Empire, Tourism, Nostalgia: Joseph Brodsky and Travel Writing

Joseph Brodsky, one of the most influential Russian intellectuals of the late Soviet period, was born in Leningrad in 1940, emigrated to the United States in 1972, received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1987, and died in New York City in 1996. Brodsky was one of the leading public figures of Soviet emigration in the Cold War period, and his role as a model for the constructing of Russian cultural identities in the last years of the Soviet Union was, and still is, extremely important. One of Joseph Brodsky’s great contributions to Russian culture of the latter half of the twentieth century is the wide geographical scope of his poetic and prose works. Brodsky was not a travel writer, but he was a traveling writer who wrote a considerable number of poems and essays which relate to his trips and travels in the Soviet empire and outside it. Travel writing offered for Brodsky a discursive space for negotiating his own transculturation, while it also offered him a discursive space for making powerful statements about displacement, culture, history and geography, time and space—all major themes of his poetry. In this study of Joseph Brodsky’s travel writing I focus on his travel texts in poetry and prose, which relate to his post-1972 trips to Mexico, Brazil, Turkey, and Venice. Questions of empire, tourism, and nostalgia are foregrounded in one way or another in Brodsky’s travel writing performed in emigration. I explore these concepts through the study of tropes, strategies of identity construction, and the politics of representation. The theoretical premises of my work draw on the literary and cultural criticism which has evolved around the study of travel and travel writing in recent years. These approaches have gained much from the scholarly experience provided by postcolonial critique. Shifting the focus away from the concept of exile, the traditional framework for scholarly discussions of Brodsky’s works, I propose to review Brodsky’s travel poetry and prose as a response not only to his exilic condition but to the postmodern and postcolonial landscape, which initially shaped the writing of these texts. Discussing Brodsky’s travel writing in this context offers previously unexplored perspectives for analyzing the geopolitical, philosophical, and linguistic premises of his poetic imagination. By situating Brodsky’s travel writing in the geopolitical landscape of postcolonial postmodernity, I attempt to show how Brodsky’s engagement with his contemporary cultural practices in the West was incorporated into his Russian-language travel poetry and prose and how this engagement thus contributed to these texts’ status as exceptional and unique literary events within late Soviet Russian cultural practices.

Talking About Time in Russian and Finnish

In this study I look at what people want to express when they talk about time in Russian and Finnish, and why they use the means they use. The material consists of expressions of time: 1087 from Russian and 1141 from Finnish. They have been collected from dictionaries, usage guides, corpora, and the Internet. An expression means here an idiomatic set of words in a preset form, a collocation or construction. They are studied as lexical entities, without a context, and analysed and categorized according to various features. The theoretical background for the study includes two completely different approaches. Functional Syntax is used in order to find out what general meanings the speaker wishes to convey when talking about time and how these meanings are expressed in specific languages. Conceptual metaphor theory is used for explaining why the expressions are as they are, i.e. what kind of conceptual metaphors (transfers from one conceptual domain to another) they include. The study has resulted in a grammatically glossed list of time expressions in Russian and Finnish, a list of 56 general meanings involved in these time expressions and an account of the means (constructions) that these languages have for expressing the general meanings defined. It also includes an analysis of conceptual metaphors behind the expressions. The general meanings involved turned out to revolve around expressing duration, point in time, period of time, frequency, sequence, passing of time, suitable time and the right time, life as time, limitedness of time, and some other notions having less obvious semantic relations to the others. Conceptual metaphor analysis of the material has shown that time is conceptualized in Russian and Finnish according to the metaphors Time Is Space (Time Is Container, Time Has Direction, Time Is Cycle, and the Time Line Metaphor), Time Is Resource (and its submapping Time Is Substance), Time Is Actor; and some characteristics are added to these conceptualizations with the help of the secondary metaphors Time Is Nature and Time Is Life. The limits between different conceptual metaphors and the connections these metaphors have with one another are looked at with the help of the theory of conceptual integration (the blending theory) and its schemas. The results of the study show that although Russian and Finnish are typologically different, they are very similar both in the needs of expression their speakers have concerning time, and in the conceptualizations behind expressing time. This study introduces both theoretical and methodological novelties in the nature of material used, in developing empirical methodology for conceptual metaphor studies, in the exactness of defining the limits of different conceptual metaphors, and in seeking unity among the different facets of time. Keywords: time, metaphor, time expression, idiom, conceptual metaphor theory, functional syntax, blending theory

Canon and Beyond : Edvard Fazer and the Imperial Russian Ballet 1908 - 1910

The study explores the first appearances of Russian ballet dancers on the stages of northern Europe in 1908 1910, particularly the performances organized by a Finnish impresario, Edvard Fazer, in Helsinki, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Berlin. The company, which consisted of dancers from the Imperial Theatres of St. Petersburg, travelled under the name The Imperial Russian Ballet of St. Petersburg. The Imperial Russian Ballet gave more than seventy performances altogether during its tours of Finland, Sweden, Denmark and central Europe. The synchronic approach of the study covers the various cities as well as genres and thus stretches the rather rigid geographical and genre boundaries of dance historiography. The study also explores the role of the canon in dance history, revealing some of the diversity which underlies the standard canonical interpretation of early twentieth-century Russian ballet by bringing in source material from the archives of northern Europe. Issues like the central position of written documentation, the importance of geographical centres, the emphasis on novelty and reformers and the short and narrow scholarly tradition have affected the formation of the dance history canon in the west, often imposing limits on the historians and narrowing the scope of research. The analysis of the tours concentrates on four themes: virtuosity, character dancing, the idea of the expressive body, and the controversy over ballet and new dance. The debate concerning the old and new within ballet is also touched upon. These issues are discussed in connection with each city, but are stressed differently depending on the local art scene. In Copenhagen, the strong local canon based on August Bournonville s works influenced the Danish criticism of Russian ballet. In Helsinki, Stockholm and Berlin, the lack of a solid local canon made critics and audiences more open to new influences, and ballet was discussed in a much broader cultural context than that provided by the local ballet tradition. The contemporary interest in the more natural, expressive human body, emerging both in theatre and dance, was an international trend that also influenced the way ballet was discussed. Character dancing, now at low ebb, played a central role in the success of the Imperial Russian Ballet, not only because of its exoticism but also because it was considered to echo the kind of performing body represented by new dance forms. By exploring this genre and its dancers, the thesis brings to light artists who are less known in the current dance history canon, but who made considerable careers in their own time.

A Touch of Red : Archaeological and Ethnographic Approaches to Interpreting Finnish Rock Paintings

Approximately 125 prehistoric rock paintings have been found in the modern territory of Finland. The paintings were done with red ochre and are almost without exception located on steep lakeshore cliffs associated with ancient water routes. Most of the sites are found in the central and eastern parts of the country, especially on the shores of Lakes Päijänne and Saimaa. Using shore displacement chronology, the art has been dated to ca. 5000 – 1500 BC. It was thus created mainly during the Stone Age and can be associated with the so-called ‘Comb Ware’ cultures of the Subneolithic period. The range of motifs is rather limited, consisting mainly of schematic depictions of stick-figure humans, elks, boats, handprints and geometric signs. Few paintings include any evidence of narrative scenes, making their interpretation a rather difficult task. In Finnish archaeological literature, the paintings have traditionally been associated with ’sympathetic’ hunting magic, or the belief that the ritual shooting of the painted animals would increase hunting luck. Some writers have also suggested totemistic and shamanistic readings of the art. This dissertation is a critical review of the interpretations offered of Finnish rock art and an exploration of the potentials of archaeological and ethnographic research in increasing our knowledge of its meaning. Methods used include ’formal’ approaches such as archaeological excavation, landscape analysis and the application of neuropsychological research to the study of rock art, as well as ethnographically ’informed’ approaches that make use of Saami and Baltic Finnish ethnohistorical sources in interpretation. In conclusion, it is argued that although North European hunter-gatherer rock art is often thought to lie beyond the reach of ‘informed’ knowledge, the exceptional continuity of prehistoric settlement in Finland validates the informed approach in the interpretation of Finnish rock paintings. The art can be confidently associated with shamanism of the kind still practiced by the Saami of Northern Fennoscandia in the historical period. Evidence of similar shamanistic practices, concepts and cosmology are also found in traditional Finnish-Karelian epic poetry. Previous readings of the art based on ‘hunting magic’ and totemism are rejected. Most of the paintings appear to depict experiences of falling into a trance, of shamanic metamorphosis and trance journeys, and of ‘spirit helper’ beings comparable to those employed by the Saami shaman (noaidi). As demonstrated by the results of an excavation at the rock painting of Valkeisaari, the painted cliffs themselves find a close parallel in the Saami cult of the 'sieidi', or sacred cliffs and boulders worshipped as expressing a supernatural power. Like the Saami, the prehistoric inhabitants of the Finnish Lake Region seem to have believed that certain cliffs were ’alive’ and inhabited by the spirit helpers of the shaman. The rock paintings can thus be associated with shamanic vision quests, and the making of ‘art’ with an effort to socialize the other members of the community, especially the ritual specialists, with trance visions. However, the paintings were not merely to be looked at. The red ochre handprints pressed on images of elks, as well as the fact that many paintings appear ’smeared’, indicate that they were also to be touched – perhaps in order to tap into the supernatural potency inherent in the cliff and in the paintings of spirit animals.

Luonto, tiede ja teknologia : Kansanvalistuksen Suomi-kuva 1870-1920

Nature, science and technology. The image of Finland through popular enlightenment texts 1870-1920 This doctoral thesis looks at how Finnish popular enlightenment texts published between 1870 and 1920 took part in the process of forming a genuine Finnish national identity. The same process was occurring in other Nordic countries at the time and the process in Finland was in many ways influenced by them, particularly Sweden. In Finland the political realities under Russian rule especially during the Russification years, and the fact that its history was considered to be short compared to other European countries, made this nation-building process unique. The undertaking was led by members of the national elite, influential in the cultural, academic as well as political arenas, who were keen to support the foundation of a modern Finnish identity. The political realities and national philosophy of history necessitated a search for elements of identity in nature and the Finnish landscape, which were considered to have special national importance: Finland was very much determined as a political entity on the basis of its geography and nature. Nature was also used as means of taking a cultural or political view in terms of, for example, geographical facts such as the nation s borders or the country s geographical connections to Western Europe. In the building of a proper national identity the concept of nature was not, however, static, but was more or less affected by political and economic progress in society. This meant that nature, or the image of the national landscape, was no longer seen only as a visual image of the national identity, but also as a source of science, technology and a prosperous future. The role of technology in this process was very much connected to the ability to harness natural resources to serve national interests. The major change in this respect had occurred by the early 20th century, when indisputable scientific progress altered the relationship between nature and technology. Concerning technology, the thesis is mainly interested in the large and at the time modern technological manifestations, such as railways, factories and industrial areas in Finland. Despite the fact that the symbiosis between national nature and international but successfully localized technology was in Finnish popular enlightenment literature depicted mostly as a national success story, concerns began to arise already in last years of the 19th century. It was argued that the emerging technology would eventually destroy Finland s natural environment, and therefore the basis of its national identity. The question was not how to preserve nature through natural science, but more how to conserve such natural resources and images that were considered to be the basis of national identity and thus of the national history. National parks, isolated from technology, and distant enough so as to have no economic value, were considered the solution to the problem. Methodologically the thesis belongs to the genre of science and technology studies, and offers new viewpoints with regard to both the study of Finnish popular enlightenment literature and the national development process as a whole.

Substrata Uralica : Studies on Finno-Ugrian Substrate in Northern Russian Dialects

The thesis consists of five articles and an introduction. It treats the problems of the Uralic substrate, most notably, the substrate toponyms, in the Russian dialects of Arkhangelsk region. The articles contribute to the general linguistic discussion concerning the nature of linguistic substrate and the outcome of language shift and to the onomastic discussion concerning the etymologisation and ethnic interpretation of substrate toponymy. Among the questions the articles scrutinised are the following: 1) How may phonetic and morphosyntactic substrate interference be verified? 2) How typical is the transfer of vocabulary in the case of a language shift? 3) How the borrowing of toponymy and appellative vocabulary are connected in the case of a language shift? 4) How does the etymologisation of the toponyms differ from the etymologisation of appellatives? 5) How reliable can the toponymic etymologies be? 6) How can the substrate language be identified? It is found that the substrate interference that can be meaningfully studied, from the point of view of historical linguistics, is predominantly lexical and not related to phonetics and morphosyntax, as presumed in many handbooks. New methods are outlined for the identification of substrate languages separately from the lexical, phonological and typological point of view by using the substrate toponymy as the main source of information on extinct languages. A reliability scale for the toponymic etymologies is developed that helps to identify the kinds of etymologies containing ethnohistorically meaningful information. The study also sheds light on questions related to Uralistics and Slavistics. The most important of these are the following: 1) Which Uralic languages were spoken in North Russia prior to Slavic? 2) When did the Slavicisation of the Finno-Ugrian population take place in the area of the Arkhangelsk Region? 3) What is the significance of the Finno-Ugrian substrate in northern Russian dialects to comparative Uralistics? 4) Are there any traces of pre-Uralic substrate languages in north-eastern Europe? The Finnic substrate languages, already identified by earlier studies, seem to have consisted of two groups, one of which was closest to the southern Finnic. Also, language(s) close to Sámi in some respects though not identical with it where spoken in pre-Slavic North Russia.

Landscape-scale soil erosion modelling and ecological restoration for a mountainous watershed in Sichuan, China

Sichuanissa Tiibetin ylängön metsäkato on pysähtynyt mutta eroosio-ongelmat jatkuvat Viikin tropiikki-instituutin tutkija Ping ZHOU kartoitti trooppisen metsänhoidon alaan kuuluvassa väitöskirjatyössään maaperän eroosioalttiutta ja sen riippuvuutta metsäkasvillisuudesta Jangtsen tärkeää sivuhaaraa Min-jokea ympäröivällä n. 7400 neliökilometrin suuruisella valuma-alueella Sichuanin Aba-piirikunnassa. Aineistonaan hän käytti muun muassa satelliittikartoitustietoja ja mittaustuloksia yli 600 maastokoealalta. Tutkimuksen nimi suomeksi on "Maaperän eroosion mallinnus ja vuoristoisen valuma-alueen ekologinen ennallistaminen Sichuanissa Kiinassa". Aikaisempien tutkimusten perusteella oli tiedossa että metsien häviäminen tällä alueella pysähtyi jo 1980-luvun alussa. Sen jälkeen on metsien pinta-ala hitaasti kasvanut etupäässä sen vuoksi, että teollinen puunhakkuu luonnonmetsissä kiellettiin kokonaan v. 1998 ja 25 astetta jyrkemmillä rinteillä myös maatalouden harjoittaminen on saatu lopetetuksi viljelijöille tarjottujen taloudellisten houkuttimien avulla. Täten myös pelto- ja laidunmaata on voitu ennallistaa metsäksi. Ping Zhou pystyi jakamaan 5700 metrin korkeuteen saakka kohoavan vuoristoalueen eroosioalttiudeltaan erilaisiin vyöhykkeisiin rinteen kaltevuuden, sademäärän, kasvipeitteen ja maalajin perusteella. Noin 15 prosentilla tutkitun valuma-alueen pinta-alasta, lähinnä Min-joen pääuomaa ympäröivillä jyrkillä rinteillä, eroosioriski oli suuri tai erittäin suuri. Eri tyyppisellä kasvillisuudella oli hyvin erilainen vaikutus eroosioalttiuteen, ja myös alueen sijainti vuoriston eri korkeuksilla vaikutti eroosioon. Säästyneet lähes luonnontilaiset havumetsät, joita on etupäässä vuoriston ylimmissä osissa 2600-4000 metrin korkeudella, edistävät tehokkaasti metsän luontaista uudistumista ja levittäytymistä vaurioituneille alueille. Säilyneiden metsien puulajikoostumus antoi tutkimuksessa mahdollisuuden ennustaa metsien tulevaa kehitystä koko tutkitulla valuma-alueella sen eri korkeusvyöhykkeissä ja eri maaperätyypeillä. Ennallistamisen kannalta ongelmallisimpia olivat alueet joilta metsäpeite oli lähinnä puiden teollisen hakkuun vuoksi kokonaan hävinnyt ja joilla maaperä yleisesti oli eroosion pahoin kuluttama. Näillä alueilla ei ole tehty juuri mitään uudistamis- tai ennallistamistoimenpiteitä. Niillä metsien ennallistaminen vaatii myös puiden tai pensaiden istuttamista. Tähän sopivia ovat erityisesti ilmakehän typpeä sitovat lajit, joista alueella kasvaa luontaisena mm. sama tyrnilaji joka esiintyy myös Suomessa. Työssä tutkittiin yli kahdeksankymmenen paikallisen luontaisen puulajin (joista peräti noin kolmannes on havupuulajeja) ekologisia ominaisuuksia ja soveltuvuutta metsien ennallistamiseen. Avainasemassa työn onnistumisen kannalta ovat nyt paikalliset asukkaat, joiden maankäytön muutokset ovat jo selvästi edistänet luonnonmetsän ennalleen palautumista. Suomen Akatemia rahoitti vuosina 2004-2006 VITRI:n tutkimushanketta, josta Ping Zhou'n väitöskirjatyö muodosti keskeisen osan. Kenttätyö Sichuanissa avasi mahdollisuuden hedelmälliseen monitieteiseen yhteistyöhön ja tutkijavaihtoon Kiinan tiedeakatemian alaisen Chengdun biologiainstituutin (CIB) kanssa; tämä tieteellinen kanssakäyminen jatkuu edelleen.

The Vexing Case of Igor Shafarevich, a Russian Political Thinker

The Russian mathematician, academician and former dissident Igor Shafarevich (b. 1923) is commonly mentioned in Western scholarly studies on perestroika and post-perestroika-era Russian politics as one of the most notable anti-Semites and extreme nationalists of the country. This notoriety owes to Shafarevich’s old samizdat article Russophobia, which was published in 1988. The scandal surrounding Russophobia came to a head when the president of The National Academy of Sciences in the United States asked Shafarevich, its honorary member, to resign. Nothing like this had ever happened in the academy’s history. The present dissertation discusses Shafarevich’s political activities, his texts and ideas as well as their reception. Particular attention is given to Russophobia, whose detailed examination proves very clearly that its reputation as an anti-Semitic text is groundless. The reasons for Russophobia’s hasty but fierce condemnation were many, but only one was that when the Soviet system began to tumble, it was commonly assumed that a vigorous rise in anti-Semitism and extreme nationalism in the Soviet Union/Russia would be just a matter of time. Many observers were highly sensitised to detecting its signs and symptoms. The dissertation also shows that most of those to write the first criticisms of Russophobia and to liken Shafarevich to the ideologues of Nazi Germany were the same people he had criticised in Russophobia for their deterministic view of history and irrational manner of connecting things for the purpose of fanning the flames of distrust between Russia’s Jews and Russians. In retrospect, it is fairly evident that Shafarevich actually managed to effectively “neutralise” the message of many of those obsessed with the Jews among his Russian contemporaries and contributed to the fact that anti-Jewish sentiments have been a great deal less popular in post-communist Russia than so many had feared and expected. The thesis also thoroughly discusses Shafarevich’s other texts and activities before Russophobia’s appearance and after it. In the 1970s, Shafarevich was one of the best-known dissidents in the Soviet Union. He worked together with academician Andrei Sakharov in a dissidents’ unofficial human rights committee and co-operated closely with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn before Solzhenitsyn’s exile. Then, during the chaotic years of perestroika, Shafarevich defended the basic rights of ordinary citizens and warned that the hype concerning democracy could become counterproductive if the most palpable result of the reforms was the disappearance of citizens’ basic security and elementary social justice. One of the conclusions of the thesis is that even if the world around Shafarevich has changed considerably, his views have remained essentially the same since the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Communities of wood-inhabiting fungi : Ecological requirements and responses to forest management and fragmentation

Despite much research on forest biodiversity in Fennoscandia, the exact mechanisms of species declines in dead-wood dependent fungi are still poorly understood. In particular, there is only limited information on why certain fungal species have responded negatively to habitat loss and fragmentation, while others have not. Understanding the mechanisms behind species declines would be essential for the design and development of ecologically effective and scientifically informed conservation measures, and management practices that would promote biodiversity in production forests. In this thesis I study the ecology of polypores and their responses to forest management, with a particular focus on why some species have declined more than others. The data considered in the thesis comprise altogether 98,318 dead-wood objects, with 43,085 observations of 174 fungal species. Out of these, 1,964 observations represent 58 red-listed species. The data were collected from 496 sites, including woodland key habitats, clear-cuts with retention trees, mature managed forests, and natural or natural-like forests in southern Finland and Russian Karelia. I show that the most relevant way of measuring resource availability can differ to a great extent between species seemingly sharing the same resources. It is thus critical to measure the availability of resources in a way that takes into account the ecological requirements of the species. The results show that connectivity at the local, landscape and regional scales is important especially for the highly specialized species, many of which are also red-listed. Habitat loss and fragmentation affect not only species diversity but also the relative abundances of the species and, consequently, species interactions and fungal successional pathways. Changes in species distributions and abundances are likely to affect the food chains in which wood-inhabiting fungi are involved, and thus the functioning of the whole forest ecosystem. The findings of my thesis highlight the importance of protecting well-connected, large and high-quality forest areas to maintain forest biodiversity. Small habitat patches distributed across the landscape are likely to contribute only marginally to protection of red-listed species, especially if habitat quality is not substantially higher than in ordinary managed forest, as is the case with woodland key habitats. Key habitats might supplement the forest protection network if they were delineated larger and if harvesting of individual trees was prohibited in them. Taking the landscape perspective into account in the design and development of conservation measures is critical while striving to halt the decline of forest biodiversity in an ecologically effective manner.

Effects of management and landscape structure on biodiversity in boreal agricultural farmland

Intensified agricultural practises introduced after the Second World War are identified as a major cause of global biodiversity declines. In several European countries agri-environment support schemes have been introduced to counteract the ongoing biodiversity declines. Farmers participating in agri-environment schemes are financially compensated for decreasing the intensity of farming practises leading to smaller yields and lower income. The Finnish agri-environment support scheme is composed of a set of measures, such as widened field margins along main ditches (obligatory measure), management of features increasing landscape diversity, management of semi-natural grasslands, and organic farming (special agreement measures). The magnitude of the benefits for biodiversity depends on landscape context and the properties of individual schemes. In this thesis I studied whether one agri-environment scheme, organic farming, is beneficial for species diversity and abundance of diurnal lepidopterans, bumblebees, carabid beetles and arable weeds. I found that organic farming did not enhance species richness of selected insect taxa, although bumblebee species richness tended to be higher in organic farms. Abundance of lepidopterans and bumblebees was not enhanced by organic farming, but carabid beetle abundance was higher in mixed farms with both cereal crop production and animal husbandry. Both species richness and abundance of arable weeds were higher in organic farms. My second objective was to study how landscape structure shapes farmland butterfly communities. I found that the percentage of habitat specialists and species with poor dispersal abilities in butterfly assemblages decreased with increasing arable field cover, leading to a dramatic decrease in butterfly beta diversity. In field boundaries local species richness of butterflies was linearly related to landscape species richness in geographic regions with high arable field cover, indicating that butterfly species richness in field boundaries is more limited by landscape factors than local habitat factors. In study landscapes containing semi-natural grasslands the relationship decelerated at high landscape species richness, suggesting that local species richness of butterflies in field boundaries is limited by habitat factors (demanding habitat specialists that occurred in semi-natural grasslands were absent in field margins). My results suggest that management options in field margins will affect mainly generalists, and species with good dispersal abilities, in landscapes with high arable field cover. Habitat specialists and species with poor dispersal abilities may benefit of management options if these are applied in the vicinity of source populations.

Regeneration ecology and woody species diversity in the remnant natural forest at Wondo Genet, Ethiopia – Potential for landscape restoration

Regeneration ecology, diversity of native woody species and its potential for landscape restoration was studied in the remnant natural forest at the College of Forestry and Natural Resources at Wondo Genet, Ethiopia. The type of forest is Afromontane rainforest , with many valuable tree species like Aningeria adolfi-friederici, and it is an important provider of ecological, social and economical services for the population that lives in this area. The study contains two parts, natural regeneration studies (at the natural forest) and interviews with farmers in the nearby village of the remnant patch. The objective of the first part was to investigate the floristic composition, densitiy and regeneration profiles of native woody species in the forest, paying special attention to woody species that are considered the most relevant (socio-economic). The second part provided information on woody species preferred by the farmers and on multiple uses of the adjacent natural forest, it also provided information and analysed perceptions on forest degradation. Systematic plot sampling was used in the forest inventory. Twenty square plots of 20 x 20 m were assessed, with 38 identified woody species (the total number of species was 45), representing 26 families. Of these species 61% were trees, 13% shrubs, 11% lianas and 16% species that could have both life forms. An analysis of natural regeneration of five important tree species in the natural forest showed that Aningeria adolfi-friederici had the best regeneration results. An analysis of population structure (as determined by height classes) of two commercially important woody species in the forest, Aningeria adolfi-friederici and Podocarpus falcatus, showed a marked difference: Aningeria had a typical “reversed J” frequency distribution, while Podocarpus showed very low values in all height classes. Multi dimensional scaling (MDS) was used to map the sample plots according to their similarity in species composition, using the Sørensen quantitative index, coupled with indicator species analysis .Three groups were identified with respective indicator species: Group 1 – Adhatoda schimperiana, Group 2 – Olea hochstetteri , Group 3 – Acacia senegal and Aningeria adolfi-friederici. Thirty questionnaire interviews were conducted with farmers in the village of Gotu Onoma that use the nearby remant forest patch. Their tree preferences were exotic species such as Eucalyptus globulus for construction and fuelwood and Grevillea robusta for shade and fertility. Considering forest land degradation farmers were aware of the problem and suggested that the governmental institutions address the problem by planting more Eucalyptus globulus. The natural forest seemed to have moderate levels of disturbance and it was still floristically diverse. However, the low rate of natural regeneration of Podocarpus falcatus suggested that this species is threatened and must be a priority in conservation actions. Plantations and agroforestry seem to be possible solutions for rehabilitation of the surrounding degraded lands, thereby decreasing the existent pressure in the remnant natural forest.