Fuelwood use by different tribal and non-tribal communities in north-east India

This paper analyses the fuelwood consumption pattern by different tribal and non-tribal communities ofMeghalaya in north-east India. The total fuelwood consumption including all activities such as cooking, rice beer preparation, room and water heating and festival celebration, ranged from 4.7 kg/capita/day for the Garos to 2.1 kg/capita/day for the Nepalese. The total energy expended for fuelwood collection was highest for the Nepalese (0.23 MJ/capital day) and least for the Garos (0.12 MJ/capital day). The present information on fuelwood consumption patterns by different tribal and non-tribal communities could form the basis for designing appropriate technologies for energy plantations in the region. Besides this, some other technologies such as the introduction of fuel efficient devices at the village level and recycling of resources through biogas could be appropriate.     

Traditional knowledge and biodiversity conservation: a case study from Byans Valley in Kailash Sacred Landscape,India

Ethnobotanical knowledge plays a significant role in plant diversity conservation and the curing of various ailments in remote rural areas of the Indian Himalayan Region (IHR). A total of 53 plant species from 27 families have been documented from the Byans valley and are used traditionally for the treatment of various diseases. Valley inhabitants have maintained a symbiotic relationship between natural resources and their cultural belief system by developing sacred forests/groves which conserve the region's plant diversity pool. Information on sacred natural sites and traditional beliefs was documented in order to understand the environmental and conservationist implications of these rules and practices. The study provides comprehensive information about eroding traditional knowledge and biodiversity conservation practices. This study could be a pilot to strengthen the conservation practices and sustainable utilization of frequently used bioresources by understanding the traditional knowledge system and conservation ethics of tribal communities in the Himalayan region.     

Towards a Sustainable Natural Resource Management of Tribal Communities: Findings from a Study of Swidden and Wetland Cultivation in Remote Hill Regions of Eastern India

/ Environmental degradation in many hill forest regions of Asia, inhabited by indigenous/tribal communities is growing at an unprecedented rate. The case of Orissa State in eastern India is no exception. The government is of the view that the local population is responsible for forest degradation as they practice swidden cultivation and forest gathering indiscriminately to sustain their livelihoods. Based on economic merit alone, the government has undertaken some policy initiatives. Such initiatives that are meant to stop swidden cultivation have not been successful. This study recommends an integrated framework for developing a sustainable natural resource management practice for tribal communities. The framework has taken into consideration both economic and noneconomic factors in evaluating various alternatives. Furthermore, it has been applied to two tribal communities in Orissa (Juang and Saora). Based on an economic analysis comparing returns from swidden as well as wetland cultivation, it is observed that where forest degradation is not serious, wetland cultivation does not have a significant economic merit vis-à-vis swidden cultivation. However, in view of the long-term sustainability issue within ecological limits, swidden cultivation may be phased out in favor of wetland cultivation with an appropriate transition period. During this transition, government must adopt suitable policy initiatives to provide tribals tenurial rights to land, help financially in creating settled lands through terracing, introduce certain improved agroforestry techniques and train tribal people in other income-generating activities. Furthermore, all such interventions made by the government should have a strong sociocultural component in order to attract the tribal people to give up swidden cultivation.     

Incorporating Indigenous Rights and Environmental Justice into Fishery Management: Comparing Policy Challenges and Potentials from Alaska and Hawaiʻi

Colonial processes including the dispossession of indigenous lands and resources and the development of Western management institutions to govern the use of culturally important fish resources have served in many ways to marginalize indigenous interests within the United States fisheries. In recent years, several US fishery institutions have begun to develop policies that can confront this colonial legacy by better accommodating indigenous perspectives and rights in fishery management practices. This paper analyzes two such policies: the 2005 community quota entity program in Alaska which permits rural communities (predominantly Alaska Native villages) to purchase and lease commercial halibut fishing privileges and the 1994 State of Hawai?i community-based subsistence fishing area (CBSFA) legislation through which Native Hawaiian communities can designate marine space near their community as CBSFAs and collaborate with the state of Hawai?i to manage those areas according to traditional Hawaiian practices. The analysis reveals a striking similarity between the trajectories of these two policies. While they both offered significant potential for incorporating indigenous rights and environmental justice into state or federal fishery management, they have so far largely failed to do so. Environmental managers can gain insights from the challenges and potentials of these two policies. In order to introduce meaningful change, environmental policies that incorporate indigenous rights and environmental justice require a commitment of financial and institutional support from natural resource agencies, a commitment from indigenous groups and communities to organize and develop capacity, and careful consideration of contextual and cultural factors in the design of the policy framework.     

Quantifying the environmental impact of ecovillages and co-housing communities: a systematic literature review

Many intentional communities worldwide, such as ecovillages and co-housing communities, have explicit goals of living in an environmentally sustainable manner, and are taking conscious steps towards these goals in response to the widely discussed unsustainability of the global sociotechnical system. There are numerous claims from researchers and community members, in the academic and grey literature, that intentional communities are making significant improvements towards sustainability goals, particularly in terms of environmental impact. However, actual measures of progress, with evidence supporting these claims, are relatively scarce. This paper presents the findings of a systematic review of quantitative studies of the environmental impact of intentional communities, including comparisons with relevant “mainstream” communities. The review focused on the two indicators that are most commonly reported in studies of the impact of intentional communities – the ecological footprint and the carbon footprint. This review was undertaken as there is a lack of literature reviews that comprehensively compile existing quantitative studies about intentional communities. In total, the review identified 16 separate studies covering 23 communities and 30 footprint measurements, with publication dates ranging from 2000 to 2014. This is a greater number of studies than in any other literature review of this topic. Taken as a whole, these compiled studies provide strong support for claims of greater environmental sustainability within these communities, and reinforce the need for greater research and exploration of the role sustainability-oriented intentional communities can play in the transition to more sustainable sociotechnical systems.     

Fair fracking? Ethics and environmental justice in United Kingdom shale gas policy and planning

The exploitation of shale gas resources is a significant issue of environmental justice. Uneven distributions of risks and social impacts to local site communities must be balanced against the economic benefits to gas users and developers; and unequal decision-making powers must be negotiated between local and central governments, communities and fracking site developers. These distributive and procedural elements are addressed in relation to UK policy, planning, regulatory and industry development. I adopt an explicitly normative framework of policy evaluation, addressing a research gap on the ethics of shale gas by operationalising Shrader-Frechette’s Principle of Prima Facie Political Equality. I conclude that UK fracking policy reveals inherent contradictions of environmental justice in relation to the Conservative Government’s localist and planning reform agendas. Early fracking policy protected communities from harm in the wake of seismic risk events, but these were quickly replaced with pro-industry economic stimulation and planning legislation that curtailed community empowerment in fracking decision-making, increased environmental risks to communities, transferred powers from local to central government and created the conditions of distributive injustices in the management of community benefit provisions. I argue that only by “re-localising” the scale of fracking governance can political equality be ensured and the distributive and procedural environmental injustices be ameliorated.     

Why recycle? A comparison of recycling motivations in four communities

Four Illinois communities with different sociode-mographic compositions and at various stages of planning for solid waste management were surveyed to determine the influence of sociodemographic variables and planning stages on the factors that motivate recycling behavior. A factor analysis of importance ratings of reasons for recycling and for not recycling yielded five factors interpreted as altruism, personal inconvenience, social influences, economic incentives, and household storage. The four communities were shown to be significantly different in multivariate analyses of the five motivational factors. However, attempts to explain these community differences with regression analyses, which predicted the motivational factors with dummy codes for planning stages, a measure of self-reported recycling behavior, and sociodemographic measures were unsatisfactory. Contrary to expectation, the solid waste management planning stages of the cities (curbside pickup, recycling dropoff center, and planning in progress) contributed only very slightly to the prediction of motivational factors for recycling. Community differences were better explained by different underlying motivational structures among the four communities. Altruistic reasons for recycling (e.g., conserving resources) composed the only factor which was similar across the four communities. This factor was also perceived to be the most important reason for recycling by respondents from all four communities. The results of the study supported the notion that convenient, voluntary recycling programs that rely on environmental concern and conscience for motivation are useful approaches to reducing waste.     

Partnerships for Local Environmental Action: Observations on the First Two Years of Rural Action for the Environment

Rural Action for the Environment is a key element of the UK Government's 'Action for the Countryside' initiative. It has two main elements: the provision of advice, training, information and grants to local communities; and the formation of county based networks of environmental organizations to provide the necessary support infrastructure to local projects. This paper suggests that Rural Action is a laudable attempt to move towards a more 'enabling' style of operation which may ultimately result in a significant increase in the level of interest and involvement in environmental action. However, it has also highlighted a number of important problems which are likely to afflict all future attempts to encourage local communities to formulate and carry out sustainable environmental improvements in their areas. Particular difficulties result from the need to reconcile the multiple and possibly contradictory objectives of different agencies, the problems of engaging the interest of local people, the time and other resource constraints faced by those who seek to implement such initiatives and the political imperative to achieve action on the ground as rapidly as possible. Each of these issues will need to be addressed by future schemes if widespread involvement in locally determined environmental action is to be secured.     

Local energy generation projects: assessing equity and risks

Micro- and small-scale low-carbon energy generators embedded within villages, towns and cities can provide a valuable income stream for local communities among other potential benefits. There are a range of social, political, technical and environmental factors that may impact upon the success of a planned energy generation project; however, these factors are rarely considered in unison. The aim of this research is to investigate and understand the concerns relating to equity and distributional justice that impact upon local groups interested in developing energy projects and to determine whether a whole systems approach can be used to draw out perceived issues. This has been achieved by working with two small village groups to test a newly developed energy equity assessment tool. This paper reports research findings from two villages in the UK both planning energy projects that intended to benefit their respective villages and examines perceived issues relating to equity and distributional justice associated with the proposed schemes. The research highlights some challenges facing community groups when planning micro- and small-scale energy projects and demonstrates the commitment, tenacity and high levels of personal risk that these groups have to bear in order to bring their projects to fruition and comments as to the type of actions that may be required to more wholly consider equity issues while developing future energy policy.     

Environmental planning and management for the Assarawat highland region of south-western Saudi Arabia: the traditional versus the professional approach

The environmental planning and management of the Assarawat highlands of south-western Saudi Arabia are currently confronted by difficult problems. Deforestation is caused either by natural or intentional forces. Natural factors are limited to lightning fire and drought, while intentional forces include vandalism caused by the burning or cutting of preserved forests. Such vandalism continues despite the tremendous efforts of afforestation and preservation by several government agencies, especially the Ministry of Agriculture and Water, the National Commission for Wildlife Conservation and Development and by the municipalities of the cities and towns in the region. For centuries, local inhabitants of the Assarawat highlands have successfully established environmental planning and management strategies which balanced the settlements' growth and natural resource uses according to Islamic laws, and the tribal self-government of each settlement and tribal region. Following the establishment of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932, the land management system started to change from tribal-based, where every tribe used to manage its local territory, to State authority. The creation of the State witnessed the unification of various fragmented tribes of Saudi Arabia into one government. This meant that environmental planning and management moved from local/regional towards a national control. This investigation proposes that the local/regional planning and management practised by the tribes could be viably utilized today. As in the past, the implementation of these practices could protect the natural environment of the locality and region and regularize their exploitation rationally, as long as vernacular people implement them. Today environmental planning and management need to be based on strategies of local requirements that enable the indigenous people to plan and manage the use of the resources.     

What is in a name? Language,framing and environmental justice activism in California's Central Valley

According to the environmental justice (EJ) literature, one important factor in the movement's success is the development of a frame linking inequality to the disproportionate presence of environmental toxins in low-income communities of colour. This article highlights the resonance of this frame among grassroots activists and professional advocates in California's Central Valley. However, through interviews and focus groups with activists and advocates in six Central Valley communities, we found that only the latter identified their work as EJ. Grassroots activists instead identified their work as about health, community development and environmentalism. Moreover, some were unfamiliar with EJ as a concept while others denied its applicability to their work. Theoretically, our findings suggest that frame resonance needs to be delinked conceptually from movement identification; it is possible for a movement's analysis of social problems and solutions to resonate among those who do not identify with the movement itself. Pragmatically speaking, this can prevent some grassroots activists who are directly affected by environmental racism from accessing the resources and networks that the EJ movement has painstakingly built, and suggests that movement leaders may need to increase their outreach to community groups.     

Animal Rearing as a Contract?

Can animals, and especially cattle, be the subject ofmoral concern? Should we care about their well-being?Two competing ethical theories have addressed suchissues so far. A utilitarian theory which, inBentham's wake, extends moral consideration to everysentient being, and a theory of the rights orinterests of animals which follows Feinberg'sconceptions. This includes various positions rangingfrom the most radical (about animal liberation) tomore moderate ones (concerned with the well-being ofanimals). Notwithstanding their diversity, theseconceptions share some common flaws. First, as anextension of primarily anthropocentric theories (aboututility or rights) they still participate in the flawsof the original setting. Second, extending them tonon-human beings raises the problem of the borderwhich is to be drawn between what can be included inthe purview of moral consideration and what is leftoutside. Third, such theories are not able to distinguishbetween an ethics of wildlife and an ethics ofdomestic life, which too often leads to preposterousstatements. We would like to argue (i) that we should distinguishbetween environmental ethics (concerned withpopulations, species, biotic communities) and animalethics (where animals are taken into consideration individually);(ii) that individualist animal ethics are not relevantfor animal rearing; (iii) that animal rearing is a hierarchicalrelationship which rules are to be found in the fiction of a domesticcontract. Hence, we would like to construct a new conception ofthe ethics of the relation between men and the cattlethey breed based on the idea of a domestic contract.Our main assumption is Mary Midgleys's anthropologicalassumption, according to which human communities,since the Neolithic age, have always included variousanimals, so that relations of sociability have alwaysexisted between human beings and animals within thedomestic community (a mixed community). In order tospecify the hierarchical and non-egalitarian, butinclusive reciprocal obligations and relations insidesuch a community, we will elaborate on the notion ofa ``domestic contract'', an implicitly assumedidea traced back to Lucretius and whichwe will follow up to the physiocrats and Adam Smith.We will show that such an idea relies upon theassumption of communication between cattle farmer andanimals, of shared experience and exchanges betweenthe two parties. We will then show how modern factory,or battery animal farming, can be seen as unilaterallybreaking this domestic contract, forsaking ourduties towards domestic animals.     

Off-site consequences: Life after risk management plans,Part I—public response

Many environmental and facility managers view the submittal and public availability of their facilities' risk management plans (RMPs) as discrete events and give little thought about how RMP information may influence their future relations with plant communities and other stakeholders. In fact, the public availability of RMPs will have some significant and lasting consequences that have the potential to alter RMP sources' relations with a wide variety of stakeholders. This article is the first of two installments that will explore some of the likely outcomes of the risk management program, with a particular emphasis on those consequences tied to the public availability of the RMPs themselves. This installment considers likely responses at the community level and from both national and local environmental advocacy groups. The second installment will look at likely responses to RMP information in land use planning, by the financial services sector, by regulatory agencies, and by the senior management of RMP sources' owners and operators. Although the responses of individual communities to RMPs will be governed by a number of variables, including the nature of existing relations with individual RMP sources, proximity (or perceived proximity) of residences or other public and environmental receptors to RMP sources, and stakeholders' attitudes toward chemicals and chemical use, there are certain potential responses that managers should look for in their communities. These RMP-driven responses and expectations are discussed in the first installment of this article.© 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Generating Co-Management at Kasha Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument,New Mexico

Collaborative planning theory and co-management paradigms promise conflict prevention and the incorporation of indigenous knowledge into plans. Critics argue that without devolved power to culturally legitimate institutions, indigenous perspectives are marginalized. Co-management practice in North America is largely limited to treaty-protected fish and wildlife because federal agencies cannot devolve land management authority. This paper explores why the Pueblo de Cochiti, a federally recognized American Indian Tribe, and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management sustained an rare joint management agreement for the Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument in New Mexico despite a history of conflict over federal control of customary tribal lands that discouraged the Pueblo from working with federal agencies. Based on the participant interviews and documents, the case suggests that clear agreements, management attitudes, and the direct representation of indigenous forms of government helped achieve presumed co-management benefits. However, parties enter these agreements strategically. We should study, not assume, participant goals in collaborative processes and co-management institutions and pay special attention to the opportunities and constraints of federal laws and institutional culture for collaborative resource management with tribal and local communities.     

Community Capacity for Watershed Conservation: A Quantitative Assessment of Indicators and Core Dimensions

Community capacity for watershed management has emerged as an important topic for the conservation of water resources. While much of the literature on community capacity has focused primarily on theory construction, there have been few efforts to quantitatively assess community capacity variables and constructs, particularly for watershed management and conservation. This study seeks to identify predictors of community capacity for watershed conservation in southwestern Illinois. A subwatershed-scale survey of residents from four communities located within the Lower Kaskaskia River watershed of southwestern Illinois was administered to measure three specific capacity variables: community empowerment, shared vision and collective action. Principal component analysis revealed key dimensions of each variable. Specifically, collective action was characterized by items relating to collaborative governance and social networks, community empowerment was characterized by items relating to community competency and a sense of responsibility and shared vision was characterized by items relating to perceptions of environmental threats, issues with development, environmental sense of place and quality of life. From the emerging factors, composite measures were calculated to determine the extent to which each variable contributed to community capacity. A stepwise regression revealed that community empowerment explained most of the variability in the composite measure of community capacity for watershed conservation. This study contributes to the theoretical understanding of community capacity by quantifying the role of collective action, community empowerment and shared vision in community capacity, highlighting the need for multilevel interaction to address watershed issues.     

Evaluation of a forage allocation model for Theodore Roosevelt National Park

We developed a forage allocation model using a deterministic, linear optimization module in a commercially available spreadsheet package to help resource managers in Theodore Roosevelt National Park (TRNP), North Dakota determine optimum numbers of four ungulate species, bison (Bison bison), elk (Cervus elaphus), mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus), and feral horses, in the Park. TRNP staff actively managed bison, elk, and feral horse numbers within bounds suggested by our model from 1983 to 1996. During this period, we measured vegetation at 8 grassland and 12 wooded sites at 1-3 year intervals to determine if model solutions were appropriate for maintaining stable conditions in important plant communities in the Park. The data we recorded at these sites indicated minimal change in plant communities from 1983 to 1996. Changes in most vegetation categories that we expected when animal numbers exceeded model optimums for short periods (decreases in coverage/stem numbers of palatable plant species, increases in bare ground or unpalatable plant species) did not occur consistently under high or low precipitation conditions. The lack of sensitivity of our model to decreases in overall production of palatable plant species that occurred due to drought, fire, expansion of black-tailed prairie dog (Cynomys ludovicianus) colonies, and the spread of leafy spurge (Euphorbia esula) in areas of the Park where we did not have monitoring sites suggested that the model under-estimated the total number of ungulates that the Park could support. Management for population levels of ungulates defined by the model probably led to over protection of common plant communities and insufficient protection of rare plant communities. Detecting changes in rare plant communities could have been accomplished by re-designing our vegetation monitoring program, but changing emphasis to protection of rare plants would have likely promoted under use of grazing-tolerant habitat types, dissatisfaction in tourists visiting the Park to see large mammals, and large increases in cost and intrusiveness of management activities such as fencing and control of ungulate populations. The model was a flawed representation of grazing dynamics in TRNP, but we believe it succeeded in making management personnel aware of the biological constraints they face when making management decisions.     

Encouraging tribal women to conserve deciduous biodiversity

Before planning conservation strategies, decision-makers should recognize the cultural and social aspects of the people in and around any ecosystem. This might assist effective management. The needs and problems of the habitat often fail to be taken into consideration before planning forest management. Educating and encouraging the participation of local communities, especially tribal women in conservational activities could play an important role.An attempt was made to educate the tribal women of Jambughoda Wildlife Sanctuary, Panchmahal District (Western India) about conservation of the local deciduous biodiversity. The paper narrates actions taken in the field for conserving this biodiversity, involving tribal women and children as partners of the protected areas. It might serve as an exemplary case for implementation elsewhere in the world.     

Environmental Security: A Geographic Information System Analysis Approach—The Case of Kenya

Studies into the relationships between environmental factors and violence or conflicts constitute a very debated research field called environmental security. Several authors think that environmental scarcity, which is scarcity of renewable resources, can contribute to generate violence or social unrest, particularly within states scarcely endowed with technical know-how and social structures, such as developing countries. In this work, we referred to the theoretical model developed by the Environmental Change and Acute Conflict Project. Our goal was to use easily available spatial databases to map the various sources of environmental scarcity through geographic information systems, in order to locate the areas apparently most at risk of suffering negative social effects and their consequences in terms of internal security. The analysis was carried out at a subnational level and applied to the case of Kenya. A first phase of the work included a careful selection of databases relative to renewable resources. Spatial operations among these data allowed us to obtain new information on the availability of renewable resources (cropland, forests, water), on the present and foreseen demographic pressure, as well as on the social and technical ingenuity. The results made it possible to identify areas suffering from scarcity of one or more renewable resources, indicating different levels of gravity. Accounts from Kenya seem to confirm our results, reporting clashes between tribal groups over the access to scarce resources in areas that our work showed to be at high risk.     

秦皇岛市社区环境问题现状分析及对策建议

在简单介绍当前秦皇岛市部分社区存在的环境问题及环境管理方面出现的问题的基础上,分析其产生原因,并结合环境管理相关法律、法规、政策和制度,从多方面提出解决的对策及建议.     

Seeing the environment through islamic eyes: Application ofShariah to natural resources planning and management

A comprehensive paradigm of environmental ethics should encompass two things: (1) a particular way of life, and (2) a path to achieve that ideal. An effective paradigm must also be internally consistent, yet externally workable in the real world. On the whole, the modern environmental movement has failed to provide these essential components and qualities in its associated philosophies, most of which suffer from being too abstract or too utopian.This paper suggests that Islam, as a religion and as a body of knowledge, is capable of providing its followers with a comprehensive and practical system of environmental ethics. The basic principles and guidelines of the faith represent the conceptual ideal, while Islamic institutions and laws provide the operational components of an ethical system.