Visits to Sweden in 2004 & 2006

I have been very fortunate to visit Sweden twice thus far: once for a week in Fall 2004, during my Helsinki sabbatical, and once for a week in February 2006, as a guest instructor for a course on forest disturbances. In each case, a key player in making these visits enjoyable has been my colleague Mats Niklasson. The picture at right shows Mats giving a small group a talk about forest disturbance history during the November 2004 visit. Mats is a leading authority on fire history in Swedish forests; his earlier work was in the northern, boreal forests of central and northern Sweden. More recently, Mats has taken a position at the Swedish Agricultural University in Alnarp, just outside of Lund, in southern Sweden. As a result, Mats more recently is focusing on deciduous (beech and oak) forests in southern Sweden, where his work is revealing a complex disturbance history.

In February 2006, I was invited to be a guest lecturer in a course on "Disturbance and Restoration in Forest Ecosystems", taught by Mats Niklasson and Per-Anders Esseen. Dr. Peter White of Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was the other American guest lecturer, so it was quite an honor to be included in the same roster with Peter. The course was held on the site of the Vardnas retreat center in south-central Sweden, a picturesque rural location on a lakeshore, with timeless farmsteads in all directions. This delightful experience reminded me of the similar challenges faced in all countries, of integrating disturbances into management and restoration of forests, in particular the challenges in a landscape that is densely populated. A great deal must still be learned about the role of disturbances in influencing forest dynamics, structure, and composition, although perhaps the largest hurdles for application of our knowledge are social, political, and financial, rather than scientific. A highight of the Vardnas course was the deep-seated concern of the students for the long-term health and biodiversity of Swedish forests, and the enthusiastic discussions about how to apply scientific knowledge to the long-term management of those forests. The pictures below show one shot during Peter White's lecture, and three from the field trip to Norra Kvills National Park -- a picture-perfect winter day.

Geneology

While in Sweden in 2004, I was able to partially fulfill a long-dormant dream, to investigate the Swedish archives for information about some of my ancestors. Further details about that project are here.