its suspected neuropsychiatric symptoms is controversial. The epidemiology of BDV is largely unknown, and the present situation is even more intriguing following the recent detection of several-million-year-old, endogenized BDV genes in primate and various other vertebrate genomes. The aims of this study were to elucidate the importance of CPXV and BDV in Finland and in possible host species, and particularly to 1) establish relevant methods for the detection of CPXV and other OPVs as well as BDV in Finland, 2) determine whether CPXV and BDV exist in Finland, 3) discover how common OPV immunity is in different age groups in Finland, 4) characterize possible disease cases and clarify their epidemiological context, 5) establish the hosts and possible reservoir species of these viruses and their geographical distribution in wild rodents, and 6) elucidate the infection kinetics of BDV in the bank vole. An indirect immunofluorescence assay and avidity measurement were established for the detection, timing and verification of OPV or BDV antibodies in thousands of blood samples from humans, horses, ruminants, lynxes, gallinaceous birds, dogs, cats and rodents. The mostly vaccine-derived OPV seroprevalence was found to decrease gradually according to the year of birth of the sampled human subjects from 100% to 10% in those born after 1977. On the other hand, OPV antibodies indicating natural contact with CPXV or other OPVs were commonly found in domestic and wild animals: the horse, cow, lynx, dog, cat and, with a prevalence occasionally even as high as 92%, in wild rodents, including some previously undetected species and new regions. Antibodies to BDV were detected in humans, horses, a dog, cats, and for the first time in wild rodents, such as bank voles (Myodes glareolus). Because of the controversy within the human Borna disease field, extra verification methods were established for BDV antibody findings: recombinant nucleocapsid and phosphoproteins were produced in Escherichia coli and in a baculovirus system, and peptide arrays were additionally applied. With these verification assays, Finnish human, equine, feline and rodent BDV infections were confirmed. Taken together, wide host spectra were evident for both OPV and BDV infections based on the antibody findings, and OPV infections were found to be geographically broadly distributed. PCR amplification methods were utilised for hundreds of blood and tissue samples. The methods included conventional, nested and real-time PCRs with or without the reverse transcription step and detecting four or two genes of OPVs and BDV, respectively. OPV DNA could be amplified from two human patients and three bank voles, whereas no BDV RNA was detected in naturally infected individuals. Based on the phylogenetic analyses, the Finnish OPV sequences were closely related although not identical to a Russian CPXV isolate, and clearly different from other CPXV strains. Moreover, the Finnish sequences only equalled each other, but the short amplicons obtained from German rodents were identical to monkeypox virus, in addition to German CPXV variants. This reflects the close relationship of all OPVs. In summary, RNA of the Finnish BDV variant could not be detected with the available PCR methods, but OPV DNA infrequently could. The OPV species infecting the patients of this study was proven to be CPXV, which is most probably also responsible for the rodent infections. Multiple cell lines and some newborn rodents were utilised in the isolation of CPXV and BDV from patient and wildlife samples. CPXV could be isolated from a child with severe, generalised cowpox. BDV isolation attempts from rodents were unsuccessful in this study. However, in parallel studies, a transient BDV infection of cells inoculated with equine brain material was detected, and BDV antigens discovered in archival animal brains using established immunohistology. Thus, based on several independent methods, both CPXV and BDV (or a closely related agent) were shown to be present in Finland. Bank voles could be productively infected with BDV. This experimental infection did not result in notable pathological findings or symptoms, despite the intense spread of the virus in the central and peripheral nervous system. Infected voles commonly excreted the virus in urine and faeces, which emphasises their possible role as a BDV reservoir. Moreover, BDV RNA was regularly reverse transcribed into DNA in bank voles, which was detected by amplifying DNA by PCR without reverse transcription, and verified with nuclease treatments. This finding indicates that BDV genes could be endogenized during an acute infection. Although further transmission studies are needed, this experimental infection demonstrated that the bank vole can function as a potential BDV reservoir. In summary, multiple methods were established and applied in large panels to detect two zoonoses novel to Finland: cowpox virus and Borna disease virus. Moreover, new information was obtained on their geographical distribution, host spectrum, epidemiology and infection kinetics.

Traditionally Protected Forests´ Role within Transforming Natural Resource Management Regimes in Taita Hills, Kenya

In Taita Hills, south-eastern Kenya, remnants of indigenous mountain rainforests play a crucial role as water towers and socio-cultural sites. They are pressurized due to poverty, shortage of cultivable land and the fading of traditional knowledge. This study examines the traditional ecological knowledge of Taitas and the ways it may be applied within transforming natural resource management regimes. I have analyzed some justifications for and hindrances to ethnodevelopment and participatory forest management in light of recently renewed Kenyan forest policies. Mixed methods were applied by combining an ethnographic approach with participatory GIS. I learned about traditionally protected forests and their ecological and cultural status through a seek out the expert method and with remote sensing data and tools. My informants were: 107 household interviewees, 257 focus group participants, 73 key informants and 87 common informants in participatory mapping. Religious leaders and state officials shared their knowledge for this study. I have gained a better understanding of the traditionally protected forests and sites through examining their ecological characteristics and relation to social dynamics, by evaluating their strengths and hindrances as sites for conservation of cultural and biological diversity. My results show that, these sites are important components of a complex socio-ecological system, which has symbolical status and sacred and mystical elements within it, that contributes to the connectivity of remnant forests in the agroforestry dominated landscape. Altogether, 255 plant species and 220 uses were recognized by the tradition experts, whereas 161 species with 108 beneficial uses were listed by farmers. Out of the traditionally protected forests studied 47 % were on private land and 23% on community land, leaving 9% within state forest reserves. A paradigm shift in conservation is needed; the conservation area approach is not functional for private lands or areas trusted upon communities. The role of traditionally protected forests in community-based forest management is, however, paradoxal, since communal approaches suggests equal participation of people, whereas management of these sites has traditionally been the duty of solely accredited experts in the village. As modernization has gathered pace such experts have become fewer. Sacredness clearly contributes but, it does not equal conservation. Various social, political and economic arrangements further affect the integrity of traditionally protected forests and sites, control of witchcraft being one of them. My results suggest that the Taita have a rich traditional ecological knowledge base, which should be more determinately integrated into the natural resource management planning processes.