Desertification Control and Management of Land Degradation in the Thar Desert of India

India has 2.34 million km² of hot desert called Thar located in the north-western part of Rajasthan between latitudes 23°3 and 30°12 North and longitudes 63°30 and 70°18 East. The Indian desert is spreading annually over 12000 ha of productive land degrading it and slowly advancing towards the national capital New Delhi at the rate of 0.5 km per year. The Indian desert is characterised by huge shifting sand dunes; high wind speed; scarce rainfall; and intense solar radiation. Tremendous efforts have been made since the 1960s to arrest desertification and for ecological restoration of the Thar desert. An Ambitious afforestation programme including stabilisation of shifting sand dunes and creation of micro-climates through tree-screens and shelter-belt plantation was launched by the forest department of Rajasthan. A huge canal, 649 km long was also introduced to the Thar desert for ecological restoration.     

Ethics and the Genetic Engineering of Food Animals

Biotechnology applied to traditional foodanimals raises ethical issues in three distinctcategories. First are a series of issues that arise inthe transformation of pigs, sheep, cattle and otherdomesticated farm animals for purposes that deviatesubstantially from food production, including forxenotransplantation or production of pharmaceuticals.Ethical analysis of these issues must draw upon theresources of medical ethics; categorizing them asagricultural biotechnologies is misleading. The secondseries of issues relate to animal welfare. Althoughone can stipulate a number of different philosophicalfoundations for the ethical assessment of welfare,most either converge on Bernard Rollins principle ofwelfare conservation (Rollin, 1995), or devolve intodebates over the ethical significance of animaltelos or species integrity. The principle of welfareconservation prohibits disfunctional geneticengineering of food animals, but would permit alteringanimals biological functions, especially when (as inmaking animals less susceptable to pain or suffering)do so improves an individual animals well being.Objections to precisely this last form of geneticengineering stress telos or species integrity asconstraints on modification of animals, and thisrepresents the third class of ethical issues. Most whohave formulated such arguments have failed to developcoherent positions, but the notion of species being,derived from the 19th century German tradition,presents a promising way to analyze the basis forresisting the transformation of animal natures.     

Risk-taking and environmental perception

This paper investigates the relationship between pupils' environmental perception (in terms of preservation and utilisation of nature) and personality (in terms of risk-taking). 713 secondary school pupils in Switzerland were investigated. Environmental perception was assessed via three factors: Preservation, Utilisation of Nature and Consideration for Conservation. Risk-taking was evaluated via six factors: Positive Risking, Ambivalence, Thrill in Gambling, Ineffective Control, Effective Control, and Anger Reaction. Analysis of the correlation matrix between Risk-taking and Environmental perception revealed three profiles (types): the high scorer on Preservation is the controlled and cautious gambler. The Utiliser (anthropocentric) profile is essentially a mirror image of the first: the Utiliser does not enjoy unpredictable risks, reacts with anger when risks fail and has little control over his/her own risk-taking behaviour. The Consideration for Conservation (ecocentric) profile assumes a position between these two profiles.     

Towards a new system of environmental governance

Summary Planning, the visible hand of government, is the resource allocation sphere that has the potential to prevent destructive conflict over resources, by creating a long term, rational, ethics-based and participatory decision-making process. Other public decision-making systems (the market, legal and political arenas), by their very nature, cannot adequately protect the environment or ensure sustainable development. However, as presently conceived, Planning⁺ cannot do so either. Reform has been impeded by an ideological bias which defines Planning as diametrically opposed to the market, such that creative alternatives to the two systems of social choice have not been developed.To address this problem, a new tri-partite structure of environmental governance is proposed. Based on an ecofeminist paradigm, it is primarily designed to constrain the potential for the abuse of power, and allow society to address environmental (ethical) as well as social (distributional) and economic (efficiency) issues. In a sense, it rationalises the social decision-making system by re-aligning rights, wants and needs with the appropriate decision-making forum (representative democracy, the market and Planning respectively). The model exposes the need to redesign all these institutions so that they better correspond to their logical functions within the resource allocation system. However, this paper focuses on the Planning system itself.Janis Birkeland was an attorney, architect and planner in San Francisco, USA. She now teaches at the Department of Architecture, University of Tasmania. This article is drawn from a longer 1990 paper Myths and Realities of Planning and Resource Allocation (Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Tasmania), which was presented at the Socialist Scholars' Conference, Melbourne, 18th July, 1991.     

A utopian perspective on ecology and development

Summary Effective communication concerning environmental issues can take a variety of forms. The following essay is offered as a metalogue, a piece of writing in which the writing itself illustrates the principles developed in the writing.International readers will be helped if they know that Jack Armstrong and Sergeant Preston are heroes of moralizing (and often jingoistic) radio dramas popular among children in the United States during the War years and that the Tom Mix Holster Set and the A-bomb Ring were premiums offered to children in boxes of cold cereal in the period after the War. These trivia illustrate the kinds of societal messages directed toward the generation of Americans who presumably will be running the country during the 1980s.The authors are a professor of Psychology and Ethology and a graduate student in International Development. Both attended Harvard University in the late 1950s and the University of California, Berkeley, in the early 1960s. Their autobiographical reflections have something to say about the motivation underlying the environmental movement and where these motivations are likely to lead in the near future.     

Arsenic levels in the marine ecosystem off the Kuwait coast, Arabian Gulf

Arsenic levels in seawater, microplankton (diatoms and dinoflagellates), shrimp (Penaeus semisulcatus), mollusc (Cerithium scabridum) and five types of fish (Maid, Nakroor, Nuwaiby, Suboor and Sheim) in five sampling stations (I–V) off the Kuwait coast were determined during the years 1995 to 1999. The maximum mean concentration of arsenic was observed in the order; the five fish (0.50–0.78 g g^–1)> mollusc (0.26 g g^–1)> shrimp (0.23 g g^–1)> particulate matter (0.03 g g^–1)> water and phytoplankton (0.02 g g^–1) from all the sites of the Kuwait coast. Station II possessed the maximum arsenic levels. In comparison with the arsenic levels in other parts of the globe, low arsenic levels were observed in most of the marine organisms off the Kuwait Coast. However, an increasing trend in arsenic concentrations was anticipated due to rapid local industrialization and on account of recent spills of arsenic compounds.     

The challenge of sustainable tourism

The paradigm of sustainable tourism is discussed in terms of analysing what it actually means. Certain questions are raised and these include the means of its measurement, the question of intergenerational impacts and how these may be assessed, the determination of what exactly is meant by environment, the aspect of tourism as an industry and, with specific reference to tourism in the developing world, the potential for neocolonialism. It is argued that, although sustainable tourism may be a worthwhile goal, inherent problems in the definition and measurement of its success make it an elusive if not academic target. The challenge of sustainable tourism is to see it in a broader context as but one tool of development and to ensure that it is examined in the context of the local community as well as a global perspective.     

The terms genetic resource, biological resource, and biodiversity examined

The definitions of genetic resource, biological resource, and biodiversity show the existence of degrees of innacuracy, according to the versions considered. The increasing acceptance of inappropriate concepts in the realms of plant genetic resources and biological conservation prompts re-examination of the subject. The argument raised is that the establishment of defective concepts may undermine the foundations of scientific thought itself.     

Carbon isotope ratios in logged and unlogged boreal forests: Examination of the potential for determining wildlife habitat use

Due to assimilation of recycled CO₂ from litter decomposition and photosynthetic changes in carbon fractionation at low light levels, the foliage at the base of a forest is often more depleted in¹³C compared to that exposed to the atmosphere in either the canopy or in open clearings. This is referred to as the canopy effect. African research has indicated that these habitat differences in foliar ¹³C can be substantial enough to affect the carbon isotope ratios of resident fauna. Previous work documenting a 30-year chronology on moose teeth from Isle Royale National Park indicated a progressive depletion in¹³C and suggested that this could be due to forest regrowth following extensive burning. The present study examined the assumption implicit in this hypothesis that foliar ¹³C varies between open and closed boreal forest sites. I found a marginal canopy effect of 2 ¹³C difference between upper canopy and ground flora for a forest in northwestern Ontario and an average difference of 1.2 in under- and mid-story vegetation between closed forests and open clear-cuts. Because of these small differences, the utility of carbon isotope analysis in quantifying temporally integrated exploitation of deforested habitats will be low for northern boreal locations. In denser forests, such as those in the tropics or western North American where the canopy effect can be expected to be much greater, ¹³C analysis may still offer some promise for determining selection by wildlife of disturbed habitats.     

Forest Health,Collective Behaviors,and Management

This study compares community-based managed forests under different purposes of management, namely, state-driven conservation or community-designed utilization in two villages located in the Sopsai watershed, Nan Province, northern Thailand. The forest health under different intensity of uses is assessed in association with the collective behaviors and long-term purposes embedded in village social–cultural context. The study found no significant differences in forest succession and proportion in diameter at 1.3 m (dbh) class and height-class distribution of the forest under different use intensity. The forest for utilization also showed higher density and basal area of the local preferred species than the conservation forest. In the utilization forest, we also found a higher number of multipurpose and preferred species than in the conservation forest, which actually responded to the needs of the community in the long term to have more wood products (both firewood and timbers). The community-based forest management (CBFM) for utilization can also lead to natural regeneration and biodiversity similar to conservation forests. Through CBFM, forest resources can be managed to maintain the healthy condition under different intensities and respond to both community needs and external expectation. The findings also emphasize the importance of recognizing community needs and management objectives in watershed restoration and improving the productivity of forests under collective management.     

Forest and Farmland Conservation Effects of Oregon’s (USA) Land-Use Planning Program

Oregons land-use planning program is often cited as an exemplary approach to forest and farmland conservation, but analyses of its effectiveness are limited. This article examines Oregons land-use planning program using detailed spatial data describing building densities in western Oregon. An empirical model describes changes in building densities on forest and agricultural lands from 1974 to 1994, as a function of a gravity index of lands commuting distance to cities of various sizes, topographic characteristics, and zoning adopted under Oregons land-use planning program. The effectiveness of Oregons land-use planning program is evaluated based on the statistical significance of zoning variables and by computing estimated areas of forest and agricultural lands falling into undeveloped, low-density developed, and developed building density categories, with and without land-use zoning in effect. Results suggest that Oregons land-use planning program has provided a measurable degree of protection to forest and agricultural lands since its implementation.     

Teaching strategies for environmental education

Summary It is possible to distinguish four target groups for tertiary environmental education: the Technical Group, the Subject Specialist Group, the Management Group and the Lay Group. Each of these groups requires different sets of skills and abilities. The Technical Group needs to know how to measure environmental parameters. The Subject Specialist Group needs to know about environmental systems. The Management Group needs to have the skills and abilities to resolve complex environmental issues and problems. The Lay Group needs to have attitudes, philosophies and values about the environment. Each of these in turn require different teaching strategies. For the Technical Group, practical experimental teaching methods based on the traditional subject approach appear to be the most suitable. The Subject Specialist Group needs presentational methods based on either an infusion approach or a new subject approach. For the Management Group, a combination of high level disciplinary teaching combined with intensive short skills courses and more extensive junctions or environmental encounters, all of which make use of practice methods of teaching, are suggested. For the Lay Group, experiential methods, where the student's attitudes are challenged by experiences in either an in-service situation or through simulation exercises, seem to be most appropriate.Dr David Stokes is Dean of the Faculty of Applied Science and Head of the Department of Environmental Studies at Victoria College, and Bruce Crawshaw is currently a lecturer seconded to the Universiti Pertanian Malaysia.     

Naturalness In Biological Conservation

Conservation scientists are arguing whether naturalness provides a reasonable imperative for conservation. To clarify this debate and the interpretation of the term natural, I analyze three management strategies – ecosystem preservation, ecosystem restoration, and ecosystem engineering – with respect to the naturalness of their outcomes. This analysis consists in two parts. First, the ambiguous term natural is defined in a variety of ways, including (1) naturalness as that which is part of nature, (2) naturalness as a contrast to artifactuality, (3) naturalness as an historical independence from human actions, and (4) naturalness as possession of certain properties. After that, I analyze the different conceptions with respect to their implications for the three management strategies. The main conclusion is that there exists no single conception of naturalness that could distinguish between the outcomes of the three management methods. Therefore, as long as the outcomes of the different methods are regarded as being of a different value in conservation, we should either abandon the idea of naturalness as the guiding concept in conservation or use the term natural only in the ways that take both its historical and feature dependent meanings into consideration.     

The search for the sustainable city in 20th century urban planning

Summary A new city has emerged in the 1990s, designed to achieve urban sustainability. The notion of sustainable urban form has its roots in the Garden City movement at the turn of the century. The garden cities of the 1900s and the ecological cities of the 1970s were proposed as alternatives to the pathology of modern urban form. Just as cities provide a place for humans to live, so they destroy ecosystems and become unfit habitats for the human spirit. The city must be made more vital, humane, efficient, beautiful, self-sufficient, and natural through a return to a more compact form, its impact on the environment must be decreased. These themes have re-emerged in the sustainable cities of the 1990s, advanced on behalf of future generations and planetary ecology. The sustainable city is a compact city. Calthorpe's Transit-Oriented Developments (1989) are hailed as sustainable because their walkable streets free residents from reliance on automobiles and their high density preserves surrounding wildlife habitat. The European Commission (EC) rests a sustainable future for Europe (1990) on the twin pillars of urban compactness and urban regeneration. Nash (1991) believes that sustainable global urbanization would consist of 1.5 billion humans living in 500 compact cities. He calls his vision Island Civilisation. The sustainable city is also a city of regenerative processes. Girardet (1990; 1992) thinks it has a circular metabolism, as distinguished from the linear metabolism of contemporary cities. McDonough (adviser to President Clinton on sustainable development) theorizes inThe Hannover Principles (1992) that in order to make civilization sustainable, urban form will have to be based on the principles of nature, which makes no waste, maximizes biodiversity and is sustained by the sun. The urban form designed by McDonald (1993), conceptualized with ideas from chaos theory, contemplates a sustainable city within a sustainable watershed and a form holistic, diverse, fractal and evolutionary. Lyle (1994) believes that the sustainable cities of the next century will be based on the green infrastructure of regenerative systems. The commonality linking these landmarks of sustainable urbanization is the ideal of bringing the city into a vital symbiosis with nature. The sustainable city is a green or living city. The search for the sustainable city in the 20th century has not been Utopian buttopian, a quest to create a form of city suited to optimal development of the Earth island.Andrew D. Basiago, an American lawyer and city planner, was a scholar in land economy at Cambridge. He is currently writing a book on solar cities.     

Environmental knowing and action

Environmental knowing includes the very many bodies of formal theory which have some relevance to the environment, as well as the knowing which comes from experience in the environment. This knowing can be seen as informing action both conceptually and instrumentally. This paper presents a multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary approach which can inter-relate these many knowings in a way which is relevant to and contingent on definition of particular environmental problems. This problem-focused approach involves application of a set of questions which are implied by a taxonomy of ignorance. The paper shows how the approach can inter-relate knowings as diverse as Taoism and energy-efficiency standards, with the purpose of informating environmental action.     

The limits of technological optimism

Summary Technological optimism is the doctrine that a growing number of technological improvements in such areas as food production, environmental quality and energy will sustain life as human population soars. It evolved as a response to the Malthusian study The Limits to Growth (The Club of Rome, 1972). Like population biologist Paul Ehrlich, Professor James Krier of the University of Michigan Law School believes that the technological optimists may be wrong. Krier describes how the marginal costs of pollution control increasingly rise. He faults biologist Barry Commoner for neglecting population growth as the cause of pollution and positing the postwar technological transition as its cause. He argues that population growth forced this transition as science searched for substitutes for dwindling resources. Krier criticises as an article of faith the technological optimists' belief that S-curve patterns of technological advance will always arrive in response to the J-curve of exponential population growth. He thinks that the technological optimists may be deluding humanity by predicting the continual emergence of technological breakthroughs at ever-increasing rates. He favours growth policies that would allow humanity to ease into a steady state of resource use and minimise the maximum cost, which would be a global crash after technological innovation fails. Krier laments that modern technolgy can worsen pollution and invites problems of latency, irreversibility, zero-infinity risk and remoteness. He thinks that approapriate technologies which have failed economically may fail politically because the political process has been captured by opposing interests. Krier urges that the population crisis should be adressed insteadAndrew D. Basiago is a graduate of UCLA and Northwestern School of Law's environmental law programme. As writer, lawyer and environmental planner he has written articles about ecology for the Cousteau Society and interviewed such luminaries as R. Buckminster Fuller, Amory B. Lovins and     

The object of environmental ethics

Since the term environmental ethics began to be used a generation ago, it has covered many different kinds of environmental notions, problems, ethical systems, and forms of behavior. A variety of cases are presented and examined under two terms,environmental ethics andecological morality, in an effort to illustrate different kinds of ethical objectives. In order to understand the connections between various strands of environmental ethics, personal and social values and subcultural norms of environmental ethics are examined under Christopher Stone's concept of moral pluralism. G. J. Warnock's notion of the general object of morality is proposed to integrate the variegated purposes of environmental ethics.     

Some pitfalls of ‘manstream’ environmental theory and practice

Summary Radical environmentalists consider the environmental crisis to be ultimately one of culture and character. However, in analyses and strategies for social transformation, non-feminist greens have generally accepted the Patriarchal conception of human motivation, which is based on a rational, impersonal (read Masculine) model of Man. Thus, it is implicitly assumed that the motivations underlying the environmental crisis are greed or self-interest (deemed rational motives in Western Patriarchal culture). Owing to this male-centred perspective on human nature, green strategies have ultimately relied on an appeal to reason. This, at least, has failed relative to the accelerating pace of environmental destruction.It is argued that a focus on the abuse of power leads to a more useful analysis of the causes of human oppression and environmental exploitation. The abuse of power can be understood as an attempt to overcompensate for unmet emotional needs (e. f. for love, recognition, and a sense of belonging) through an excessive drive for gratification in other dimensions of life. In Patriarchal thought, emotional needs are largely denied, being non-rational and non-masculine, and hence have also been largely ignored in social policy. This realisation suggests new strategies.Dr Janis Birkeland was an attorney, architect and planner San Francisco, USA, and now teaches at the Department of Architecture, University of Tasmania. A more extensive discussion of these points can be found in Birkeland (1993a).     

Options and limitations in fisheries management

Conclusion As a final thought, I want to conclude with the cliche that a problem recognized is half solved. Certainly, I cannot be accused of laying out a solution to solving the major fisheries management problems, but it is hoped that the problems managers face are now clearer. The complexity of fisheries assystems to be managed is clear to even the most casual observer. The second point, a broad theory of fisheries management, should provide a framework to categorize all of the disjointed activities that we associate with management of our fisheries resources.     

A national strategy for environmental education: an approach to a sustainable future?

Chapter 36 of Agenda 21 called on each nation to bring together a widely cross-sectoral group of people to prepare a national strategy for environmental education and training. In Scotland this process had already begun and the Secretary of State's Working Group on Environmental Education presented him with its recommendations for a strategy in April 1993, which he accepted in a statement of intent in June, 1995. The process itself, the comments received on the report since publication and continuing developments in the field, have demonstrated the importance of adopting broad definitions for both environment and education, spreading involvement in production of the strategy to all sectors and as wide a range of individuals as possible, dividing up the work so as to focus on all the main contexts in which learning takes place, working with the main potential implementers and not depending entirely on the availability of new resources. The process was in itself rewarding and its importance should not be underestimated. The approach adopted and the issues which it raised appear to have wide applicability to similar programmes elsewhere. This paper describes the process adopted in preparing the strategy, reviews some of the subsequent developments in Scotland, and assesses the factors which may have contributed to its success so far.Professor John C. Smyth, OBE is Emeritus Professor of Biology at the University of Paisley. He is President of The Scottish Environmental Education Council and he presented this paper at the Global Forum '94 Academic Conference Towards a Sustainable Future: Promoting Sustainable Development, Manchester, UK.