Food forestry has grown in its popularity in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, which it has not been traditionally practiced before, for its potential to produce healthy food, to create habitat for wildlife species, to reconnect people with nature and to provide various ecosystem services such as carbon storage. Diverse food forest projects are conceived from urban food initiatives to integrated conservation and restoration planning. Currently, the Galiano Conservancy Association is creating two food forests in the heart of a mature Coastal Douglas-fir landscape on Galiano Island, British Columbia, which is protected under a conservation covenant, in pursuit of sustainable food production, education and contribution to ecological restoration and conservation efforts. To investigate the relationships between emerging food forestry and ecological restoration and to identify key indicators to measure best practices of food forestry in the context of ecological restoration, I conducted 16 semi-structured interviews with food forestry and ecological restoration experts. In addition, I conducted a workshop with the Conservancy stakeholders to develop a comprehensive and systematic monitoring framework for their food forest projects. My studies suggest that restoration principles and resilience thinking can provide guidelines for restorative food forestry. Food forestry may serve as an innovative restoration tool to restore urban landscapes where lack significant opportunities for conventional restoration. A generic monitoring framework for food forestry could be adapted by other projects, yet this will require the process of defining goals and objectives of a given project and assessing landscape contexts and the organization’s capacity to monitor. / Graduate / soph.park@yahoo.ca

Paleoecology has been only in recent decades applied to Mesoamerica; this thesis provides new records of paleoenvironmental changes in Guatemala. Paleoecological reconstructions are developed based mainly on pollen in the Lachuá lowlands and Purulhá highlands of the Las Verapaces Region. For the first time, quantitative vegetation and climate analyses are developed, and plant indicator taxa from vegetation belts are identified. Changes in vegetation are explained partially by elevation and climatic parameters, topography, drainage divides, and biogeography. Pollen rain and indicator plant taxa from vegetation belts were linked through a first modern pollen rain analysis based on bryophyte polsters and surface sediments. The latter contain fewer forest-interior plant taxa in both locations, and in the highlands, they contain higher local pollen content than in the lowlands. These calibrations aided vegetation reconstructions based on fossil pollen in sediment records from the Lachuá and Purulhá regions. Reconstructions for the last ~2000 years before present (BP) were developed based on fossil pollen from cores P-4 on a floodplain in Purulhá, and L-3, a wetland in Lachuá. Core P-4 suggests that Mayan populations developed a system of agricultural terraces in a former paleolake-swamp environment, which was abandoned at the time of the Spanish Conquest (~400 BP). Core L-3 indicates the abandonment of Mayan “Forest Gardens” at the time of the early Postclassic. These gardens likely prevailed during the Classic period (~300-1100 yrs BP) at the outskirts of the ancient city of Salinas de los Nueve Cerros. Following abandonment, forest recovery took place for about 800 yrs. Cultural factors are found to be more important in determining vegetation dynamics in this region, since no clear evidence of climate forcing was found. The P-4 and L-3 cores provide likely evidence that Mayan populations were, contrary to other evidence, innovative landscape managers. Scenarios in the Las Verapaces Region have been drastically modified in recent times (e.g. after the European Conquest), as suggested by pollen evidence in the top of both P-4 and L-3 cores, possibly due mostly to modern large scale natural resources exploitation, which represent environmental threats greater than any seen in the last ca. 2000 years.

Paleoecology has been only in recent decades applied to Mesoamerica; this thesis provides new records of paleoenvironmental changes in Guatemala. Paleoecological reconstructions are developed based mainly on pollen in the Lachuá lowlands and Purulhá highlands of the Las Verapaces Region. For the first time, quantitative vegetation and climate analyses are developed, and plant indicator taxa from vegetation belts are identified. Changes in vegetation are explained partially by elevation and climatic parameters, topography, drainage divides, and biogeography. Pollen rain and indicator plant taxa from vegetation belts were linked through a first modern pollen rain analysis based on bryophyte polsters and surface sediments. The latter contain fewer forest-interior plant taxa in both locations, and in the highlands, they contain higher local pollen content than in the lowlands. These calibrations aided vegetation reconstructions based on fossil pollen in sediment records from the Lachuá and Purulhá regions. Reconstructions for the last ~2000 years before present (BP) were developed based on fossil pollen from cores P-4 on a floodplain in Purulhá, and L-3, a wetland in Lachuá. Core P-4 suggests that Mayan populations developed a system of agricultural terraces in a former paleolake-swamp environment, which was abandoned at the time of the Spanish Conquest (~400 BP). Core L-3 indicates the abandonment of Mayan “Forest Gardens” at the time of the early Postclassic. These gardens likely prevailed during the Classic period (~300-1100 yrs BP) at the outskirts of the ancient city of Salinas de los Nueve Cerros. Following abandonment, forest recovery took place for about 800 yrs. Cultural factors are found to be more important in determining vegetation dynamics in this region, since no clear evidence of climate forcing was found. The P-4 and L-3 cores provide likely evidence that Mayan populations were, contrary to other evidence, innovative landscape managers. Scenarios in the Las Verapaces Region have been drastically modified in recent times (e.g. after the European Conquest), as suggested by pollen evidence in the top of both P-4 and L-3 cores, possibly due mostly to modern large scale natural resources exploitation, which represent environmental threats greater than any seen in the last ca. 2000 years.

The licentiate thesis examines what spending time in a forest garden can offer children when this environment is used for teaching aimed at sustainability. What do the children remember from their visits to the forest garden? What do they find special or memorable? What can the children learn there? To answer such questions, walk-and-talk conversations were conducted with children who for a three-year period had regularly visited a forest garden during school hours. The overall purpose of the licentiate thesis is to deepen knowledge about what spending time in a forest garden in a school context can offer children, reflected from the children's perspectives. Furthermore, the thesis aims to deepen knowledge about walk-and-talk conversations as a data collection method when children are respondents. This leads to the research questions: 1. In what ways can walk-and-talk conversations as a data collection method reflect children's perspectives in an environment and in relation to places? What are the possibilities and limitations of the method? 2. What significance do forest garden visits in a pedagogical context aimed at learning for sustainability have from the children's perspective? The theoretical starting points of the licentiate thesis draw on social studies of childhood, ecological literacy and affordances. Another concept that emerged in the analysis process was plant blindness. Data consisted of audio-recorded walk-and-talk conversations, children's photographs and recorded informal, supplementary interviews. A total of 28 children (11 boys and 17 girls) participated in sub-studies II and III. The children were aged 7-9 years, but most were 9 years old. The licentiate thesis consists of three sub-studies: Sub-study I is a literature review that focuses on opportunities, limitations, and challenges in using walk-and-talk conversations as a data collection method with children and young people. Walk-and-talk conversations can increase opportunities to capture children's perspectives and help to reduce power imbalances between children and researchers. However, analysing data from child-led walks and conversations can be challenging, while awareness of the researcher's own position and assumptions becomes particularly important. Sub-study II deals with the forest garden from children’s perspective. The first category, ‘to appreciate the place the forest garden’, contained the following themes: physical work, relationships with animals and plants, aesthetic and edible aspects and food, and friends. Most of the children enjoyed staying in the forest garden with its natural features. They valued the care of living organisms and felt that spending time in the forest garden was fun and exciting. In the second category, ‘aspects of learning in the forest garden’, the following themes emerged; practical skills, coexistence and caring, and biological knowledge and ecological understanding. Sub-study III deals with the four most photographed phenomena in the forest garden. The first were the plants, including trees and shrubs, which provided sensual, aesthetic and emotional affordances. The second was the pond, which provided physical affordances and wishes, while the third, the barbecue area, provided social affordances. Finally, the tipi provided affordances for privacy and imagination. To conclude: children's forest garden visits, with learning and nature encounters, can contribute to sustainable development. The investigated forest garden was an outdoor environment designed for children with natural features and with a focus on organic farming, where the forest garden educators helped to create a framework for both learning and relational opportunities. Developing ecological literacy in the new generation is a crucial concern, and the results of the licentiate thesis suggest that establishing educational outdoor environments where children receive parts of their education can contribute to the development of such literacy. The creation of outdoor environments for children is thus an important sustainability issue. / Licentiatuppsatsen undersöker vad skogträdgårdsvistelser kan erbjuda barn när en sådan miljö används för undervisning riktad mot hållbarhet. Det övergripande syfte är att fördjupa kunskap om vad skogsträdgårdsvistelser i en skolkontext kan tillföra barn, speglat utifrån barnens perspektiv. Vidare syftar uppsatsen till att fördjupa kunskaper om samtalspromenader som datainsamlingsmetod när barn är respondenter. Licentiatuppsatsens teoretiska utgångspunkter tar avstamp i barndomssociologi (Social Studies of Childhood), ekologisk litteracitet och affordances. Ett annat begrepp som framkom efter analysprocessen var växtblindhet. Den undersökta skogsträdgården, var en natur- och utomhusmiljö med inriktning mot ekologisk odling designad för barn, där skogsträdgårdspedagogernas pedagogiska inramning bidrog till att skapa både pedagogiska och relationella möjligheter. Metodvalet har varit ljudupptagna samtalspromenader, barns fotografier samt inspelade informella, kompletterande intervjuer. Sammanfattningsvis visar resultaten att barns skogsträdgårdsvistelser, lärande och naturmöten bidra till hållbar utveckling. Utvecklandet av ekologisk litteracitet hos den uppväxande generationen måste betraktas som central, och licentiatuppsatsens resultat pekar mot att anläggandet av pedagogiska utomhusmiljöer där barn får delar av sin undervisning kan bidra till utvecklandet av sådan litteracitet. Tillskapandet av utomhusmiljöer för barn är därför en viktig hållbarhetsfråga.