Archaeology of wings : Birds and people in the Baltic Sea region during the Stone Age

The prominent roles of birds, often mentioned in historical sources, are not well reflected in archaeological research. Absence or scarcity of bird bones in archaeological assemblages has been often seen as indication of a minor role of birds in the prehistoric economy or ideology, or explained by taphonomic loss. Few studies exist where birds form the basis for extensive archaeological interpretation. In this doctoral dissertation bird bone material from various Stone Age sites in the Baltic Sea region is investigated. The study period is approximately 7000-3400 BP, comprising mainly Neolithic cultures. The settlement material comes from Finland, Åland, Gotland, Saaremaa and Hiiumaa. Osteological materials are used for studying the economic and cultural importance of birds, fowling methods and principal fowling seasons. The bones were identified and earlier identifications partially checked with help of a reference material of modern skeletons. Fracture analysis was used in order to study the deposition history of bones at Ajvide settlement site. Birds in burials at two large cemeteries, Ajvide on Gotland and Zvejnieki in northern Latvia were investigated in order to study the roles of birds in burial practices. My study reveals that the economic importance of birds is at least seasonally often more prominent than usually thought, and varies greatly in different areas. Fowling has been most important in coastal areas, and especially during the breeding season. Waterbirds and grouse species were generally the most important groups in Finnish Stone Age economy. The identified species composition shows much resemblance to contemporary hunting with species such as the mallard and capercaillie commonly found. Burial materials and additional archaeological evidence from Gotland, Latvia and some other parts of northern Europe indicate that birds –e.g., jay, whooper swan, ducks – have been socially and ideologically important for the studied groups (indicating a place in the belief system, e.g. clan totemism). The burial finds indicate that some common ideas about waterbirds (perhaps as messengers or spirit helpers) might have existed in the northern European Stone Age.

Environmental change and human history in the Jabal Harun area, Jordan

The research is related to the Finnish Jabal Harun Project (FJHP), which is part of the research unit directed by Professor Jaakko Frösén. The project consists of two interrelated parts: the excavation of a Byzantine monastery/pilgrimage centre on Jabal Harun, and a multiperiod archaeological survey of the surrounding landscape. It is generally held that the Near Eastern landscape has been modified by millennia of human habitation and activity. Past climatic changes and human activities could be expected to have significantly changed also the landscape of the Jabal Harun area. Therefore it was considered that a study of erosion in the Jabal Harun area could shed light on the environmental and human history of the area. It was hoped that it would be possible to connect the results of the sedimentological studies either to wider climatic changes in the Near East, or to archaeologically observable periods of human activity and land use. As evidence of some archaeological periods is completely missing from the Jabal Harun area, it was also of interest whether catastrophic erosion or unfavourable environmental change, caused either by natural forces or by human agency, could explain the gaps in the archaeological record. Changes in climate and/or land-use were expected to be reflected in the sedimentary record. The field research, carried out as part of the FJHP survey fieldwork, included the mapping of wadi terraces and cleaning of sediment profiles which were recorded and sampled for laboratory analyses of facies and lithology. To obtain a chronology for the sedimentation and erosion phases also OSL (optically stimulated luminescence) dating samples were collected. The results were compared to the record of the Near Eastern palaeoclimate, and to data from geoarchaeological studies in central and southern Jordan. The picture of the environmental development was then compared to the human history in the area, based on archaeological evidence from the FJHP survey and the published archaeological research in the Petra region, and the question of the relationship between human activity and environmental change was critically discussed. Using the palaeoclimatic data and the results from geoarchaeological studies it was possible to outline the environmental development in the Jabal Harun area from the Pleistocene to the present.It is appears that there was a phase of accumulation of sediment before the Middle Palaeolithic period, possibly related to tectonic movement. This phase was later followed by erosion, tentatively suggested to have taken place during the Upper Palaeolithic. A period of wadi aggradation probably occurred during the Late Glacial and continued until the end of the Pleistocene, followed by significant channel degradation, attributed to increased rainfall during the Early Holocene. It seems that during the later Holocene channel incision has been dominant in the Jabal Harûn area although there have been also small-scale channel aggradation phases, two of which were OSL-dated to around 4000-3000 BP and 2400-2000 BP. As there is no evidence of tectonic movements in the Jabal Harun area after the early Pleistocene, it is suggested that climate change and human activity have been the major causes of environmental change in the area. At a brief glance it seems that many of the changes in the settlement and land use in the Jabal Harun area can be explained by climatic and environmental conditions. However, the responses of human societies to environmental change are dependent on many factors. Therefore an evaluation of the significance of environmental, cultural, socio-economic and political factors is needed to decide whether certain phenomena are environmentally induced. Comparison with the wider Petra region is also needed to judge whether the phenomena are characteristic of the Jabal Harun area only, or can they be connected to social, political and economic development over a wider area.

Agroforestry systems for sustainable livelihoods and improved land management in the East Usambara Mountains, Tanzania

Forest destruction for agriculture continues to be a major threat to the rich biological diversity in the East Usambara Mountains in the north-eastern corner of Tanzania. The highest ratio of endemic plant and animal species found on 100 km2 anywhere in the world is depending on the remaining natural forests. Forests are vitally important for the local population in many different ways, and nationally they are an important source of water and hydroelectricity. The soils, of low fertility and mostly acidic Ferrasols, mainly have the nutrients in the topsoil. After clear-cutting, the soils soon become poor when the topsoil is eroded. High-value cardamom is nowadays unsustainably cultivated in the natural forests of the East Usambaras. The general aim was to study the possibilities to develop new profitable and sustainable agroforestry systems for the benefit of the local people that could contribute to relieving the pressure on the remaining natural forests in the East Usambara Mountains. Results from a spice crop agroforestry trial, established in cooperation with a local farmer, showed a clear advantage of intercropping cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum) and black pepper (Piper nigrum) with trees, especially with Grevillea robusta. The nitrogen fixing tree species Gliricidia sepium also improved the nitrogen and organic matter content of the soil over levels found in the natural forest. With improved agroforestry methods for spice production the households generated as much as13 times the net income obtained with traditional forest cultivation practices. There are thus sustainable and profitable ways to cultivate spices as cash crops in well-managed homegardens. However, the farmers need stable markets, access to credit and comprehensive extension services. The soil fertility depletion should be reversed with organic manure application and an enabling policy environment for the smallholder-farming sector. Strong farmers organisations and equal rights to resources and decision-making are needed. Organic spices have an increasing demand, and their export would be profitable for these farmers. What is, however, most needed for a change is a political will of a government that understands the importance of agricultural and forestry development for poverty reduction.

Women, environmental changes and forestry-related development : Gender-affected roles of rural people in land degradation and environmental rehabilitation in a dry region of Sudan

The purpose of the present study was to increase understanding of the interaction of rural people and, specifically, women with the environment in a dry area in Sudan. The study that included both nomadic pastoralists and farmers aimed at answering two main research questions, namely: What kinds of roles have the local people, and the women in particular, had in land degradation in the study area and what kinds of issues would a gender-sensitive, forestry-related environmental rehabilitation intervention need to consider there? The study adopted the definition of land degradation as proposed by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), which describes land degradation as reduction or loss the biological or economic productivity and complexity of land in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas. The Convention perceives desertification as land degradation. The dry study area in Sudan, South of the Sahara, has been the subject of land degradation or desertification discussions since the 1970s, and other studies have been also conducted to assess the degradation in the area. Nevertheless, the exact occurrence, scale and local significance of land degradation in the area is still unclear. This study explored how the rural population whose livelihood depended on the area, perceived environmental changes occurring there and compared their conceptions with other sources of information of the area such as research reports. The main fieldwork methods included interviews with open-ended questions and observation of people and the environment. The theoretical framework conceptualised the rural population as land users whose choices of environmental activities are affected by multiple factors in the social and biophysical contexts in which they live. It was emphasised that these factors have their own specific characteristics in different contexts, simultaneously recognising that there are also factors that generally affect environmental practices in various areas such as the land users' environmental literacy (conceptions of the environment), gender and livelihood needs. The people studied described that environmental changes, such as reduced vegetation cover and cropland production, had complicated the maintenance of their livelihoods in the study area. Some degraded sites were also identified through observations during the fieldwork. Whether a large-scale reduction of cropland productivity had occurred in the farmers' croplands remained, however, unclear. The study found that the environmental impact of the rural women's activities varied and was normally limited. The women's most significant environmental impact resulted from their cutting of trees, which was likely to contribute, at least in some places, to land degradation, affecting the environment together with climate and livestock. However, when a wider perspective is taken, it becomes questionable whether the women have really played roles in land degradation, since gender, poverty and the need to maintain livelihood had caused them to conduct environmentally harmful activities. The women have had, however, no power to change the causes of their activities. The findings further suggested that an inadequate availability of food was the most critical problem in the study area. Therefore, an environmental programme in the area was suggested to include technical measures to increase the productivity of croplands, opportunities for income generation and readiness to co-operate with other programmes to improve the local people's abilities to maintain their livelihoods. In order to protect the environment and alleviate the women's work burden, the introduction of fuel-saving stoves was also suggested. Furthermore, it was suggested that increased planting of trees on homesteads would be supported by an easy availability of tree seedlings. Planting trees on common property land was, however, perceived as extremely demanding in the study area, due to scarcity of such land. In addition, it became apparent that the local land users, and women in particular, needed to allocate their labour to maintain the immediate livelihood of their families and were not motivated to allocate their labour solely for environmental rehabilitation. Nonetheless, from the point of view of the existing social structures, women's active participation in a community-based environmental programme would be rather natural, particularly among the farmer women who had already formed a women's group and participated in communal decision making. Forming of a women group or groups was suggested to further support both the farmer women's and pastoral women's active participation within an environmental programme and their general empowerment. An Environmental programme would need to acknowledge that improving rural people's well-being and maintaining their livelihood in the study area requires development and co-operation with various sectors in Sudan.

Bat habitat requirements : implications for land use planning

Knowledge of the habitat requirements of bat species is needed in decision making in land use planning. Bats' hibernation requirements were studied both in Estonia and in southern Finland. In both countries, the northern bat and the brown long-eared bat hibernated in colder and drier locations, whereas Daubenton's bat and Brandt's/whiskered bats hibernated in warmer and more humid locations. In Estonia, the pond bat hibernated in the warmest and most humid conditions, whereas Natterer's bat hibernated in the coldest and driest conditions. Hibernacula were at their coldest in mid-season and became warmer towards the end of the season. The results suggest that bats made an active choice of colder hibernation temperatures at the seasons end. They minimised the negative effects of hibernation early in the hibernation season by hibernating in warmer locations and energy expenditure late in the hibernation season by hibernating in colder locations. The use of foraging habitats was studied in northern and southern Finland. The northern bat used foraging sites opportunistically. Daubenton's bat foraged mainly in water habitats, whereas Brandt's/whiskered bats and the brown long-eared bat foraged mainly in forest habitats. In northern Finland, Daubenton's bats foraged almost exclusively on rivers and typically together with the northern bat. Daubenton's bats and Brandt's/whiskered bats were found only where there were lower ambient light levels. One of the most important things in the management of foraging areas for them is to keep them shady. Hibernacula in Finland typically housed few bats, suggesting that hibernation sites used by even a small number of bats are important. Bats typically used natural stone for hibernation suggesting that natural underground sites in rocks or cliffs or man-made underground sites built using natural stone are important for them. The results suggest that appropriate timing of surveys may vary according to the species and latitude.

Land leasing, land degradation and agricultural productivity in Finland

This study analysed whether the land tenure insecurity problem has led to a decline in long-term land improvements (liming and phosphorus fertilization) under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and Nordic production conditions in European Union (EU) countries such as Finland. The results suggests that under traditional cash lease contracts, which are encouraged by the existing land leasing regulations and agricultural subsidy programs, the land tenure insecurity problem on leased land reduces land improvements that have a long pay-back period. In particular, soil pH was found to be significantly lower on land cultivated under a lease contract compared to land owned by the farmers themselves. The results also indicate that land improvements could not be reversed by land markets, because land owners would otherwise have carried out land improvements even if not farming by themselves. To reveal the causality between land tenure and land improvements, the dynamic optimisation problem was solved by a stochastic dynamic programming routine with known parameters for one-period returns and transition equations. The model parameters represented Finnish soil quality and production conditions. The decision rules were solved for alternative likelihood scenarios over the continuation of the fixed-term lease contract. The results suggest that as the probability of non-renewal of the lease contract increases, farmers quickly reduce investments in irreversible land improvements and, thereafter, yields gradually decline. The simulations highlighted the observed trends of a decline in land improvements on land parcels that are cultivated under lease contracts. Land tenure has resulted in the neglect of land improvement in Finland. This study aimed to analyze whether these challenges could be resolved by a tax policy that encourages land sales. Using Finnish data, real estate tax and a temporal relaxation on the taxation of capital gains showed some potential for the restructuring of land ownership. Potential sellers who could not be revealed by traditional logit models were identified with the latent class approach. Those landowners with an intention to sell even without a policy change were sensitive to temporal relaxation in the taxation of capital gains. In the long term, productivity and especially productivity growth are necessary conditions for the survival of farms and the food industry in Finland. Technical progress was found to drive the increase in productivity. The scale had only a moderate effect and for the whole study period (1976–2006) the effect was close to zero. Total factor productivity (TFP) increased, depending on the model, by 0.6–1.7% per year. The results demonstrated that the increase in productivity was hindered by the policy changes introduced in 1995. It is also evidenced that the increase in land leasing is connected to these policy changes. Land institutions and land tenure questions are essential in agricultural and rural policies on all levels, from local to international. Land ownership and land titles are commonly tied to fundamental political, economic and social questions. A fair resolution calls for innovative and new solutions both on national and international levels. However, this seems to be a problem when considering the application of EU regulations to member states inheriting divergent landownership structures and farming cultures. The contribution of this study is in describing the consequences of fitting EU agricultural policy to Finnish agricultural land tenure conditions and heritage.

Contested Lands: Land Disputes in Semi-Arid Parts of Northern Tanzania : Case Studies of the Loliondo and Sale Divisions

This study Contested Lands: Land disputes in semi-arid parts of northern Tanzania. Case Studies of the Loliondo and Sale Division in the Ngorongoro District concentrates on describing the specific land disputes which took place in the 1990s in the Loliondo and Sale Divisions of the Ngorongoro District in northern Tanzania. The study shows the territorial and historical transformation of territories and property and their relation to the land disputes of the 1990s'. It was assumed that land disputes have been firstly linked to changing spatiality due to the zoning policies of the State territoriality and, secondly, they can be related to the State control of property where the ownership of land property has been redefined through statutory laws. In the analysis of the land disputes issues such as use of territoriality, boundary construction and property claims, in geographical space, are highlighted. Generally, from the 1980s onwards, increases in human population within both Divisions have put pressure on land/resources. This has led to the increased control of land/resource, to the construction of boundaries and finally to formalized land rights on village lands of the Loliondo Division. The land disputes have thus been linked to the use of legal power and to the re-creation of the boundary (informal or formal) either by the Maasai or the Sonjo on the Loliondo and Sale village lands. In Loliondo Division land disputes have been resource-based and related to multiple allocations of land or game resource concessions. Land disputes became clearly political and legal struggles with an ecological reference.Land disputes were stimulated when the common land/resource rights on village lands of the Maasai pastoralists became regulated and insecure. The analysis of past land disputes showed that space-place tensions on village lands can be presented as a platform on which spatial and property issues with complex power relations have been debated. The reduction of future land disputes will succeed only when/if local property rights to land and resources are acknowledged, especially in rural lands of the Tanzanian State.

Remote sensing of boreal land cover: estimation of forest attributes and extent

Remote sensing provides methods to infer land cover information over large geographical areas at a variety of spatial and temporal resolutions. Land cover is input data for a range of environmental models and information on land cover dynamics is required for monitoring the implications of global change. Such data are also essential in support of environmental management and policymaking. Boreal forests are a key component of the global climate and a major sink of carbon. The northern latitudes are expected to experience a disproportionate and rapid warming, which can have a major impact on vegetation at forest limits. This thesis examines the use of optical remote sensing for estimating aboveground biomass, leaf area index (LAI), tree cover and tree height in the boreal forests and tundra taiga transition zone in Finland. The continuous fields of forest attributes are required, for example, to improve the mapping of forest extent. The thesis focus on studying the feasibility of satellite data at multiple spatial resolutions, assessing the potential of multispectral, -angular and -temporal information, and provides regional evaluation for global land cover data. Preprocessed ASTER, MISR and MODIS products are the principal satellite data. The reference data consist of field measurements, forest inventory data and fine resolution land cover maps. Fine resolution studies demonstrate how statistical relationships between biomass and satellite data are relatively strong in single species and low biomass mountain birch forests in comparison to higher biomass coniferous stands. The combination of forest stand data and fine resolution ASTER images provides a method for biomass estimation using medium resolution MODIS data. The multiangular data improve the accuracy of land cover mapping in the sparsely forested tundra taiga transition zone, particularly in mires. Similarly, multitemporal data improve the accuracy of coarse resolution tree cover estimates in comparison to single date data. Furthermore, the peak of the growing season is not necessarily the optimal time for land cover mapping in the northern boreal regions. The evaluated coarse resolution land cover data sets have considerable shortcomings in northernmost Finland and should be used with caution in similar regions. The quantitative reference data and upscaling methods for integrating multiresolution data are required for calibration of statistical models and evaluation of land cover data sets. The preprocessed image products have potential for wider use as they can considerably reduce the time and effort used for data processing.

Livelihood, land use and environment interactions in the highlands of East Africa

This study aims at improving understanding of the interactions of livelihoods and the environment focusing on both socio-economic and biodiversity implications of land use change in the context of population pressure, global and local markets, climate change, cultural and regional historical factors in the highlands of East Africa. The study is based on three components (1) two extensive livelihood surveys, one on Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and the other in the Taita Hills of Kenya, (2) a land use change study of the southern slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro focusing on land use trends between 1960s and 1980s and 1980s and 2000 and (3) a bird diversity study focusing on the potential impacts of the future land use change on birds in the main land use types on the slopes and the adjacent plains of Mt. Kilimanjaro. In addition, information on the highlands in Embu and the adjacent lowlands in Mbeere of Kenya are added to the discussion. Some general patterns of livelihood, land use and environment interactions can be found in the three sites. However, the linkages are very complex. Various external factors at different times in history have influenced most of the major turning points. Farmers continually make small adaptations to their farming practices, but the locally conceived alternatives are too few. Farmers lack specific information and knowledge on the most suitable crops, market opportunities and the quality requirements for growing the crops for markets. Population growth emerges as the most forceful driver of land use and environmental change. The higher altitudes have become extremely crowded with population densities in some areas higher than typical urban population densities. Natural vegetation has almost totally been replaced by farmland. Decreasing farm size due to population pressure is currently threatening the viability of whole farming systems. In addition, capital-poor intensification has lead to soil fertility depletion. Agricultural expansion to the agriculturally marginal lowlands has created a new and distinct group of farmers struggling constantly with climate variability causing frequent crop failures. Extensification to the fragile drylands is the major cause of fragmentation and loss of wildlife habitat. The linkages between livelihoods, land use and the environment generally point to degradation of the environment leading to reduced environmental services and ecosystem functions. There is no indication that the system is self-regulating in this respect. Positive interventions will be needed to maintain ecosystem integrity.

The effects of human induced disturbances on the sediment geochemistry of Baltic Sea embayments with a focus on eutrophication history

Historical sediment nutrient concentrations and heavy-metal distributions were studied in five embayments in the Gulf of Finland and an adjacent lake. The main objective of the study was to examine the response of these water bodies to temporal changes in human activities. Sediment cores were collected from the sites and dated using 210Pb and 137Cs. The cores were analyzed for total carbon (TC), total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP), organic phosphorus (OP), inorganic phosphorus (IP), biogenic silica (BSi), loss on ignition (LOI), grain size, Cu, Zn, Al, Fe, Mn, K, Ca, Mg and Na. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to summarize the trends in the geochemical variables and to compare trends between the different sites. The links between the catchment land use and sediment geochemical data were studied using a multivariate technique of redundancy analysis (RDA). Human activities produce marked geochemical variations in coastal sediments. These variations and signals are often challenging to interpret due to various sedimentological and post-depositional factors affecting the sediment profiles. In general, the sites studied here show significant upcore increases in sedimentation rates, TP and TN concentrations. Also Cu, which is considered to be a good indicator of anthropogenic influence, showed clear increases from 1850 towards the top part of the cores. Based on the RDA-analysis, in the least disturbed embayments with high forest cover, the sediments are dominated by lithogenic indicators Fe, K, Al and Mg. In embayments close to urban settlement, the sediments have high Cu concentrations and a high sediment Fe/Mn ratio. This study suggests that sediment accumulation rates vary significantly from site to site and that the overall sedimentation can be linked to the geomorphology and basin bathymetry, which appear to be the major factors governing sedimentation rates; i.e. a high sediment accumulation rate is not characteristic either to urban or to rural sites. The geochemical trends are strongly site specific and depend on the local geochemical background, basin characteristics and anthropogenic metal and nutrient loading. Of the studied geochemical indicators, OP shows the least monotonic trends in all studied sites. When compared to other available data, OP seems to be the most reliable geochemical indicator describing the trophic development of the study sites, whereas Cu and Zn appear to be good indicators for anthropogenic influence. As sedimentation environments, estuarine and marine sites are more complex than lacustrine basins with multiple sources of sediment input and more energetic conditions in the former. The crucial differences between lacustrine and estuarine/coastal sedimentation environments are mostly related to Fe. P sedimentation is largely governed by Fe redox-reactions in estuarine environments. In freshwaters, presence of Fe is clearly linked to the sedimentation of other lithogenic metals, and therefore P sedimentation and preservation has a more direct linkage to organic matter sedimentation.

The Interplays of Histories, Economies and Cultures in Human Adaptation and Settlement Patterns : The Cases of the Faroe Islands and Greenland

The Arctic peoples are currently faced with the challenge of adapting to climate change. Adaptive strategies have been central for the survival of the Northern communities also in the past. This doctoral dissertation is a comparative study of how two Northern societies, the Faroe Islands and Greenland, have responded to challenges caused by the interplay of environmental, political and socio-economic changes. Its main objective is to describe the characteristics of respective adaptive strategies developed in the two societies and to show which connections exist between adaptation and the development of the settlement patterns. This study is based on document analysis, supported by an analysis of demographic and economic statistics. For the field work, the empirical method of landscape-reading was applied. A narrative approach was used to explain interrelations between adaptive strategies and societal developments in the Faroe Islands and Greenland. Maps illustrating development and changes in settlement patterns in different time periods are central for this study because they illustrate the impacts of adaptation on settlement development. The results of this dissertation show that people in the Faroe Islands and Greenland have consciously developed their settlements and used this as an adaptive strategy: different types of settlements were established depending on which kind of resource base was available. Strong dependency on a single resource is likely to increase the probability that settlement development was impacted by it. The interrelation of natural resource use and settlement pattern development has weakened in the Faroe Islands and Greenland from the mid-1900s. Since then, the importance of the government settlement policies has become pronounced and the existing settlement pattern, including settlements without prospects for genuine economic viability, has been preserved. Currently, the Northern communities are increasingly dependent on worldwide developments. In the light of this study, the communities can respond to challenges of globalization and climate change and develop new kind of adaptive strategies, such as diversification of their economic activities. This dissertation shows that it is important to extend studies about community adaptation in the High North to consider the overall development of the Northern settlement patterns.

Effects of large-scale human land use on Capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus L.) populations in Finland

The Capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus L.) is often used as a focal species for landscape ecological studies: the minimum size for its lekking area is 300 ha, and the annual home range for an individual may cover 30 80 km2. In Finland, Capercaillie populations have decreased by approximately 40 85%, with the declines likely to have started in the 1940s. Although the declines have partly stabilized from the 1990s onwards, it is obvious that the negative population trend was at least partly caused by changes in human land use. The aim of this thesis was to study the connections between human land use and Capercaillie populations in Finland, using several spatial and temporal scales. First, the effect of forest age structure on Capercaillie population trends was studied in 18 forestry board districts in Finland, during 1965 1988. Second, the abundances of Capercaillie and Moose (Alces alces L.) were compared in terms of several land-use variables on a scale of 50 × 50 km grids and in five regions in Finland. Third, the effects of forest cover and fine-grain forest fragmentation on Capercaillie lekking area persistence were studied in three study locations in Finland, on 1000 and 3000 m spatial scales surrounding the leks. The analyses considering lekking areas were performed with two definitions for forest: > 60 and > 152 m3ha 1 of timber volume. The results show that patterns and processes at large spatial scales strongly influence Capercaillie in Finland. In particular, in southwestern and eastern Finland, high forest cover and low human impact were found to be beneficial for this species. Forest cover (> 60 m3ha 1 of timber) surrounding the lekking sites positively affected lekking area persistence only at the larger landscape scale (3000 m radius). The effects of older forest classes were hard to assess due to scarcity of older forests in several study areas. Young and middle-aged forest classes were common in the vicinity of areas with high Capercaillie abundances especially in northern Finland. The increase in the amount of younger forest classes did not provide a good explanation for Capercaillie population decline in 1965 1988. In addition, there was no significant connection between mature forests (> 152 m3ha 1 of timber) and lekking area persistence in Finland. It seems that in present-day Finnish landscapes, area covered with old forest is either too scarce to efficiently explain the abundance of Capercaillie and the persistence of the lekking areas, or the effect of forest age is only important when considering smaller spatial scales than the ones studied in this thesis. In conclusion, larger spatial scales should be considered for assessing the future Capercaillie management. According to the proposed multi-level planning, the first priority should be to secure the large, regional-scale forest cover, and the second priority should be to maintain fine-grained, heterogeneous structure within the separate forest patches. A management unit covering hundreds of hectares, or even tens or hundreds of square kilometers, should be covered, which requires regional-level land-use planning and co-operation between forest owners.