Struggles over resources and representations in territorial conflicts in the Northern Autonomous Atlantic Region (RAAN), Nicaragua

Territoriality is a central issue in indigenous peoples struggles. The territorial struggles involve struggles over the control of natural resources and over political participation and representation, but also over the perception of territorial rights and the symbolic representation of the territory. These struggles are carried through both in material and symbolic ways through recurring to different discourses and representations that provide legitimation for the territorial claims of the group. The study is located in the Northern Autonomous Atlantic Region of Nicaragua. The study concerns the territorial strategies, conceptions and practices of the indigenous people and other actors. Territorial conflicts exist between the autonomous region and the central government of Nicaragua, between mestizo settlers and indigenous people, between different indigenous groups, and between these and development agents such as conservation projects. The study focuses on how territorial discourses and representations are used to legitimate territorial control. Environmental, historical and cartographical discourses are the most important discourses recurred to. The influence of discourses and representations on the territorial practices and policies of the different actors, the links between the local struggles and global processes, and the broader structural factors impacting on the territorial struggles are also analysed. Among the structural factors are the problems related to land tenure and management and the use of natural resources, the advance of the agricultural frontier, the institutional weaknesses of the central and regional governments and the legislative processes. The territorial discourses are both recurred to in a strategic way and also grounded in local ideals and practices. The discourses have produced real effects for example in legislation, land tenure systems, political representation and environmental practices. Although the use of discourses and representations are an important power tool in territorial struggles, territorial control cannot be effectively accomplished merely through representing territorial claims in a legitimate way or through reforming legislation, as the conflicts are also largely a result of structural factors affecting the region. The fieldwork was carried out during a total of twelve months between 2000 and 2002. The research methods used were semi-structured interviews, participant observation and participatory research methods. A broad range of literary sources were also used to collect data. The study is located within the field of critical political geography with a discursive political ecology approach. It can be called a critical realist approach to the discursive analysis of indigenous territoriality.

The changing role of legislation related to forest conservation and forest resources development.

XVIII IUFRO World Congress, Ljubljana 1986.

Conservation of Atlantic salmon by supplementary stocking of juvenile fish

Wild salmon stocks in the northern Baltic rivers became endangered in the second half of the 20th century, mainly due to recruitment overfishing. As a result, supplementary stocking was widely practised, and supplementation of the Tornionjoki salmon stock took place over a 25 year period until 2002. The stock has been closely monitored by electrofishing, smolt trapping, mark-recapture studies, catch samples and catch surveys. Background information on hatchery-reared stocked juveniles was also collected for this study. Bayesian statistics was applied to the data as this method offers the possibility of bringing prior information into the analysis and an advanced ability for incorporating uncertainty, and also provides probabilities for a multitude of hypotheses. Substantial divergences between reared and wild Tornionjoki salmon were identified in both demographic and phenological characteristics. The divergences tended to be larger the longer the duration spent in hatchery and the more favourable the hatchery conditions were for fast growth. Differences in environment likely induced most of the divergences, but selection of brood fish might have resulted in genotypic divergence in maturation age of reared salmon. Survival of stocked 1-year old juveniles to smolt varied from about 10% to about 25%. Stocking on the lower reach of the river seemed to decrease survival, and the negative effect of stocking volume on survival raises the concern of possible similar effects on the extant wild population. Post-smolt survival of wild Tornionjoki smolts was on average two times higher than that of smolts stocked as parr and 2.5 times higher than that of stocked smolts. Smolts of different groups showed synchronous variation and similar long-term survival trends. Both groups of reared salmon were more vulnerable to offshore driftnet and coastal trapnet fishing than wild salmon. Average survival from smolt to spawners of wild salmon was 2.8 times higher than that of salmon stocked as parr and 3.3 times higher than that of salmon stocked as smolts. Wild salmon and salmon stocked as parr were found to have similar lifetime survival rates, while stocked smolts have a lifetime survival rate over 4 times higher than the two other groups. If eggs are collected from the wild brood fish, stocking parr would therefore not be a sensible option. Stocking smolts instead would create a net benefit in terms of the number of spawners, but this strategy has serious drawbacks and risks associated with the larger phenotypic and demographic divergences from wild salmon. Supplementation was shown not to be the key factor behind the recovery of the Tornionjoki and other northern Baltic salmon stocks. Instead, a combination of restrictions in the sea fishery and simultaneous occurrence of favourable natural conditions for survival were the main reasons for the revival in the 1990 s. This study questions the effectiveness of supplementation as a conservation management tool. The benefits of supplementation seem at best limited. Relatively high occurrences of reared fish in catches may generate false optimism concerning the effects of supplementation. Supplementation may lead to genetic risks due to problems in brood fish collection and artificial rearing with relaxed natural selection and domestication. Appropriate management of fisheries is the main alternative to supplementation, without which all other efforts for long-term maintenance of a healthy fish resource fail.

Short- and long-term consequences of food resources on Ural owl Strix uralensis reproduction

Life-history theory states that although natural selection would favour a maximisation of both reproductive output and life-span, such a combination can not be achieved in any living organism. According to life-history theory the reason for the fact that not all traits can be maximised simultaneously is that different traits compete with each other for resources. These relationships between traits that constrain the simultaneous evolution of two or more traits are called trade-offs. Therefore, during different life-stages an individual needs to optimise its allocation of resources to life-history components such as growth, reproduction and survival. Resource limitation acts on these traits and therefore investment in one trait, e.g. reproduction, reduces the resources available for investment in another trait, e.g. residual reproduction or survival. In this thesis I study how food resources during different stages of the breeding event affect reproductive decisions in the Ural owl (Strix uralensis) and the consequences of these decisions on parents and offspring. The Ural owl is a suitable study species for such studies in natural populations since they are long-lived, site-tenacious, and feed on voles. The vole populations in Fennoscandia fluctuate in three- to four-year cycles, which create a variable food environment for the Ural owls to cope with. The thesis gives new insight in reproductive costs and their consequences in natural animal populations with emphasis on underlying physiological mechanisms. I found that supplementary fed Ural owl parents invest supplemented food resources during breeding in own self-maintenance instead of allocating those resources to offspring growth. This investment in own maintenance instead of improving current reproduction had carry-over effects to the following year in terms of increased reproductive output. Therefore, I found evidence that reduced reproductive costs improves future reproductive performance. Furthermore, I found evidence for the underlying mechanism behind this carry-over effect of supplementary food on fecundity. The supplementary-fed parents reduced their feeding investment in the offspring compared to controls, which enabled the fed female parents to invest the surplus resources in parasite resistance. Fed female parents had lower blood parasite loads than control females and this effect lasted until the following year when also reproductive output was increased. Hence, increased investment in parasite resistance when resources are plentiful has the potential to mediate positive carry-over effects on future reproduction. I further found that this carry-over effect was only present when potentials for future reproduction were good. The thesis also provides new knowledge on resource limitation on maternal effects. I found that increased resources prior to egg laying improve the condition and health of Ural owl females and enable them to allocate more resources to reproduction than control females. These additional resources are not allocated to increase the number of offspring, but instead to improve the quality of each offspring. Fed Ural owl females increased the size of their eggs and allocated more health improving immunological components into the eggs. Furthermore, the increased egg size had long-lasting effects on offspring growth, as offspring from larger eggs were heavier at fledging. Limiting resources can have different short- and long-term consequences on reproductive decisions that affect both offspring number and quality. In long-lived organisms, such as the Ural owl, it appears to be beneficial in terms of fitness to invest in long breeding life-span instead of additional investment in current reproduction. In Ural owls, females can influence the phenotypic quality of the offspring by transferring additional resources to the eggs that can have long-lasting effects on growth.

Carabid beetles (Coleoptera, Carabidae) as indicators of environmental change in Ranomafana National Park, Madagascar

Growing human populations and increasing exploitation of natural resources threaten nature all over the world. Tropical countries are especially vulnerable to human impact because of the high number of species, most of these endemic and still unknown. Madagascar is one of the centers of high biodiversity and renowned for its unique species. However, during the last centuries many endemic species have gone extinct and more are endangered. Because of high natural values, Madagascar is one of the global conservation priorities. The establishment of Ranomafana National Park (RNP) was intended to preserve the unique nature of Madagascar. Containing several endemic and threatened species, Ranomafana has been selected as one of UNESCO’s World Natural Heritage sites. However, due to strong human pressures the region immediately surroundings the protected area has severely degraded. Aims of this thesis were to inventory carabid fauna in RNP and evaluate their use as indicators of the environmental change. Carabid beetles were collected from protected area (secondary and primary forests) and from its degraded surrounding area. Collecting was mostly conducted by hand during years 2000-2005. Species compositions between the protected area and its surroundings were compared, and species habitat preferences and seasonal variations were studied. In total, 4498 individuals representing 127 carabid species (of which 38 are new species) were collected. Species compositions within and outside of the protected area were markedly different. Most of the species preferred forest as their primary habitat and were mainly collected from trees and bushes. Their value as indicators is based on their different habitat requirements and sensitivity to environmental variables. Some of the species were found only in the protected forest, some occupied also the degraded forests and some preferred open areas. Carabid fauna is very species rich in Ranomafana and there are still many species to be found. Most of the species are arboreal and probably cannot survive in the deforested areas outside the park. This is very likely also the case for other species. Establishment and continued protection of RNP is probably the only way to conserve this globally important area. However, new occupations and land use methods are urgently needed by the local people for improving their own lives while maintaining the forest intact.

META-NORD: Towards Sharing of Language Resources in Nordic and Baltic Countries

This paper introduces the META-NORD project which develops Nordic and Baltic part of the European open language resource infrastructure. META-NORD works on assembling, linking across languages, and making widely available the basic language resources used by developers, professionals and researchers to build specific products and applications. The goals of the project, overall approach and specific focus lines on wordnets, terminology resources and treebanks are described. Moreover, results achieved in first five months of the project, i.e. language whitepapers, metadata specification and IPR, are presented.