The Nordic countries have agreed on a common target to halt the decline in biodiversity by 2010. This report aims at evaluating the 2010-target by presenting indicators that can describe trends in biodiversity in the Nordic countries. Our results comprise the most comprehensive documentation of land use in the Nordic countries to date. The area of important nature types such as mire, grassland and heathland have decreased significantly over the past one to two decades, whereas the area of constructed habitats, including city areas and transport networks, has grown considerably in all of the Nordic countries. Each of these trends in land use will cause biodiversity to decline. Looking into the quality aspect of biodiversity, our results reveal that two-thirds of the quality indicators presented show declines and the remaining one-third show improvements (or steady-state). Overall, our results indicate that biodiversity has declined in the Nordic countries since 1990. In particular, farmland, mire, grassland and heathland habitats show declines in biodiversity, but also the remaining habitats show negative trends. Therefore, based on the findings from this study, we conclude that it is highly unlikely that the target of halting biodiversity loss by 2010 can be achieved by the Nordic countries. Our results should be perceived as a first attempt to make an overall assessment of biodiversity in the Nordic countries. We believe that if further efforts were directed towards scrutinising existing and historic monitoring programmes and data sources, additional indicators could be calculated and hence a better knowledge base would be achieved.

Maintaining forest biodiversity by combining protection, management and restoration of forest and woodland landscapes is a central component of sustainable development. Evidence that there are threshold levels for how much habitat loss may be tolerated for viable populations of specialised species to be maintained. Policy-makers, businesses and managers pose questions about how to balance use of renewable forest resources and conserve biodiversity. Examples are presented on how biodiversity assessments can be made. Proposes how the critical gaps in our knowledge identified throughout the book could be filled through macroecological research and international co-operation.

Environmentally sound disposal of Ozone Depleting Substances is increasingly recognised as an important issue in terms of both the protection of the ozone layer and the effect on climate change. However, there is only a limited overview in the Nordic countries of product groups containing Ozone Depleting Substances, regulation of the substances, available treatment technologies, and waste infrastructure etc. This report provides an overview of the waste treatment and regulation of Ozone Depleting Substances in the Nordic countries. The report identifies gaps, proposes solutions and provides recommendations for relevant Nordic efforts within the area.

Fossils document the existence of trees and wood-associated organisms from almost 400 million years ago, and today there are between 400,000 and 1 million wood-inhabiting species in the world. This is the first book to synthesise the natural history and conservation needs of wood-inhabiting organisms. Presenting a thorough introduction to biodiversity in decaying wood, the book studies the rich diversity of fungi, insects and vertebrates that depend upon dead wood. It describes the functional diversity of these organisms and their specific habitat requirements in terms of host trees, decay phases, tree dimensions, microhabitats and the surrounding environment. Recognising the threats posed by timber extraction and forest management, the authors also present management options for protecting and maintaining the diversity of these species in forests as well as in agricultural landscapes and urban parks.

Climate change is expected to have a profound impact on natural resources, and thus on the primary industries (agriculture, forestry and fisheries) in the Nordic countries. Climate change induces risks but also creates possibilities for new production systems on land and in the ocean. Climatic changes also represent great challenges for policy-making and management regimes. The current knowledge base on natural resources in the Nordic region needs to be expanded to fully address the impacts of climate change. In particular it is important to address the need for improved policies and new policy instruments. The research programme Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation and Mitigation in Nordic Primary Industries is a coordinated set of thematic research networks with the objective to create a Nordic knowledge base on climate change interactions with primary industries in the Nordic region.

The common idea for many people is that forests are just a collection of trees. However, they are much more than that. They are a complex, functional system of interacting and often interdependent biological, physical, and chemical components, the biological part of which has evolved to perpetuate itself. This complexity produces combinations of climate, soils, trees and plant species unique to each site, resulting in hundreds of different forest types around the world. Logically, trees are an important component for the research in forest ecosystems, but the wide variety of other life forms and abiotic components in most forests means that other elements, such as wildlife or soil nutrients, should also be the focal point in ecological studies and management plans to be carried out in forest ecosystems. In this book, the readers can find the latest research related to forest ecosystems but with a different twist. The research described here is not just on trees and is focused on the other components, structures and functions that are usually overshadowed by the focus on trees, but are equally important to maintain the diversity, function and services provided by forests. The first section of this book explores the structure and biodiversity of forest ecosystems, whereas the second section reviews the research done on ecosystem structure and functioning. The third and last section explores the issues related to forest management as an ecosystem-level activity, all of them from the perspective of the "other" parts of a forest.