The Swedish chapter of IALE is a small but active group. Our aim is to function as a meeting-point for researchers and practitioners within the field of landscape ecology so that results of scientific studies will come into practical use in landscape planning and nature conservation. We try to apply a holistic and transdisciplinary view on landscape issues.
The executive committee consists of a mixture of people from the academic world and practitioners. Members are Bo Eknert (Stockholm university), Ulla Mörtberg and Magnus Svensson (both from Royal Institute of Technology), Isabelle Eriksson and Rikard Dahlén (both working as ecologists in municipalities) and Erik Zachariassen (consultant and GIS-expert).
IALE Sweden started its work during the 1998 with an iniative of Professor Margareta Ihse at Department of Physical Geography at Stockholm university. She was also engaged in IALE international and was vice president between 1998 and 2005. She was one of the organizers to a European IALE conference about landscape ecology held in Stockholm 2001.
Since then we have arranged a yearly conference, usually during two days with one day of lectures and seminars and one day of excursions. These conferences have covered a wide range of topics concerning landscape ecology. Among these can be mentioned management of seminatural grasslands and wetland habitats, monitoring of landscape changes, transport infrastructure and its impact on biodiversity, urban ecology, ecosystem services and the concept of green infrastructure.
During the last years we have focused on climate change and its impact on the landscape. In 2019 we arranged a conference in Stockholm with the title “Swedish forests in a changing climate”. Sweden is a country where more than 50% of the area is occupied by forests, so what happens to the forests will have a big impact on the landscape. This conference gave a broad view of future challenges for the forests in Sweden. The increased risk for forest fires, risk for damages caused by insects, expected change in biodiversity and many other aspects were discussed.
The conference in 2020 had the title “Food, climate and biodiversity”. Since agriculture is a big contributor to emission of greenhouse gases, especially methane from grazing cattle, it has often been argued that we need to decrease our consumption of meat. However here is a conflict that was discussed during the conference. Grazing animals like cows and sheep have an important role to keep the landscape open. The natural and semi-natural grassland are among the most important habitats for biodiversity in Sweden. So a decrease in the number of grazing animals will probably cause a significant loss of biodiversity. Due to the corona pandemic and the restrictions for public meetings this conference was arranged at distance as a webinar.
We also arrange shorter seminars and workshops sometimes in cooperation with other organisations. In 2012 we had a seminar together with the Swedish Golf Association about multifunctional use of golfcourses. How can a golfcourse be managed in a way that will improve their role for biodiversity? Another seminar focused on connectivity in the landscape and the importance of corridors for spreading of different species. Documentation from these conferences and seminars can be found at our homepage www.iale.se.
IALE Sweden will continue to take active part in the discussions about landscape development, especially the challenges that future climate change will give. We are looking forward to cooperate with other chapters within IALE.