Wood energy production,sustainable farming livelihood and multifunctionality in Finland

Climate change and the projected depletion of fossil energy resources pose multiple global challenges. Innovative technologies offer interesting possibilities to achieve more sustainable outcomes in the energy production sector. Local, decentralized alternatives have the potential to sustain livelihoods in rural areas. One example of such a venture has emerged around heating businesses in rural Finland, and is referred to as heat entrepreneurship. Heat entrepreneurship entails a system where a local forest owner, usually a farmer, provides heat to a small community or local building, such as a school. Heat is produced using local forest resources that would otherwise be unutilized. The purpose of this study is to examine heat entrepreneurship as a potential sustainable alternative for energy production and its multifunctionality. The data was collected by interviewing 15 heat entrepreneurs in the area of Central Finland. The study demonstrates how multifunctional farming-related energy production can provide more sustainable livelihoods for farmers by increasing social, economic and environmental sustainability. This is achieved by diversifying farmers' economic options, enhancing rural areas economically, increasing farmers' social networks and well-being and, to some extent, by boosting local environmental capital. However, the study also points to differences among the farmers and sustainability trade-offs, suggesting for the need to better acknowledge the local perceptions in policy-making.     

The Coal‐Corn Divide: Colliding Treadmills in Rural Community Energy Development

The emergence of concerns about “peak oil,” the fallout from the Iraq War in terms of renewed calls for “energy security,” and the development of new technology to gain access to fossil fuels and gas long off‐limits because of economic and environmental concerns has led to a boom of multiple kinds of energy development in and around rural communities in the United States. This article uses the lens of treadmill‐of‐production and growth‐machine literature to understand these developments in south central Illinois, an area with rich farmland and a history of underground coal extraction. While this analysis finds the expected support from community elites for renewed coal extraction, despite health and environmental risks, we find that the farm community, concerned about damage to land critical for producing corn and beans, profitable at historical levels in part because of the biofuel boom, formed a strong opposition movement. In short, we find evidence of colliding treadmills of energy production. The findings have implications for the analysis of rural energy production in the United States and beyond.     

Impacts of domestic population dynamics and foreign wood trade on deforestation: a world-system perspective

World system theory posits that core nations control global production processes through their economic and political-military strength, while countries at the periphery remain technologically underdeveloped and operate from a position of dependency. Rapid changes such as population growth and rural encroachment have spurred environmental degradation in the intermediary semi-periphery countries. The effects of world system structure on national deforestation were investigated in a quantitative, cross-national analysis of data from 60 core, semi-peripheral, and peripheral countries. This analysis revealed that rural population growth has had a deleterious effect on forestation throughout the world system. However, the impact of general population growth has been negative only in non-core countries. As hypothesized, forest exports have resulted in ecologic devastation in the periphery of the world system, but have exerted a favorable effect for core countries where reforestation programs dominate. These findings suggest that population growth per se is not the critical factor in environmental degradation. Urged are further quantitative evaluations of the environmental impact of other international commodity trades.     

Land-use and environmental pressures resulting from current and future bioenergy crop expansion: A review

Recent energy and climate policies, particularly in the developed world, have increased demand for bioenergy² as an alternative, which has led to both direct and indirect land-use changes and an array of environmental and socio-economic concerns. A comprehensive understanding of the land-use dynamics of bioenergy crop production is essential for the development of sustainable bioenergy and land-use policies. In this paper, we review the patterns and dynamics of land-use change associated with bioenergy crops (hereafter referred to as ’bioenergy-driven land-use change’). The review focuses on four regions as the most prominent locations in which these patterns and changes occur: Brazil; Indonesia and Malaysia; the United States of America (U.S.A.); and the European Union (EU). The review confirms that bioenergy-driven land-use change has affected and will impact most severely on the ’land- and resource-abundant’ developing regions, such as Brazil, where economic development takes priority over sustainable land-use policies, and the enforcement capability is limited. Opportunities for more effective policy are available through the development of international climate change policy (e.g. REDD under the UNFCCC), and certification criteria for sustainable bioenergy products (e.g. EU RED). However, bioenergy produced from no and/or less land-using feedstocks (e.g. wastes and residues), and their associated technologies must be given higher priority to minimise bioenergy-driven land-use change and its negative impacts.     

Rural gentrification and linked migration in the United States

Although gentrification is a process commonly associated with urban landscapes, rural areas in advanced economies have also experienced gentrification over the past two decades. Largely based on case study approaches, the Rural Studies literature describes transformations in the housing market, changed cultural attitudes toward the environment, political conflicts surrounding land-use planning, and heightened class polarization as outcomes of rural gentrification. The analysis in this paper extends our understandings of rural gentrification in two fundamental ways. First, drawing on US census data from 1990 and 2000, the paper systematically examines gentrification in nonmetropolitan counties across the United States and develops a methodology for identifying areas with similarly strong evidence of gentrification. The second section of the analysis compares the geographic distribution and socioeconomic change in gentrifying counties with the rest of nonmetropolitan America emphasizing the changes in the baby boomer and Latino populations. In so doing, the analysis opens up new possibilities for comparative analysis of gentrification both between and within countries, connects our understandings of rural gentrification to other processes of globalization playing out within rural space, and argues for work on rural gentrification to more explicitly integrate questions surrounding race and ethnicity alongside questions of class.     

Rural young people in regional development—the case of Finland in 1970–2000

In view of the crucial role of young people in society, especially as far as the future of sparsely populated rural areas is concerned, an analysis is made of absolute and relative changes in the 15–24-year age cohort in Finland and their effects on demographic and regional structure, employing GIS methods. The main material for this consists of georeferenced population data based on 1×1 km grid squares produced by Statistics Finland for the period 1970–2000. An example is taken of one rural municipality where the georeferenced data were supplemented with qualitative interview material obtained in 1999. The results show that the number and proportion of young people in the population of Finland have declined since 1970, although not consistently, at the same time as the total population has continued to increase. The dichotomy between the sparsely populated rural areas and the built-up areas has been accentuated by a distortion of the population structure and gender ratio, in that the young people, and particularly young women, have been inclined to move into the growth centres and to the more densely populated areas in general. The georeferenced data clearly point to a worsening regional imbalance in the areal distribution of population in Finland, although the interview material suggests that the young people still living in the countryside do not regard their position as hopeless but are prepared to weigh up their future on the basis of the alternatives open to them.     

Timber,Minerals, and Social Change: An Exploratory Test of Two Resource-Dependent Communities1

Abstract There are few empirical tests of the relationship between local resource production and community social systems. This paper reports the results of research on two communities in northern Idaho: one timber-dependent, the other mining-dependent. Data were collected for 13 indicators of resource production and 15 indicators of social change for periods up to 65 years. Regression analysis was used to test if community social change is associated with the production level of local resource systems. The final models support the hypothesis in both communities. The form, lag condition, and strength of the relationship is complex and may vary with the dependent indicator. The original causal image—the rural community with a social order that directly responds to changes in local resource production—is blurred. Suggestions are made for future research.     

Once an outsider,always an outsider? The accessibility of the Dutch rural housing market among locals and non-locals

One of the most pressing questions in the rural gentrification literature is whether rural residents face difficulties in finding a home within their locality due to the influx of more wealthy newcomers. In this paper, we investigate the extent to which intended local movers and intended non-local movers have realised their rural residential preferences in their preferred municipality. We perform multilevel multinomial logistic regression analysis on data from two housing surveys for the Netherlands that are enriched with register data from the longitudinal Social Statistical Database (SSD). Our results show that, despite of their lower income, intended local movers are more likely to find homes within their preferred rural location than are intended non-local movers. Intended non-local movers move more often to a location other than that initially preferred, with urbanites facing a higher likelihood to move to an urban area. The findings suggest that ties to the residential environment are more important in successfully finding housing in one's preferred rural location than are financial resources.     

Finnish Seniors’ Move to a Senior House: Examining the Push and Pull Factors

The purpose of this article is to explore the factors influencing residential decisions of Finnish seniors. Analysis draws on qualitative data gathered from in-depth interviews and open-ended survey questions completed by 37 seniors living in three independent living facilities in Finland. Content analysis was used to identify key factors pushing residents out of their former living situations and pulling them into their respective independent living facility. Analysis indicates that different senior houses attract different types of residents. Nevertheless, as a group, they reported similar motivational factors relating to community, physical, and social environments and to their personal circumstances.     

Needs for rural research in the northern Finland context

The aim of this paper is to discuss the needs and demands which rural research faces at the interface between research and development. The case study area is northern Finland, which constitutes the most remote and sparsely populated areas of the European Union. This paper is based on the tradition of rural research since the 1980s in connection with the development of programme-based rural and regional policy. Rural researchers are desired actors in rural and regional development projects and programmes both at the national and regional level, but their challenge is to fulfil both academic standards of their background research organization and the often very practical needs of local and regional rural development actors. According to the opinions of rural actors in northern Finland, the definition of rural research is somewhat unclear and multidisciplinarity of rural research seems to give a free hand to carry out many kinds of research under the title. The needs and demand for rural research(ers) are quite practical and are mostly connected to the creation of new job opportunities outside primary production and development of villages via proposals given by researchers. The major result of this study is that rural research is highly appreciated both in programmes and among actors on the “field”, although the real role given to research remains unclear in most cases.     

Return of the gentleman farmer?: Conceptualising gentrification in UK agriculture

In this paper, processes of gentrification are assessed in relation to non-commercial farming: the production of agricultural commodities without the intent of earning a living. The author argues that due to the connection between residence and productive assets (particularly land) inherent in farming, agricultural gentrification represents a special case, distinct from rural and urban gentrification, where gentrification is possible from within the existing farm household. Pluriactivity of the farm household enables both economic capital accumulation and alterations in the cultural capital held. Similar to rural and urban gentrification processes, agricultural gentrification leads to landscape change. Both non-commercial farming and gentrification processes are found to have been encouraged by the state, through post-productivist polices and laws aimed at commercial agricultural producers. The author argues for further research on farmers as consumers of rural amenities, and raises questions about the environmental impacts of ‘non-commercial farming’ and the acquisition of farm land by the wealthy elite.     

Structural Influences on Energy Production in South and East Asia, 1971–20021

To address questions about the environmental consequences of globalization and modernization, I estimate the effects of a variety of structural factors on energy production in 14 nations of South and East Asia, which contain more than half the world’s population, using panel data covering the period 1971–2002. My results suggest that energy production is significantly influenced by a variety of structural factors, including economic development, urbanization, export intensity, and debt service. Consistent with the arguments of theorists of the political economy of the world‐system, I find compelling evidence that modernization and integration into the global economy contribute to natural resource exploitation.     

Post-productivism and rural land use: cul de sac or challenge for theorization?

Post-productivism is a contested concept, and some argue that it should be abandoned. In this paper, a more focused definition for post-productivism is suggested. Evidence for change in forestry and agriculture that could be categorised as post-productivist is presented, in relation to both the narrower definition and to characterisations suggested by other authors. A reduced (relative) emphasis on material production, combined with an increased emphasis on the provision of environmental services, has characterised rural land use at the end of the 20th century in parts of the developed world. In this sense, post-productivism is a reality, and should not be abandoned. It may have utility in relation to our understanding of land-use change in developed countries, and in that respect to the generating of questions that would amount to a formidable research agenda.     

Place Effects on Environmental Views

How people respond to questions involving the environment depends partly on individual characteristics. Characteristics such as age, gender, education, and ideology constitute the well‐studied “social bases of environmental concern,” which have been explained in terms of cohort effects or of cognitive and cultural factors related to social position. It seems likely that people's environmental views depend not only on personal characteristics but also on their social and physical environments. This hypothesis has been more difficult to test, however. Using data from surveys in 19 rural U.S. counties, we apply mixed‐effects modeling to investigate simple place effects with respect to locally focused environmental views. We find evidence for two kinds of place effects. Net of individual characteristics, specific place characteristics have the expected effect on related environmental views. Local changes are related to attitudes about regulation and growth. For example, respondents more often perceive rapid development as a problem, and favor environmental rules that restrict development, in rural counties with growing populations. Moreover, they favor conserving resources for the future rather than using them now to create jobs in counties that have low unemployment. After we controlled for county growth, unemployment and jobs in resource‐based industries, and individual social‐position and ideological factors, there remains significant place‐to‐place variation in mean levels of environmental concern. Even with both kinds of place effects in the models, the individual‐level predictors of environmental concern follow patterns expected from previous research. Concern increases with education among Democrats, whereas among Republicans, the relationship is attenuated or reversed. The interaction marks reframing of environmental questions as political wedge issues, through nominally scientific counterarguments aimed at educated, ideologically receptive audiences.     

All kinds of potential: Women and out-migration in an Atlantic Canadian coastal community

Rural researchers have found that women leave rural communities at a higher rate than men. Rural education researchers have also found that young women are significantly more successful in formal education than their male counterparts. Few studies though attempt to explain why this is so. This work presents data and analysis from two studies of education and out-migration from a rural-coastal community in Nova Scotia Canada. The questions I investigate in this session are: (1) why are women more likely to leave rural communities? (2) how have contemporary change forces like globalization and network society influenced the gender balance regarding rural out-migration? and (3) how has young rural women's relative success in formal education related to their higher rates of out-migration? Given the recent concern about boy's education, I raise some critical questions about the parallel notion that girls are doing just fine.     

Farm forests and rural livelihood in Finland

In the rural areas of Finland, a substantial share of incomes is derived from private farm forests. Regional variation, however, is great: significance of forestry on farms is higher in eastern than in western and southern Finland. The membership in the European Union (EU) is expected to alter rural economic development because of considerable negative effects on farm incomes. This study aims at evaluating the effects of Finland's EU membership on the significance of forests on farms in particular, and in rural economy as a whole. Five scenarios with different development of prices for agricultural and forest products are analysed by a linear programming model. Farms are assumed to practice a combination of activities to maximise farm revenue. The share of forestry in total farm revenue is likely to increase due to EU membership and the application of the Common Agricultural Policy. However, the increased significance of forests is only relative as a result of the considerable absolute decline in agricultural income. These results indicate that farm forestry will require increased attention and investment in order to maintain livelihood and economic activity in the mainly agriculture-oriented vast rural areas of Finland.     

Second home countryside. Representations of the rural in Finnish popular discourses

This paper focuses on the representation of post-productive countryside in Finland by exploring how the rural is presented in the context of second home tourism. Being an integral part of rural areas and their history, second homes are an established example of the post-productive consumption of countryside. The international and Finnish literature on rural images provides the theoretical framework for the paper. Research on rural visions has been active in recent years with an emphasis on the Anglocentric interpretations of the rural idyll. This paper contributes to this discussion by providing an empirical review of Finnish popular discourses of second homes. The review is based on an analysis of second-home owners' motives and media representations. The second home countryside is analysed as a farmscape, wildscape and activityscape. The results suggest that the Finnish second home landscape is seen as wilderness (1), life at second homes imitates visions of traditional rural life (2), and the environment is used for traditional consumptive and leisure activities (3).     

The Social Basis of Agro‐Environmental Concern: Physical versus Social Proximity

Abstract In this study, we explore the social basis of environmental concern, specifically focusing on attitudes about the agricultural environment in relation to an individual's geographic and social distance from agriculture. We also consider the significance of rural recreational behaviors in relation to agro‐environmental concern. The analysis, based on data from a statewide survey of Ohioans, reveals a strong relationship between one's geographic location along the rural‐urban continuum and attitudes about agriculture and the environment. This relationship, though, does not exist once the effects of social proximity to agriculture are accounted for, suggesting that the relationship between residential location along the rural‐urban continuum and agro‐environmental attitudes may be spurious. The analysis also reveals a strong relationship between participation in rural recreation and attitudes about agriculture and the environment. We describe several conceptual and practical implications of this research for natural‐resource management.     

Spatio-temporal variation in the body condition of female pied flycatcher (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Ficedula hypoleuca</Emphasis>) in a polluted environment

Food-chain changes in urban and industrial sites may limit breeding-time resources (e.g. food availability) for small insectivorous passerines. We used a long-term data set of pied flycatchers (Ficedula hypoleuca), collected from one of the most polluted sites in Finland during the past 23 years to study the effects of metal pollution on body condition of breeding females. Our results show that body mass started to decline already some days before hatching, indicating a preparation of females to forthcoming chick feeding period. We did not find long-term temporal trends in female body condition index (BCI) in spite of considerably reduced metal emissions during the study period. However, females had higher BCI in polluted than in unpolluted areas during the incubation period. For both incubation and nestling periods the body condition was lower for later breeders, though the condition index decreased slightly faster in relation to hatching date in polluted areas, which may be due to more drastic decrease in nutrition rich food abundance. Temperature and clutch size were positively associated with BCI during the incubation period, but not in the nestling period. Overall, our data suggest that environmental pollution modifies important life-history traits, potentially via indirect effects of higher environmental variability and changed phenology in polluted environment.     

Whither rural studies?

To mark the launching of Journal of Rural Studies, this paper briefly reviews the increasing importance and volume of rural studies throughout the developed world. The rise in popularity of rural environments within some disciplines of study has been due to a steady progression of concept and technique resulting in academic maturity. In other disciplines, previous bias towards urban areas and consequent patchy and sectoral study of the countryside has only been overcome, in part, through a relatively unplanned but nevertheless effective multidisciplinary perspective. Rurality has proved very difficult to define in an all-embracing manner, and indeed rural studies as a framework of study may be threatened if social science continues to espouse structuralist epistemologies with their aspatial connotations. At present the divide between the ‘environmental’ and ‘socio-economic’ element of rural studies is certainly not unbridgeable, although by the same token the existence of an integrative and commonly cherished body of subject matter which will satisfy both elements may be more apparent than real. These conceptual issues, and related questions of technique and method require further emphasis in rural studies as does the analysis of planning and policy-making, where a cross-fertilization of concepts with rural development strategies in underdeveloped nations would be beneficial.