Community-based Ecotourism as a Sustainable Development Option in the Taita Hills, Kenya

This study aims at identifying the existing and potential resources, as well as recognizing the hinderances, for community-based ecotourism development in the Taita Hills in south-eastern Kenya. The indigenous mountain rain forests on the hills are rich in biodiversity, but severely degraded because of encroachment caused by the dynamics of increased population, socio-politics and economics. The research problems are based on the hypothesis that there is no tourism in the Taita Hills generating income for the local economy and high population density combined with poverty creates a need for alternative employment opportunities as well as for sustainable ways of forest resource management. The data for this study was gathered during two field trips in Kenya, in January-February 2004 and 2005, as a part of the Taita Project within the Department of Geography at the University of Helsinki. The qualitative methods used consist of RRA and PRA techniques, in-depth interviews, a structured questionnaire and literature analysis as well as attendance on excursions and a workshop with conservation experts and officials. Four case areas in the Taita Hills are studied. The study concludes that alternative livelihoods are needed among the Taita Hills´ rural population and community-based ecotourism is seen as a way of bringing financial benefits for households as well as reviving the fading cultural traditions and indigenous knowledge about forest use. The governmental policies, district level development plans and some NGOs support ecotourism development. The Forest Act 2005 forms base for local participation in forest management. The unique natural features, the welcoming Taita-culture and the location in the coastal tourism circle favour Taita Hills. However, this kind of development has its risks, such as too rapid change of sorest usage level and the exposure of communities to an ecotourism treadmill process. The costbenefit ration of marketing for hard ecotourists is generally low and the tourism infrastructure needs upgrading in the Taita Hills. More tight collaboration is important between the different level stakeholders working for conservation and development. Community-based ecotourism in Taita Hills, when carefully planned and managed, could be one opportunity for Kenya to diversify its tourism product supply and for forestadjacent communities to gain tangible benefits on a sustainable basis from forests.

Asemakaavoitus Helsingin seudun kasvun hallinnassa

Many Finnish municipalities need to control their growth. In this research growth is understood as developments of land utilisation and also as a wide range of other changes that have mainly ap-peared as a result of a long term growth in population. The development growth control contains four areas: 1. adequate productivity of town planning, 2. stationing the growth to needs led and for sustainable developments, 3. quality of the developing environment, and 4. producing growth with communicative and transparent process. The aim of the research is to represent connection between town planning and development growth control. Research defines the role of town planning in the municipalities development growth control. In addition research focuses on links between town planning and development growth control in history, present and in the development work for the future. According to the hypothesis the extensive examination of town planning enables better growth control and promotes appropriate response to municipal changes regarding housing delivery. As an example there are five outskirt municipalities in the Helsinki region. They are called Kirkkonummi, Vihti, Nurmijärvi, Tuusula and Sipoo. The decision was to use examples based on a contingence theory. According to the theory there is no one correct way to operate. Therefore development should be based on individual municipal needs. In the research, municipality s needs were collected by 20 semi- structured interviews from municipal officials. In addition there were group interviews in Uusimaa Regional Council and in Uusimaa Regional Environmental Centre. There was also secondary material collected from official papers and statistics. Operationalisation was the analysis tool between empiric and literature reviews. The role of town planning has evolved during the 20th century from a more simple town plan level to operative stage in town planning hierarchy. Outskirt municipalities town planning was established during the 1960s. Since then one of the most important aims in the town planning has been to produce growth and building possibilities. Currently the challenge is to reach the satisfying rate of productivity and to meet increased housing demand. Other challenges include locating the appropriate geographical areas for growth; and the balance between required developments and planning permission decisions. Findings concluded that town planning should be more viable and it should have better ability to co-operate and operate in the changing operational environment. Municipality s ability to receive growth can increase and growth control can advance by planned and workable town planning. It is essential to take wide perspective of the each municipality's unique needs to improve productivity rather than to focus simply on productivity.

Aktiiviseen kansalaisuuteen kasvattaminen yläkoulun maantieteen opetuksessa

Tutkielmassa tarkasteltiin aktiivista kansalaisuutta perusopetuksen yläkoulun (luokat 7–9) maantieteen opetuksessa. Tutkielman taustana olivat aktiiviseen kansalaisuuteen liittyvät viralliset ja epäviralliset diskurssit: opetussuunnitelman perusteiden aihekokonaisuudet, kouluun kohdistuvat kansalaiskasvatushankkeet sekä nuoriin, kansalaisuuteen ja kansalaisyhteiskuntaan liittyvät keskustelut. Maantieteen opetuksen osalta taustana olivat opetussuunnitelman velvoitteet huomioida aktiivinen kansalaisuus yläkoulun maantieteen opetuksessa sekä (pääasiassa brittiläinen) kirjallisuus, jossa maantieteen ja kansalaiskasvatuksen/aktiivisen kansalaisuuden välillä nähdään yhtäläisyyksiä. Tutkielmassa pyrittiin selvittämään, mitä aktiivinen kansalaisuus on yläkoulun maantieteen opetuksessa ja miten maantieteen opettajat suhtautuvat tehtäviinsä nuorten kansalaisten kasvattajina ja yhteiskunnallisina vaikuttajina. Tutkielmaa varten kerättiin teemahaastatteluaineisto kuudelta yläkoulun maantieteen opettajalta. Haastatteluihin pyrittiin löytämään mahdollisimman aktiivisia maantieteen opettajia. Haastatteluaineiston analyysissa käytettiin sisällönanalyysia, ja aineiston avulla pyrittiin kuvaamaan ilmiötä. Haastateltujen opettajien mukaan yläkoulun maantieteen opetuksessa luonnonmaantieteelliset sisällöt painottuvat enemmän kuin kulttuurimaantieteelliset. Aktiivisen kansalaisuuden kannalta keskeisiä sisältöjä, kuten vaikutusmahdollisuuksia oman ympäristön suunnitteluun ja kehittymiseen sekä kotikunnan ja lähiympäristön tutkimista käsitellään opetuksessa vain vähän, jos ollenkaan. Aktiivinen kansalaisuus on yläkoulun maantieteen opetuksessa eniten tiedon jakamista, ajattelun taitojen ja mielipiteen muodostamisen harjoittelua sekä ympäristövastuullisuuteen kansalaisuuteen kasvattamista. Opetuksessa käytetään myös aktiivisen kansalaisuuden kannalta keskeisiä työtapoja, mutta työtapojen käyttö vaihtelee. Haastatellut opettajat eivät koe opetussuunnitelman aihekokonaisuuksia juurikaan omakseen. Opettajat eivät myöskään määrittele kansalaisvaikuttamiseen kasvattamista koulun tärkeimpien tehtävien joukkoon. Osa opettajista kokee kuitenkin olevansa yhteiskunnallinen vaikuttaja opettajana. Opettajien puheessa koulun kansalaiskasvatuksen tavoite, kunnon kansalainen, ei määrity kovin aktiivisena tai poliittisena. Opettajien puhe sisältää kuitenkin monenlaisia näkemyksiä suhteessa nuoriin kansalaisina ja aktiivisuuteen: toisaalta nuoret eivät ole kiinnostuneita yhteiskunnallisista asioista eikä heiltä vaaditakaan sitä, toisaalta maaperä nuorten kasvattamiseen aktiivisiksi kansalaisiksi on hyvä ja aktiivisuus on pieniä asioita lähiympäristössä sekä yhdessä tekemiseen uskomista. Haastattelujen pohjalta todettiin, että lukuun ottamatta joidenkin opettajien ympäristökasvatuksellista otetta, aktiivinen kansalaisuus ei ole täysin tiedostettu tavoite yläkoulun maantieteen opetuksessa.

Deutschland, Deutschland über alles : Tysk föreningsverksamhet i Finland och Sverige 1910-1950

The voluntary associations dealt with in this dissertation were ethnic clubs and societies promoting the interests of German immigrants in Finland and Sweden. The associations were founded at the end of the 19th century as well as at the beginning of the 20th century during a time in which migration was high, the civil society grew rapidly and nationalism flourished. The work includes over 70 different associations in Finland and Sweden with a number of members ranging from ten to at most 2, 500. The largest and most important associations were situated in Helsinki and Stockholm where also most of the German immigrants lived. The main aim of this work is to explore to what extent and how the changes in government in Germany during 1910 to 1950 were reflected in the structures and participants, financial resources and meeting places, networks and activities of the German associations in Finland and Sweden. The study also deals with how a collective German national identity was created within the German associations. The period between 1910 and 1950 has been described by Hobsbawm as the apogee of nationalism. Nationalism and transnationalism are therefore key elements in the work. Additionally the research deals with theories about associations, networking and identity. The analysis is mostly based on minutes of meetings, descriptions of festivities, annual reports and historical outlines about the associations. Archival sources from the German legations, the German Foreign Office, and Finnish and Swedish officials such as the police and the Foreign Offices are also used. The study shows that the collective national identity in the associations during the Weimar Republic mostly went back to the time of the Wilhelmine Empire. It is argued that this fact, the cultural propaganda and the aims of the Weimar Republic to strengthen the contacts between Germany and the German associations abroad, and the role of the German legations and envoys finally helped the small groups of NSDAP to infiltrate, systematically coordinate and finally centralize the German associational life in Finland and Sweden. The Gleichschaltung did not go as smoothly as the party wanted, though. There was a small but consistent opposition that continued to exist in Finland until 1941 and in Sweden until 1945. The collective national identity was displayed much more in Sweden than in Finland, where the associations kept a lower profile. The reasons for the profile differences can be found in the smaller number of German immigrants in Finland and the greater German propaganda in Sweden, but also in the Finnish association act from 1919 and the changes in it during the 1920s and 1930s. Finally, the research shows how the loss of two world wars influenced the associations. It argues that 1918 made the German associations more vulnerable to influence from Germany, whereas 1945 brought the associational life back to where it once started as welfare, recreational and school associations.

Part-of-Speech Tagging using Parallel Weighted Finite-State Transducers

We use parallel weighted finite-state transducers to implement a part-of-speech tagger, which obtains state-of-the-art accuracy when used to tag the Europarl corpora for Finnish, Swedish and English. Our system consists of a weighted lexicon and a guesser combined with a bigram model factored into two weighted transducers. We use both lemmas and tag sequences in the bigram model, which guarantees reliable bigram estimates.

Guessers for Finite-State Transducer Lexicons

Language software applications encounter new words, e.g., acronyms, technical terminology, names or compounds of such words. In order to add new words to a lexicon, we need to indicate their inflectional paradigm. We present a new generally applicable method for creating an entry generator, i.e. a paradigm guesser, for finite-state transducer lexicons. As a guesser tends to produce numerous suggestions, it is important that the correct suggestions be among the first few candidates. We prove some formal properties of the method and evaluate it on Finnish, English and Swedish full-scale transducer lexicons. We use the open-source Helsinki Finite-State Technology to create finitestate transducer lexicons from existing lexical resources and automatically derive guessers for unknown words. The method has a recall of 82-87 % and a precision of 71-76 % for the three test languages. The model needs no external corpus and can therefore serve as a baseline.