Lomborg and the Litany of Biodiversity Crisis: What the Peer-Reviewed Literature Says

Abstract:  Lomborg's (2001) book has generated passionate discussion about the state of the global environment. We performed a bibliometric evaluation of the peer-reviewed primary scientific literature to determine whether there is any consistent evidence that "things are getting better." The global literature primarily reported negative impacts on biodiversity caused by human actions, although Europe appeared to be doing better than the rest of the world. These results cannot be explained by publication bias alone because rejection rates of papers indicating improvements in the environment would have to be unrealistically high to change our results. There were nonrandom distributions of papers showing environmental recovery in developed countries and for ecosystems not strongly subjected to conservation-development conflicts. Although the literature did not paint a picture of universal gloom, the empirical evidence clearly showed growing environmental crises.     

Perception,knowledge and attitude towards environmental issues and management among residents of Al-Suwaiq Wilayat,Sultanate of Oman

The purpose of this study was to determine residents’ perception, knowledge and attitude towards environmental issues and management in the Al-Suwaiq Wilayat (administrative zone) of Al-Batinah North, Sultanate of Oman. For this purpose, a questionnaire was used with questions on issues related to environment and surveyed across 109 households in the Wilayat following a random sampling method in early 2015. The results show that education, health-related infrastructure and unemployment are ranked as most important issues for government attention today and in coming 10 years besides their concern for the environment. Resident’s perceptions on most important environmental issues were concerned about solid-waste pollution, degradation of coastal areas, saltwater intrusion and land degradation. The sources for environmental information, government agencies, local media and schools were regarded as most reliable. Top environmental priorities were suggested to deal with enforcement of regulations, provide effective environmental awareness and education programs. Further, it is suggested that additional studies should be conducted such as ‘State of Environment Reporting’, thereby such reporting, for instance would provide some form of verification of reported behaviour and improved knowledge.     

Indigenous people and sustainable development in Amazonas

Indigenous populations have lived for many generations in a sustainable fashion, developing knowledge about how to live in harmony with the environment. However, the sustainability of their life styles, their quality of life and the maintenance of intact ecosystems are threatened by a series of changes, including incorporation into the general fabric of society, conflict with non-indigenous migrants, expansion of indigenous populations and the globalization of national economies. This paper looks at the potential for policy to deal with these issues. In particular, it is shown that the ‘polluter pays principle’ is not appropriate for indigenous societies. The paper recommends a set of policies and shows how international cooperation in the areas of monitoring and enforcement, augmentation of demand for rain forest products and eco-certification can help indigenous groups improve their quality of life and maintain ecosystems in their current undisturbed state.     

Evaluating Children's Conservation Biology Learning at the Zoo

Millions of children visit zoos every year with parents or schools to encounter wildlife firsthand. Public conservation education is a requirement for membership in professional zoo associations. However, in recent years zoos have been criticized for failing to educate the public on conservation issues and related biological concepts, such as animal adaptation to habitats. I used matched pre‐ and postvisit mixed methods questionnaires to investigate the educational value of zoo visits for children aged 7–15 years. The questionnaires gathered qualitative data from these individuals, including zoo‐related thoughts and an annotated drawing of a habitat. A content analysis of these qualitative data produced the quantitative data reported in this article. I evaluated the relative learning outcomes of educator‐guided and unguided zoo visits at London Zoo, both in terms of learning about conservation biology (measured by annotated drawings) and changing attitudes toward wildlife conservation (measured using thought‐listing data). Forty‐one percent of educator‐guided visits and 34% of unguided visits resulted in conservation biology‐related learning. Negative changes in children's understanding of animals and their habitats were more prevalent in unguided zoo visits. Overall, my results show the potential educational value of visiting zoos for children. However, they also suggest that zoos’ standard unguided interpretive materials are insufficient for achieving the best outcomes for visiting children. These results support a theoretical model of conservation biology learning that frames conservation educators as toolmakers who develop conceptual resources to enhance children's understanding of science. Evaluación del Aprendizaje de Biología de la Conservación por Niños en el Zoológico Jensen     

Synergism between sib-rearing and sex ratio in Hymenoptera

Summary In many bees and wasps, solitary females produce offspring without help from other females. The transition from lone mothers producing offspring to situations in which females often help to rear siblings is an important step in the origins of complex sociality and nonreproductive castes. Recent work on Hymenoptera has stressed the role of sex ratio variation in this transition; when a mother's brood is more female biased than average, older daughters are favored to help rear their younger siblings because they are more closely related to sisters than to their own offspring. Here the direction of causality is from biased sex ratios, which arise by some extrinsic mechanism, to the origins of sib-rearing (eusociality). We present a model in which there is a synergism between sib-rearing and female-biased sex ratios, which may either complement the sex ratio variation idea by increasing the rate at which helping spreads or be an alternative hypothesis about the origins of eusociality. The synergism in our model depends on three conditions. 1) Daughters that help cause more food to be provisioned per offspring, which in turn causes larger offspring. 2) Females gain more than males by being large, which favors mothers with helpers to produce a higher proportion of daughters. 3) A helper's inclusive fitness rises as her mother's brood becomes increasingly female biased because a female helper is more closely related to her sisters than to her brothers. A female helper may also be more closely related to her sisters than to her own offspring, but this particular sibling-offspring relatedness asymmetry is not required by the synergism model. These three conditions create a synergism which favors a rapid transition from solitary (subsocial) to eusocial. Demographic and ecological factors that facilitate the evolution of eusociality reduce the stringency of the relatedness asymmetry condition (3) required by our idea. The synergism model therefore complements factors other than relatedness that may have been important during the evolution of eusociality.     

Ecological literacy and socio-demographics: who are the most eco-literate in our community,and why?

Ecological literacy is founded upon knowledge and understanding about how the ecological systems of the Earth function and support life. A widespread concern that levels of ecological literacy within many contemporary human communities are inadequate to enable effective decision-making about sustainable ways of living led to a rigorous and carefully designed assessment of over 1000 South Australian adults from diverse sectors including industry, government, nongovernment, business and community organisations. This assessment tested for local and global knowledge, including an understanding of the interconnection of natural systems with human society. Quantitative analyses revealed significant relationships between scores and a range of socio-demographic characteristics. Scores varied significantly with gender, age, education, employment, place of growing up and time spent in South Australia (SA). Highest average scores were found in males, middle-age groups, the most highly educated, those with science-related educational backgrounds, those working in environment-related fields, those who grew up in small town environments rather than in large towns or cities and in those who had spent more than 10 years in SA. These findings contribute to a broader study of factors associated with ecologically literate individuals and groups within the western and industrialised adult community of SA. They form a valuable foundation on which to build efforts to further understand and develop ecological literacy within our citizenry and governing bodies.     

我国沿海机动车轮胎磨损橡胶微粒释放量初步估算

环境微塑料是当前环境领域关注热点,并被列为环境与生态科学研究领域的关键科学问题。机动车轮胎因与路面摩擦而向环境不断释放橡胶微粒,因此,机动车轮胎经摩擦释放的橡胶微粒被认为是环境微塑料主要初生源之一。基于我国公路总里程位居世界首位和机动车保有量占世界第二的实际情况,以2016年为基准年,采用经验公式方法估算了我国沿海地区机动车轮胎释放的橡胶微粒水平。结果表明,我国沿海机动车轮胎摩擦释放橡胶微粒量为189 965.91 t,其中广东省释放量最高,占全国沿海省(市)释放总量的24.09%以上,而广西省释放量最小,占比为1.41%。另外,土壤是轮胎橡胶微粒的主要释放去向,橡胶微粒对土壤环境产生的潜在影响需及早引起关注。     

中国天然水体中五氯酚的浓度水平、管理及来源分析

五氯酚(PCP)属内分泌污染物,也是可对生物产生复合毒性的有机污染物。五氯酚及其钠盐曾被用作杀螺剂在我国血吸虫病流行疫区大范围长时间使用。为了解PCP在中国水环境中的污染现状,在阐述中国PCP的生产使用状况基础上,重点论述中国水环境介质中PCP的污染分布及影响因素。中国多地河流水环境中均存在PCP,其中沿长江流域的长江、洞庭湖、鄱阳湖PCP残留量较高,虽均在限值范围内,但PCP污染范围有从主要江河、湖泊等向沿海海域蔓延的趋势。PCP使用历史、用药区域类型、区域PCP消耗量等均会影响PCP的残留量,血吸虫病疫区PCP残留量明显高于对照区,在PCP及其钠盐显著减少使用后(2003年以后),施药历史仍然影响着水体介质中PCP的残留情况,PCP虽已停用,但其对环境所造成的不良影响还在持续。与国外研究相比,我国水环境介质中的PCP污染偏高且有上升趋势,这可能与部分区域近年来重现血吸虫病后施药控制有关。未来一段时期内有关PCP及其环境副产物在环境介质中的迁移转化规律、人群暴露评估、污染介质修复技术以及其替代品的研制都将是研究重点领域。     

Caste determination and differential diapause within the first brood of Halictus rubicundus in New York (Hymenoptera: Halictidae)

Summary The partially bivoltine, primitively eusocial sweat bee Halictus rubicundus produces two female castes, gynes and non-gynes, in its first brood in New York. Castes in this brood differentiate within the first few days of adult life, with gynes leaving the population to overwinter as early as mid-June (non-gynes further differentiate into replacement queen and worker subcastes, with older females typically dominant). Analysis of possible mechanisms of caste determination reveals that although gynes average significantly larger than non-gynes within the first brood, this appears largely due to a late mean emergence data coupled with an increase in the size of emerging females over the course of brood emergence, rather than a causal relationship. A strong correspondence between male abundance (relative to newly-emerged females) and the pattern of gyne production, along with data from dissections, suggests that females that mate when young become diapausing gynes, while those that do not mate promptly become non-gynes and do not diapause even though many mate later. Although alternatives to this simple mechanism cannot be ruled out entirely, it nevertheless offers profound implications for theoretical and empirical understanding of the evolutionary origins of the worker caste.     

European Atlas of the Seas: “a picture is worth a thousand words”

The European Atlas of the Seas offers a snapshot of environmental and socio-economic features that characterize the coastal and marine environment. The latest release (Version 4) addresses the public in general, but also non-specialist experts involved with environmental issues, human activities or policies related to Europe’s coasts and seas. The information content of the Atlas comprises a series of geographical layers, subdivided in “background maps”, “thematic maps” (i.e. maritime Europe, natural setting, sea bottom, sea level rise, security, transport, tourism, energy, wind, fisheries and fish consumption) and “do-it-yourself maps” (dealing with marine knowledge, nature and environment, socio-economics, fisheries, aquaculture, transport, energy, sea bed mining, coastal tourism, Maritime Spatial Planning, integrated maritime surveillance, and international ocean governance). All maps follow consistent cartographic rules and can be extracted for external use. The Atlas database is updated regularly, but historical data remain accessible after the updates, so that time series may be constructed. Tools for map exploration and combination can be used to combine together more layers, providing professional users with analysis and interpretation capabilities, to couple data into graphical indicators. The Atlas aims to supports also policy making, on marine environment, maritime issues and economic sectors, both within and outside the European Institutions (e.g. on Common Fisheries Policy or Maritime Spatial Planning). Further, it expands the same support to near-coastal issues and matters related to land-sea interactions. The web application for accessing Atlas contents offers links to other Marine Information Systems, and is available to a broad audience from computers, tablets and mobile devices.     

‘Development’ at the crossroads: biodiversity and land-use tensions on South Africa’s Wild Coast

In South Africa, extreme rural poverty often geographically overlaps with areas of high and important biodiversity. Attempts to bring about land-based poverty reduction projects in such areas tends to trigger tensions among stakeholders purporting to be concerned about local people’s welfare, as well as the environment. Using discursive document analysis and semi-structured interviews, the paper discusses a case study of the Wild Coast, an area celebrated for its high biodiversity and ‘beauty’, which reveals that a tension among environmental non-government organisations, government agencies and the private sector, on the best development option, exacerbates the threats to local livelihood options and biodiversity conservation.     

A behavioral rebound effect

Pro-environmental behaviors are an important avenue for mitigating environmental impacts. Technological improvements are also a vital tool for reducing environmental damage from consumption. However, their benefits are partially offset by the direct rebound effect, whereby a consumer rationally responds to an increase in resource use efficiency by consuming more. This paper investigates whether technological improvement might also reduce behaviorally motivated mitigation of environmental damage. A behavioral rebound effect operates through two channels. First, pro-environmental effort is reduced after a decrease in marginal environmental damage. Second, moral licensing reduces pro-environmental effort further when technological change is endogenous. I develop a novel real effort laboratory experiment to identify these behaviors. I find a positive behavioral rebound effect. I also find evidence consistent with moral licensing, which is strongest among subjects with a higher degree of pro-environmental attitudes and beliefs. Subjects’ baseline level of pro-environmental effort is driven by beliefs about social norms.     

Using expert knowledge to support Endangered Species Act decision-making for data-deficient species

Many questions relevant to conservation decision-making are characterized by extreme uncertainty due to lack of empirical data and complexity of the underlying ecologic processes, leading to a rapid increase in the use of structured protocols to elicit expert knowledge. Published ecologic applications often employ a modified Delphi method, where experts provide judgments anonymously and mathematical aggregation techniques are used to combine judgments. The Sheffield elicitation framework (SHELF) differs in its behavioral approach to synthesizing individual judgments into a fully specified probability distribution for an unknown quantity. We used the SHELF protocol remotely to assess extinction risk of three subterranean aquatic species that are being considered for listing under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. We provided experts an empirical threat assessment for each known locality over a video conference and recorded judgments on the probability of population persistence over four generations with online submission forms and R-shiny apps available through the SHELF package. Despite large uncertainty for all populations, there were key differences between species’ risk of extirpation based on spatial variation in dominant threats, local land use and management practices, and species’ microhabitat. The resulting probability distributions provided decision makers with a full picture of uncertainty that was consistent with the probabilistic nature of risk assessments. Discussion among experts during SHELF's behavioral aggregation stage clearly documented dominant threats (e.g., development, timber harvest, animal agriculture, and cave visitation) and their interactions with local cave geology and species’ habitat. Our virtual implementation of the SHELF protocol demonstrated the flexibility of the approach for conservation applications operating on budgets and time lines that can limit in-person meetings of geographically dispersed experts.     

中国工业烟尘排放状况研究

烟尘是工业最主要的污染气体排放之一,它不仅威胁人体健康,还严重破坏区域环境。为了研究分析2001—2009年中国工业烟尘排放的发展趋势及其影响因素,并有针对性地提出工业烟尘减排的建议与对策,文章首先根据中国工业的经济与环境数据,描述分析了2001—2009年工业烟尘排放的发展趋势,再利用对数平均迪氏指数法（LMDI）将工业烟尘排放的影响因素分解为规模效应、结构效应、技术效应和治理效应4个子因素。通过对比分析各子因素的影响程度和发展变化情况,得出规模效应是工业烟尘排放的重要来源,技术效应和治理效应是工业烟尘减排的主要动力,而结构效应是未来烟尘减排的重要方向等结论。文章根据各工业子行业的烟尘产生与排放量,建议将化工及金属行业,水热电气供应业作为目前工业烟尘减排中的重点行业,这两个行业的烟尘产生量与排放量之和均达到工业烟尘产生量与排放量的80%以上。通过对比各影响因素对各工业子行业的影响程度,指出各子行业烟尘减排的主要方向与存在的障碍。     

Creating local institutional arrangements for sustainable wetland socio-ecological systems: lessons from the ‘Striking a Balance’ project in Malawi

Wetland socio-ecological systems provide livelihood benefits for many poor people throughout the developing world, yet their sustainable development requires local utilisation strategies that balance both environmental and development outcomes. Community-based local institutional arrangements that mediate peoples’ relationships with their environment and facilitate adaptive co-management offer one means of achieving this, and increasingly many NGOs and development practitioners have sought to integrate local institutional capacity building into development projects. In the context of wider academic debates surrounding the long-term sustainability of externally facilitated local institutions, this article draws on the experiences of the three-year Striking a Balance (SAB) project in Malawi which sought to embed sustainable wetland management practices within community-based local institutional arrangements. Drawing on field data collected through participatory methods at three project sites some 5 years after the cessation of project activities, we examine the extent to which SAB’s local institutional capacity building has been successful, and from this draw some lessons for externally driven project interventions which seek win-win outcomes for people and the environment. With reference to Elinor Ostrom’s design principles for long-enduring common property resource institutions, we suggest that the observed declining effectiveness of SAB’s local institutions can be attributed to issues of stakeholder inclusiveness and representations; their sustainability was arguably compromised from their inception on account of them being nested within pre-existing, externally driven village ‘clubs’ whose membership and decision-making was not congruent with all the wetland stakeholders within the community.     

Rural well-being: the push and pull and the diversity in-between

This article proposes an analytical framework for developing indicators of agriculture and rural community sustainability, including the symbiotic relationship between sustainable agriculture and rural well-being. Rural well-being offers a sustainable approach to healthy lifestyles that are based on a balance of many complex components including social, economic, and environmental issues. The United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK) have taken positions on these issues. The United States Department of Agriculture is ‘committed to helping improve the economy and quality of life in rural America’ through loans and subsidies (USDA 2015). The USDA Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program vision is to sustain ‘an enduring American agriculture of the highest quality that is profitable, protects the nation’s land and water and is a force, providing a healthy and rewarding way of life for farmers and ranchers whose quality products and operations sustain their communities and society’ (SARE 2016; Smart, Sandt and Chris Zdorovtsov 2016). UK government and non-government agencies have taken a more holistic approach to rural well-being in their efforts to achieve a more balanced social–economic–environmental state of rural well-being. The UK interpretation of Community Supported Agriculture is a tested example of this sustainable approach to fostering rural well-being (Saltmarsh et al. 2011).     

居民点地名起源分类法——以茂名市各个镇为例

地名是人们日常提及最多、使用最多的词语之一,对我们的日常生活、社会活动和经济活动都重要的影响.每个地名都有它产生的过程,认识地名的起源,对研究一个地区的文化有重要的意义.地名起源是地名研究的重要部分,以往的地名起源分类多以概括性为主,缺少系统的分类方法.该研究从地理要素的角度,将居民点地名起源其分化为自然环境、人文和经济社会三个一级类,二十七个二级分类,自然环境分类又划分了三级和四级分类.根据这一分类方法,以茂名市各个镇的地名为例,将居民点地名分类法运用到区域地名的研究中,并阐述其分类过程中的一些基本原则.     

An assessment of China-Japan-Korea Free Trade Agreement’s economic and environmental impacts on China

Recently, China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea (Korea) are conducting a government-commissioned feasibility study on the Free Trade Agreement among the three countries (CJKFTA) to form a regional free trade zone in East Asia. Considering that freer trade can cause unexpected impact on domestic environment, there is a need to evaluate the environmental impact of such a trade policy. This move should be made to help negotiators understand and pay more attention to environmental issues during CJKFTA negotiations, and to help lobby with the government to carry out appropriate policy instruments for adaptation or mitigation. Following the Chain Reaction Assessment Method that integrates and links the elements of trade, production, and environment, the present research aims to quantitatively assess CJKFTA’s possible impact on China’s environment. This is done by estimating the variations of China’s major conventional pollutants and greenhouse gases (GHGs) emission in two policy scenarios to represent CJKFTA’s scale and composition effects on China’s environment. Estimating the variations is based on a static Computable General Equilibrium model, working with Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) 7 database and China’s energy-environment statistics. Based on these assessments, CJKFTA is predicted to lead to notable environmental impact, including increased emissions of agricultural total nitrogen, agricultural total phosphorus, chemical oxygen demand, and GHGs. On the other hand, decreased emissions of industrial SO₂ and dust are also expected to happen. Suitable policies need to be made to combat negative effects and amplify positive ones, while aiming at a more sustainable regional freer trade system.