I worked on the project “The Return of Native Nordic Fauna” funded by FORMAS for 2013-2016. The purpose of this project was to investigate how certain animal species have been identified both culturally and scientifically as belonging in the Nordic region and how that identification has shaped historical conservation measures, particularly decisions to reintroduce the species. I was also the project coordinator and a researcher on the project “Ecosystem restoration in policy and practice: restore, develop, adapt” which is known as RESTORE for short. The project is funded by the Swedish Research Council FORMAS, Umeå University, and Swedish Agricultural University. My research for RESTORE primarily focused on the development of international restoration policy.
- Moving Muskoxen as an Arctic Resource in the Twentieth Century
In this chapter I discuss how muskoxen went from having a small geographical distribution in the 1800s to being flung across the northern reaches of the Northern northern hemisphere by humans moving them in the late nineteenth and twentieth century. While these movements were never in large numbers, they spread the muskox out across geographies … - The Beaver’s Journey
The public outreach project The Beaver’s Journey (Beverens reise) which was developed for the 100th anniversary of the beaver reintroduction project from Norway to Sweden has multiple components: - Recovering Lost Species in the Modern Age: Histories of Longing and Belonging
This groundbreaking book brings together environmental history and the history of emotions to examine the motivations behind species conservation actions. In Recovering Lost Species in the Modern Age, I use the environmental histories of reintroduction, rewilding, and resurrection to view the modern conservation paradigm of the recovery of nature as an emotionally charged practice. I argue … - Beastly belonging in the premodern North
In this chapter, I examine animal images on maps of medieval and early modern Scandinavia to expose how the North and its fauna were understood in the premodern era as distinct from the fauna of Continental Europe. The chapter is well illustrated with early modern maps. I argue that mapmakers chose animals deliberately to represent … - Competing ideas of ‘natural’ in a dam removal controversy
In spite of general support for removal of dam structures within the ecological sciences community, local residents sometimes contest dam removals. This article examines the competing ideas of ‘natural’ and ‘nature’ that may surface in a dam removal controversy. Using the conflict of the Colliery dams of Nanaimo in northwestern Canada, the article explores how … - Public dissemination (restoration/reintroduction)I used a Research Blog for “The Return of Native Nordic Fauna” project for several years. In addition to my blog, I’ve shared my research in media and online, including:
- Endling, the power of the last in an extinction-prone world
In April 1996, two men working at a convalescent center wrote a letter to the journal Nature proposing that a new word be adopted to designate a person who is the last in the lineage: endling. This had come up because of patients who were dying and thought of themselves as the last of their family line. … - Rödlistorna, arternas historia och övervakning av naturenBiodiverse 21, no. 2 (2016): 10-11. This short popular science article argues that decisions about which animals to list as endangered on red lists and which to exclude as ‘foreign’ species often rely on history. Each country sets a “date line” that determines whether or not a species can count as native, and these are …
- Presence of absence, absence of presence, and extinction narratives
This chapter addresses where two issues – the problem of not seeing at a certain time and the idea of a static nature over time – converge in two historical searches for the last: the European beaver (Castor fiber) in Sweden at the end of the nineteenth century and the thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus) of Tasmania in … - A new place for stories: Blogging as an environmental history research tool
In this chapter I present an experiment: five pseudo-posts about blogging. I call them pseudo-posts because unlike the true online format of a blog, clickable links and embedded visuals are not possible. Yet I’ve tried to simulate the reading of a blog through indicated links (they are underlined and you can find the web addresses … - Forest‒Stream Linkages, Anthropogenic Stressors and Climate Change: Implications for Restoration PlanningThe global extraction of forest and water resources has led to habitat degradation, biodiversity loss, and declines in ecosystem services. As a consequence, ecological restoration has become a global priority. Restoration efforts to offset this trend, however, are not always effective. One reason is that many restoration projects target single ecosystems and fail to acknowledge …
- Animals as instruments of Norwegian imperial authority in the interwar Arctic
During the first half of the twentieth century a number of individuals in Norway participated in the transfer of animals from both the Arctic to the Antarctic regions and vice versa. These projects may be conceptualized as a form of imperial acclimatization, following in the footsteps of earlier attempts to transplant both plants and animals … - Forest restoration to attract a putative umbrella species, the white-backed woodpecker, benefited saproxylic beetlesDavid Bell, Joakim Hjältén, Christer Nilsson, Dolly Jørgensen, Therese Johansson Ecosphere 6, no. 12: [online]. DOI: 10.1890/ES14-00551.1 [Open Access] Umbrella species are often spatially demanding and have limited ability to adapt to environmental changes induced by human land-use. This makes them vulnerable to human encroachment. In Sweden, broadleaved trees are disadvantaged by forestry, and commercially managed forests are often deprived of …
- Ecological restoration as objective, target and tool in international biodiversity policyEcological restoration as objective, target and tool in international biodiversity policy. Ecology and Society 20, no. 2 (2015):43. http://dx.doi.org/10.5751/ES-08149-200443 [Open Access] Ecological restoration has been mainstreamed in international biodiversity policies in the last five years. I analyze statements about restoration in three international policies: the Convention for Biodiversity Strategic Plan 2011-2020 and Aichi Biodiversity Targets, the Convention for …
- Muskox in a boxMuskox in a Box and Other Tales of Containers as Domesticating Mediators in Animal Relocation, in Animal Housing and Human–Animal Relations: Politics, Practices and Infrastructures, ed. Kristian Bjørkdahl and Tone Druglitrø, 100-114 (Routledge, 2016) Using three short tales of animal relocation in Norway and Sweden from 1900 to 2013, I argue that the boxes used to transport the animals transform …
- Migrant muskoxen and the naturalization of national identity in ScandinaviaIn The Historical Animal, ed. S. Nance (Syracuse University Press, 2015), 184-201. This chapter takes as its departure point studies of human migration, which have received a lot of attention in the past decade. Scholars have been interested in understanding the push/pull forces behind human migrations, whether they are willing or forced, and how the recipient communities …
- Rethinking rewildingGeoforum, 65 (Oct 2015): 482-488, doi://10.1016/j.geoforum.2014.11.016 Abstract: The term ‘rewilding’ sounds as if it should have a straightforward meaning ‘to make wild again’. But in truth the term has a complex history and a host of meanings have been ascribed to it. Rewilding as a specific scientific term has its beginnings as a reference to …
- Time for recovery of riparian plants in restored northern Swedish streams: a chronosequence studyEcological Applications 25(5): 1373-1389. http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/14-1102.1 authors: EM Hasselquist, C Nilsson, J Hjältén, D Jørgensen, L Lind, and LE Polvi The first author of this paper is a PhD student whom I co-supervised at Umeå University. Abstract: A lack of ecological responses in stream restoration projects has been prevalent throughout recent literature with many studies reporting insufficient time …
- Conservation implications of parasite co-reintroductionConservation Biology 29, no 2 (April 2015): 602-605. Parasites with a high degree of host specificity may have extinction rates similar to their avian and mammalian hosts thus warrant attention from conservation biologists. During reintroduction and other translocation projects, typically little thought has been given to whether or not a parasite on an animal destined for …
- Pigs and pollards – medieval insights for UK wood pasture restoration
English wood pastures have become a target for ecological restoration, including the restoration of pollarded trees and grazing animals, although pigs have not been frequently incorporated into wood pasture restoration schemes. Because wood pastures are cultural landscapes, created through the interaction of natural processes and human practices, a historical perspective on wood pasture management practices … - Policy language in restoration ecologyRestoration Ecology 22.1 (2014): 1-4. co-authored with C Nilsson, AR Hof, EM Hasselquist, S Baker, FS Chapin, K Eckerberg, J Hjältén, L Polvi, and LA Meyerson Relating restoration ecology to policy is one of the aims of the Society for Ecological Restoration and its journal Restoration Ecology. As an interdisciplinary team of researchers in both ecological …
- Reintroduction and De-extinctionBioscience 63 (2013): 719–720. This Viewpoint article suggests that reintroduction experience and standards should be a guide for de-extinction projects that attempt to bring back formerly extinct species. Read article online (free) or on journal website (subscription only)
- Ecological restoration in the Convention on Biological Diversity targetsBiodiversity and Conservation (2013): 2977-2982 Ecological restoration has been incorporated into several Multilateral Environmental Agreements, including the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Target 15 of the Aichi Targets for 2020 sets a numerical goal of restoration of 15 percent of degraded ecosystems; however, the CBD has not established a clear statement defining restoration within …
- Damned if you do, dammed if you don’t: Debates on dam removal in the Swedish mediaEcology and Society 18(1) (2012): 18 co-authored with BM Renöfält Dam removal is an increasingly common practice. Dams are removed for various reasons with safety, economics, and ecosystem restoration being the most common. However, dam removals often cause controversy. Riparian land owners and local communities often have a negative view on removal and the reasons why …
- What’s history got to do with it? A response to Seddon’s definition of reintroductionRestoration Ecology 19 (Nov 2011): 705-708 A 2010 article in Restoration Ecology by Philip Seddon aims at unraveling the definitions of various types of species translocations—from reintroductions to assisted colonization—and points out the slippery slope of misused words. I argue here that defining reintroduction is not as straightforward as Seddon presents it. Commonly used definitions …