Natural resource use,income and dependence among San and Mier communities bordering Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park,southern Kalahari,South Africa

Contemporary strategies for natural resource management espouse the need to integrate local people and their livelihood needs into biodiversity conservation projects to achieve sustainable ‘development and ecological integrity’. Valuation of natural resource use provides empirical evidence and conceptual arguments of local people's dependence on these resources, which could be factored into biodiversity conservation planning. Based on household surveys and key informant interviews, this study looked at the contribution of dryland natural resources to the livelihoods of two culturally different but neighbouring communities, the San and Mier, bordering Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, South Africa. Overall, natural resources represented an important livelihood source for the San, contributing on an average 32% of total annual income, compared to 9% for the Mier. Fuelwood was the predominant contributor to natural resource incomes in both cases. Income quintile analysis showed that dependence on natural resources decreased moving to higher income groups for Mier households, but increased with income for San households. Well-off households still derived higher total income from natural resources; often from the more lucrative sources of such income, notably from fuelwood sales. Contextual factors such as culture and social institutions, among others, influenced access to, and consequently the use of, particular resources and the value of these to households. Sustainable natural resource management interventions should consider these disparities in patterns of natural resource dependence among different income groups.     

Managing Protected Woodlands: Fuelwood Collection and Law Enforcement in Lake Malawi National Park

Abstract: We examined the decisions women make in their collection of fuelwood within a protected area in Malawi. We used law enforcement data and behavioral observations of fuelwood harvesting practices to examine the risk of detection and penalties posed by law enforcement activities. Our results indicate that, at their current levels, law enforcement patrols have little effect on wood collection practices. The low risk of detection and light penalties appear to favor illegal wood collection, which is practiced by the majority of women. Alternative strategies should be pursued to enhance the conservation of the woodland and its management as a fuelwood resource for local communities.     

Balancing fuelwood and biodiversity concerns in rural Nepal

An agent-based model is developed to explore the pattern of fuelwood collection in an 1178 ha forest area in rural mountainous Nepal. The model relates fuelwood collection intensity and amount of dead wood available for collection to the diversity of polypore species, a group of strictly dead wood dependent fungi which can be used as indicators of the biodiversity associated with dead wood. By analysing scenarios of increased collection the model shows that the relative impact on polypore diversity is rising more rapidly than the time used for collection. This indicates that better market access in the future could potentially imply a major threat to biodiversity associated with dead wood.     

Socioeconomic Factors that Affect Artisanal Fishers' Readiness to Exit a Declining Fishery

Abstract:  The emerging world crisis created by declining fish stocks poses a challenge to resource users and managers. The problem is particularly acute in poor nations, such as those in East Africa, where fishing is an important subsistence activity but high fishing intensity and use of destructive gear have resulted in declining catches. In this context developing effective management strategies requires an understanding of how fishers may respond to declines in catch. We examined the readiness of 141 Kenyan fishers to stop fishing under hypothetical scenarios of declines in catch and how socioeconomic conditions influenced their decisions. As expected, the proportion of fishers that would exit the fishery increased with magnitude of decline in catch. Fishers were more likely to say they would stop fishing if they were from households that had a higher material style of life and a greater number of occupations. Variables such as capital investment in the fishery and the proportion of catch sold had weak, nonsignificant relationships. Our finding that fishers from poorer households would be less likely to exit a severely declining fishery is consistent with the literature on poverty traps, which suggests the poor are unable to mobilize the necessary resources to overcome either shocks or chronic low-income situations and consequently may remain in poverty. This finding supports the proposition that wealth generation and employment opportunities directed at the poorest fishers may help reduce fishing effort on overexploited fisheries, but successful interventions such as these will require an understanding of the socioeconomic context in which fishers operate.     

Direct-use values of woodland resources consumed and traded in a South African village

SUMMARY

This paper examines the contribution of secondary resources harvested from a savanna ecosystem to household income in Thorndale village, South Africa. The valuation of these resources provides a key tool for adopting sustainable development practices. The study shows the relevance of the dependence of rural people on secondary resources and implications for social and economic equity. Fuelwood, edible herbs and thatch grass contributed 80.6% ($492.53) of the total gross direct-use value ($559.46) of all the resources per household per annum. The net direct-use value of eight directly harvested resources was $455.11 after accounting for the opportunity cost of labour. The value of secondary resources traded amounted to $126.62 per household, equivalent to 22.6% of values from direct consumption, suggesting a high degree of dependence of villagers on natural resources harvested for household consumption. There were high relative direct-use values for fuelwood (44%) and edible herbs (25.9%) reflecting the high energy requirement, and substitute for cultivated vegetables, respectively. It was generally perceived that resources were in short supply probably due to the level of dependence, and as a coping strategy.     

The interaction between seaweed farming as an alternative occupation and fisher numbers in the central Philippines

Alternative occupations are frequently promoted as a means to reduce the number of people exploiting declining fisheries. However, there is little evidence that alternative occupations reduce fisher numbers. Seaweed farming is frequently promoted as a lucrative alternative occupation for artisanal fishers in Southeast Asia. We examined how the introduction of seaweed farming has affected village-level changes in the number of fishers on Danajon Bank, central Philippines, where unsustainable fishing has led to declining fishery yields. To determine how fisher numbers had changed since seaweed farming started, we interviewed the heads of household from 300 households in 10 villages to examine their perceptions of how fisher numbers had changed in their village and the reasons they associated with these changes. We then asked key informants (people with detailed knowledge of village members) to estimate fisher numbers in these villages before seaweed farming began and at the time of the survey. We compared the results of how fisher numbers had changed in each village with the wealth, education, seaweed farm sizes, and other attributes of households in these villages, which we collected through interviews, and with village-level factors such as distance to markets. We also asked people why they either continued to engage in or ceased fishing. In four villages, respondents thought seaweed farming and low fish catches had reduced fisher numbers, at least temporarily. In one of these villages, there was a recent return to fishing due to declines in the price of seaweed and increased theft of seaweed. In another four villages, fisher numbers increased as human population increased, despite the widespread uptake of seaweed farming. Seaweed farming failed for technical reasons in two other villages. Our results suggest seaweed farming has reduced fisher numbers in some villages, a result that may be correlated with socioeconomic status, but the heterogeneity of outcomes is consistent with suggestions that alternative occupations are not a substitute for more direct forms of resource management.     

Seeing,believing, and behaving: Heterogeneous effects of an information intervention on household water treatment

Providing information about environmental health risks only sometimes induces protective action. This raises questions about whether and how risk information is understood and acted upon, and how responses vary across contexts. To characterize such variation, we stratified a randomized experiment related to household water quality across two periurban areas in Cambodia. When we showed specific evidence of water contamination to lower-SES households who were initially more optimistic about water safety, they altered their beliefs about health risk and increased their demand for a treatment product. However, demand for the treatment product among higher and initially more pessimistic SES households did not change significantly. These findings highlight the importance of better understanding heterogeneity in the specific drivers of responses to health risk information.     

The response of female Mountain White-crowned Sparrows to songs from their natal dialect and an alien dialect

Summary Female Mountain White-crowned Sparrows from Colorado were tested in a laboratory playback experiment to determine their response to male songs from their own natal dialect and to those from an alien dialect of the same subspecies, Zonotrichia leucophrys oriantha (Fig. 1). Observations were made on locomotor activity and copulation postures produced during each experimental test session.The subjects gave copulation displays almost exclusively when hearing their natal dialect and new or no displays when hearing the alien dialect (Fig. 2). The birds also exhibited significantly greater locomotor activity when hearing the natal dialect than they did when hearing the alien dialect (Fig. 3).We conclude that females are sensitized by their early song learning experience to be responsive to songs from their natal dialect and virtually sexually unresponsive to songs from an alien dialect. We speculate that the copulation posture given in the experiment implies that females in natural populations would preferably only mate assortatively with males from their natal dialect region.     

Use and Misuse of Forest-harvested Fruits in the Iquitos Area

Abstract: Of 193 fruit species observed to be regularly consumed in the region surrounding Iquitos, Peru, 120 species are exclusively wild-harvested and 19 more originate from both wild and cultivated sources. The wild-harvested fruits of 57 species belonging to 24 different plant families are sold in the Iquitos market and are very important in the economy and diets of the area Nearly half of the Iquitos fruit vendors sell wild-harvested fruits (if fruits used as vegetables or starch sources are excluded), and over half of the fruit species sold are wild-harvested Many fruit species consumed at Iquitos differ from those consumed in other parts of Amazonia Although some native fruit species are beginning to be grown as crops, the wild populations of these high-potential species are being rapidly depleted by destructive harvesting techniques as market pressure begins to build In the last few years, the availability of several of the most popular fruit species has decreased markedly. If nondestructive sustained yield harvesting of resources such as wild-harvested fruits is to play its suggested important role in tropical forest conservation, much stronger efforts will be needed to prevent destructive overharvesting of these potentially significant resources.     

Demand for environmental quality information and household response: Evidence from well-water arsenic testing

Access to information about environmental quality may facilitate low-cost preventive measures that protect human health. In this paper, we study the demand for information about environmental quality and the behavioral response to the information provided. With a field experiment conducted in Bihar (India), we estimate the price sensitivity of demand for diagnostic testing of drinking water wells for arsenic of natural origin – a serious threat to the health of tens of millions of villagers across South and Southeast Asia. Demand is substantial but sensitive to price; uptake falls from 68% to 31% of households over our price range (Rs. 10 to Rs. 50). We further assess how households respond to information regarding the contamination level in their wells. About one-third of households with unsafe wells switch to a safer water source. Finally, we demonstrate that households that received adverse test outcomes are more likely to selectively forget test results, and proactively remove evidence of their wells' arsenic status.     

Modeling the spatio-temporal dynamics and interactions of households,landscapes, and giant panda habitat

Human modification of land-cover has been a leading cause of floral and faunal species extirpation and loss of local and global biodiversity. As natural areas are impacted, habitat and populations can become fragmented and isolated. This is particularly evident in the mountainous areas of southwestern China that support the remaining populations of giant pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca). Giant panda populations have been restricted to remnants of habitat from extensive past land use and land-cover change. Households are a basic socio-economic unit that continues to impact the remaining habitat through activities such as fuelwood consumption and new household creation. Therefore, we developed a spatio-temporal model of human activities and their impacts by directly integrating households into the landscape. The integrated model allows us to examine the landscape factors influencing the spatial distribution of household activities and household impacts on habitat. As an example application, we modeled household activities in a giant panda reserve in China and examined the spatio-temporal dynamics of households, the landscape, and their mutual interactions. Human impacts are projected to result in the loss of up to 16% of all existing habitat within the reserve over the next 30 years. In addition, we found that accessibility largely controls the spatial distribution of household activities and considerable changes in management and household activities will be required to maintain the current level of habitat within the reserve.     

Understanding implications of consumer behavior for wildlife farming and sustainable wildlife trade

Unsustainable wildlife trade affects biodiversity and the livelihoods of communities dependent upon those resources. Wildlife farming has been proposed to promote sustainable trade, but characterizing markets and understanding consumer behavior remain neglected but essential steps in the design and evaluation of such operations. We used sea turtle trade in the Cayman Islands, where turtles have been farm raised for human consumption for almost 50 years, as a case study to explore consumer preferences toward wild‐sourced (illegal) and farmed (legal) products and potential conservation implications. Combining methods innovatively (including indirect questioning and choice experiments), we conducted a nationwide trade assessment through in‐person interviews from September to December 2014. Households were randomly selected using disproportionate stratified sampling, and responses were weighted based on district population size. We approached 597 individuals, of which 37 (6.2%) refused to participate. Although 30% of households had consumed turtle in the previous 12 months, the purchase and consumption of wild products was rare (e.g., 64–742 resident households consumed wild turtle meat [i.e., 0.3–3.5% of households] but represented a large threat to wild turtles in the area due to their reduced populations). Differences among groups of consumers were marked, as identified through choice experiments, and price and source of product played important roles in their decisions. Despite the long‐term practice of farming turtles, 13.5% of consumers showed a strong preference for wild products, which demonstrates the limitations of wildlife farming as a single tool for sustainable wildlife trade. By using a combination of indirect questioning, choice experiments, and sales data to investigate demand for wildlife products, we obtained insights about consumer behavior that can be used to develop conservation‐demand‐focused initiatives. Lack of data from long‐term social–ecological assessments hinders the evaluation of and learning from wildlife farming. This information is key to understanding under which conditions different interventions (e.g., bans, wildlife farming, social marketing) are likely to succeed.     

Spatial scale and species identity influence the indigenous-alien diversity relationship in springtails

Although theory underlying the invasion paradox, or the change in the relationship between the richness of alien and indigenous species from negative to positive with increasing spatial scale, is well developed and much empirical work on the subject has been undertaken, most of the latter has concerned plants and to a lesser extent marine invertebrates. Here we therefore examine the extent to which the relationships between indigenous and alien species richness change from the local metacommunity to the interaction neighborhood scales, and the influences of abundance, species identity, and environmental favorability thereon, in springtails, a significant component of the soil fauna. Using a suite of modeling techniques, including generalized least squares and geographically weighted regressions to account for spatial autocorrelation or nonstationarity of the data, we show that the abundance and species richness of both indigenous and alien species at the metacommunity scale respond strongly to declining environmental favorability, represented here by altitude. Consequently, alien and indigenous diversity covary positively at this scale. By contrast, relationships are more complex at the interaction neighborhood scale, with the relationship among alien species richness and/or density and the density of indigenous species varying between habitats, being negative in some, but positive in others. Additional analyses demonstrated a strong influence of species identity, with negative relationships identified at the interaction neighborhood scale involving alien hypogastrurid springtails, a group known from elsewhere to have negative effects on indigenous species in areas where they have been introduced. By contrast, diversity relationships were positive with the other alien species. These results are consistent with both theory and previous empirical findings for other taxa, that interactions among indigenous and alien species change substantially with spatial scale and that environmental favorability may play a key role in explaining the larger scale patterns. However, they also suggest that the interactions may be affected by the identity of the species concerned, especially at the interaction neighborhood scale.     

Distribution and Use of Income from Bushmeat in a Rural Village,Central Gabon

Abstract: Bushmeat hunting is an activity integral to rural forest communities that provides a high proportion of household incomes and protein requirements. An improved understanding of the relationship between bushmeat hunting and household wealth is vital to assess the potential effects of future policy interventions to regulate an increasingly unsustainable bushmeat trade. We investigated the relationship between hunting offtake and household wealth, gender differences in spending patterns, and the use of hunting incomes in two rural forest communities, Central Gabon, from 2003 to 2005. Households in which members hunted (hunting households) were significantly wealthier than households in which no one hunted (nonhunting households), but within hunting households offtakes were not correlated with household wealth. This suggests there are access barriers to becoming a hunter and that hunting offtakes may not be the main driver of wealth accumulation. Over half of the money spent by men in the village shop was on alcohol and cigarettes, and the amount and proportion of income spent on these items increased substantially with increases in individual hunting offtake. By contrast, the majority of purchases made by women were of food, but their food purchases decreased actually and proportionally with increased household hunting offtake. This suggests that the availability of bushmeat as a food source decreases spending on food, whereas hunting income may be spent in part on items that do not contribute significantly to household food security. Conservation interventions that aim to reduce the commercial bushmeat trade need to account for likely shifts in individual spending that may ensue and the secondary effects on household economies.     

Management of coastal vegetated shingle in the United Kingdom

Coastal vegetated shingle is a rare and declining resource worldwide but is found extensively around the UK coastline. Shingle sediments b-axes range between 2 mm and 200 mm and occur as fringing beaches, bars, spits, barrier islands and forelands. Sediment patterns are dependent upon accretion or erosion. With sea-level rise, shingle features tend to move inland. Larger features may support reservoirs of fresh water but risk becoming saline with sea-level rise. Ranker soils may develop but are naturally fragile. Vegetated shingle communities are dependent upon substrate stability, moisture and nutrient availability. Only specialized and some ruderal plants can persist in patterns dependent upon geomorphic history. Coastal defence, agriculture, public access and control of alien species are important factors in habitat management. Because of its dynamic and unusual nature coastal vegetated shingle is an important habitat for environmental education.     

Evaluation of carrying capacity with particular reference to firewood and fodder resources in Central Himalaya: a case study of Baliya catchment

SUMMARY

The dwindling forests of the Central Himalaya are suffering from serious losses, threatening the subsistence population of the region. This study analyses the rate of consumption of fodder and firewood in a Central Himalayan catchment and estimates the carrying capacity of the catchment for these resources. Estimates indicate that the carrying capacity of the natural ecosystems and agroecosystems, in terms of availability of fodder and fuelwood resources, has already been exceeded.     

Public Timber Supply, Market Adjustments, and Local Economies: Economic Assumptions of the Northwest Forest Plan

Abstract:  The Northwest Forest Plan in the Pacific Northwest sought to stabilize local economies, including local employment and income, by stabilizing the flow of wood fiber from public forests. This is also a common forest management objective in other regions and countries. Because this economic strategy ignores basic market adjustments, it is likely to fail and to unnecessarily damage forest ecosystems. Application of basic economic principles on how markets operate significantly changes the apparent efficacy of efforts to manage local economies by managing timber supply. The emphasis on timber supply tends to ignore the dominant role that the demand for wood fiber and wood products, rather than wood-fiber supply, plays in determining levels of harvest and production. Contemporary economics indicates that markets tend to operate to offset reductions in wood-fiber supply. This significantly moderates the economic cost of reducing commercial timber harvest in the pursuit of environmental objectives. In addition, contemporary economic analysis indicates that the economic links between natural forests and local communities are much broader than simply the flow of commercially valuable logs to manufacturing facilities. At least in the United States, the flow of environmental services from natural forests has increasingly become an amenity that has drawn people and economic activity to forested areas. Attractive site-specific qualities, including those supported by natural forests, can potentially support local economic development even in the face of reduced timber harvests. These market-related adjustments partially explain the Northwest Forest Plan's overestimation of the expected regional impacts associated with reduced federal timber supply and the ineffectiveness of the plan's efforts to protect communities by stabilizing federal timber supply.     

Non-adaptive adoptions of nestlings in the colonial lesser kestrel: proximate causes and fitness consequences

We examined the causes, costs and benefits of adoption in the altricial lesser kestrel Falco naumanni. Specifically, we tested the intergenerational conflict hypothesis, proposed to explain adoption in some birds. Adoptions involved 76% of the nests and 51% of the nestlings at a mean age of 25 days (12 days before fledging). Nest-switching nestlings were not in poorer body condition, more parasitized or younger than their siblings, and body condition and prey delivery rates of their parents did not differ from those of other parents. In the foster nest, adopted nestlings did not benefit from higher feeding rates or a prolongation of the nestling period. They did not have fewer nest-mates or achieve higher rank within the new brood. Thus, adopted nestlings did not improve their body condition and survival. Adult lesser kestrels seemed unable to finely discriminate beween their own and alien chicks. Foster parents bore the cost of an increase of prey delivery rates, although it did not affect their survival or subsequent reproductive performance. Therefore, our results do not support the intergenerational conflict hypothesis, and suggest that adoption in this species is non-adaptive. Traditionally, the lesser kestrel bred in cliffs where movement among nest-sites was restricted. Nowadays, about half of the colonies are in tiled roofs which facilitate nest-switching by nestlings. The high rate of adoptions may thus be explained as reproductive errors associated with the recent occupation of a new breeding habitat. Received: 3 May 1996 / Accepted after revision: 19 January 1997     

Temporal patterns of foraging activity in some wood warblers in relation to the availability of insect prey

Summary I monitored the temporal pattern of diurnal feeding activity in several wood warbler (Parulidae) species and concomitantly recorded the numbers of active (flying) insects in 2 willow habitats in the western United States. At one site the temporal relationship between the density of active and inactive (nonflying) insects was investigated. The diurnal patterns of insect and bird activity were inversely related and each pattern was significantly nonuniform throughout the day; the wood warblers were largely inactive during the middle of the day when insects were most active.As foliage-gleaning birds, wood warblers depend primarily on the availability of inactive (nonflying) insects that they pick from the foliage, and they appear to be limited in their foraging activity by the unavailability of such insects during midday. Interestingly, the duration of midday inactivity for a given bird species varied inversely with the proportion of time that species spent flycatching. Thus, food availability may play an important role in determining the temporal patterns of feeding activity in these insectivorous bird species.