Detecting Late Holocene cultural landscape modifications using LiDAR imagery in the Boreal Forest,Susitna Valley,Southcentral Alaska

The subarctic boreal forest, or taiga, is the largest biome in the world but has received minimal archaeological research because of its remoteness and difficult working conditions. In Southcentral Alaska the most common archaeological sites are surface manifestations of proto-historic semi-subterranean caches once used for food storage and living structures. However, in dense summer vegetation, these small-scale features are difficult to locate without high intensity pedestrian survey. To test the usefulness of LiDAR data for archaeological prospection in the taiga, we compare LiDAR imagery to the known distribution of small-scale semi-subterranean cultural features. The use of LiDAR, when complemented with Sky-View Factor, has proven valuable in identifying relatively small semi-subterranean features though it does not replace on-the-ground investigation. Nevertheless, the application of LiDAR to locate low density and small-scale cultural features is widely applicable across the subarctic in densely vegetated contexts and may assist in significantly expanding our current knowledge of land-use patterns and site distributions in logistically challenging places.     

森林公园旅游环境承载力评估——以重庆黄水国家森林公园为例

森林公园旅游环境承载力评估是一个复杂的问题。一方面受到诸如景区自然环境特征和组成结构、景区经济环境背景和社会文化环境、旅游者的行为特征及人口学特征等诸多指标的影响,另一方面又必须考虑景区旅游淡旺季的季节性波动。面对如此广泛的影响因素,本文选取重庆黄水国家森林公园进行实证研究,运用动态改进层次分析法(ADIHP),从承载力指标构架、旅游地空间区划、旅游地季节性波动三个方面,对森林公园旅游环境承载力进行了研究,通过对重庆黄水国家森林公园旅游环境承载力的综合评估,为森林公园景区的优化设计、规划与开发提供了较为科学准确的理论依据和实际参考价值。     

‘Balding Nevis’: Place Imperatives of an Invisible Cohort within Tasmania's Forest Communities

An under‐recognised cohort within Tasmania's forest communities is identified, one that shares the social and cultural background of Timber Communities Australia's constituency, but holding deeply antipathetic views toward current forest regimes. Deploying ethnographic data gathered in the upper North Esk country in Tasmania's North‐Eastern Tiers, where this cohort seems to predominate, the elements of a deep attachment to place are explicated: these include a desire to return to a past local economy based upon small but labour‐intensive sawmills with viable satellite hamlets, and a concern for water quality, for the integrity of forest ecosystems, and for the wellbeing of individual plant and animal species therein. Overwhelmed by a sense of powerlessness, lacking political skills, and distressed by the dramatic economic and environmental changes within their community, this cohort is unlikely to organise politically, and is likely to remain relatively voiceless within the fraught dynamics of local politics within riven forest communities. Nevertheless, this ‘third cohort’ suggests wider issues for the politics of place. Its worldview constitutes a potent contemporary articulation of ‘the moral economy’, as described in the 1970s by E.P. Thompson, and extended to a conception of ‘moral ecology’ by Karl Jacoby. It also suggests, contra Doreen Massey, that the identity‐based place theory of the phenomenological tradition is compatible with a conception of places as sites of conflicted meaning, and that it is wrong to assume the vector of change within place to be progressive; rather it is as likely to conduce to a loss of individual and collective agency.     

Conservation and Restoration of a Cultural Forest Landscape: Protecting the Forests Created by Moriori on Chatham Island

Moriori agroforestry practices led to the creation of forests dominated by an introduced tree, kōpi (Corynocarpus laevigatus). Kōpi trees produce an edible drupe which was essential to the successful settlement of Rēkohu (Chatham Island). It is also only on kōpi trees that Moriori created a unique art form, called rākau momori, marking the trees with anthropogenic, animal and abstract images. The remaining stands of old growth forest which include kōpi trees and rākau momori are in varying states of decline and until recently were not identified as a cultural landscape. The acknowledgement of the forests as cultural landscapes has resulted in changes to the conservation and management practices of these spaces. The current management practices have been designed following paleo-ethnobotanical research (palynology and anthracology), ethnography and archaeological excavations which suggest Moriori planted and managed the forests until they were abandoned following an invasion in 1835.     

Russian Roundwood Exports: The Effects of Tariffs on the Finnish Border Economy

Two economic geographers based in Finland use time series analysis and an inputoutput model to evaluate the economic effects of tariffs imposed on Russian roundwood exports on the economy of a Finnish border region heavily dependent on Russian timber supplies. The authors demonstrate the serious economic consequences of the possible cessation of Finnish imports after 2009, by analyzing the depths of the impacts on the regional economy, and options for compensating for the loss of supplies through increased domestic timber harvesting. They place the impacts of the protectionist Russian policy in the broader context of the dynamics and vulnerabilities of border economies, particularly those dependent on imported raw materials. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: F13, F14, L70, L73, O18, R10. 4 figures, 6 tables, 48 references.     

Fragmentation regimes of Canada's forests

Canada is a large nation, approximately 1 billion hectares in size, and until recently, no national assessment of forest fragmentation had been undertaken. To assess national level biodiversity and ecosystem condition, national drivers of forest fragmentation are identified as being either primarily natural (e.g., resulting from wildfires, water features, or topography), or primarily anthropogenic (e.g., resulting from urbanization or roads and associated activities such as forest harvesting and oil and gas exploration). The relative importance of each of these fragmentation drivers within Canada's ten forested ecozones, which occupy approximately 650 million ha, is assessed using ecozone summaries and standard scores. Forest pattern metrics were generated from a Landsat‐derived land cover product and fragmentation drivers were characterized using available national datasets. Through this analysis, we combine and portray the relative importance of forest patches with spatial layers indicative of natural and anthropogenically induced conditions as driving various fragmentation regimes over the forested area of Canada. The forest fragmentation in Canada can be characterized primarily by natural drivers, whereas fragmentation regimes attributable to anthropogenic drivers are typically regionally located and related to industrial activities and access (i.e., roads). We identify three scenarios in our results that characterize forest fragmentation in Canada: ecozones with similar forest patterns but different drivers; ecozones with similar patterns and drivers; and finally, ecozones with both different patterns and different drivers. Our findings indicate that national assessments of forest fragmentation should account for both natural (and inherent) and anthropogenic sources of fragmentation.     

Omsorg om livet. Spädbarnsdödlighetens förändring i Ådalen under 1800-talet [Caring about life. Infant mortality in Ådalen,Sweden, during the 19th century]

The Finnish forest workers' trade union and employers' organizations signed their first wage agreement in 1957 and first collective labour agreement in 1962. Many other sectors had concluded such agreements years earlier. This article challenges the widely accepted idea that collective labour agreements were becoming ubiquitous in Finnish industrial relations soon after the Second World War. Forest workers were left out of this process, and up until the late 1950s their wages and working conditions were not determined by the labour market parties but by state authorities – the state legislated and regulated forestry wages. The explanation for the delayed development of labour market practices in this sector can be found in forest work itself as well as the state's active role. This work was, up until the 1960s, done mainly by small farmers who were reluctant to unionize and unable to otherwise promote their interests. The situation changed when professionalization made them more or less full-time forest workers who more often joined the union. At the same time, the state created organizations and institutions which encouraged labour market parties to cooperate. Their shared struggle against political interference pushed labour market parties towards collective bargaining.     

Wood exploitation and food supply at the border of the Roman Empire: the case of the vicus of Thamusida – Sidi Ali ben Ahmed (Morocco)

This paper presents the results of inter-disciplinary work drawing on archaeobotanical and archaeometric studies to trace the agroforestry landscape and the supply economy at the vicus of Thamusida in north-west Morocco at the border of the Roman Empire. The available data indicate the self-sufficiency of the settlement in both forestry and agricultural products throughout the period investigated from the end of the 1st century BC to the beginning of the 4th century AD. Charcoal data testify to the presence of a Quercus suber forest in the close surroundings of the site and its exploitation for a variety of forestry products such as timber, fuelwood, cork, and probably also leaves and acorns to feed livestock. The overwhelming presence of Q. suber in the archaeological layer investigated clearly indicates that this forest was under human influence prior to Roman occupation and was already partially degraded. Charred seed and fruit remains suggest that the diet of both troops and civilians was mainly based on locally grown products and that all the inhabitants of the site had access to good cereals such as barley, naked wheats and pulses with large seeds such as horse bean and pea; quality fruits, such as olive and grape, were also produced locally for fresh consumption. Organic residue analyses of the contents of ceramic vessels and plastered vats allowed archaeobotanical data to be complemented, thereby shedding light on some of the imports at Thamusida. Despite the remote location of this settlement, imported goods such as oil and wine were transported here in amphorae from different parts of the Empire.