Land Reform and Biodiversity Conservation in Brazil in the 1990s: Conflict and the Articulation of Mutual Interests

Abstract:  Land-reform and environmental movements, revitalized by the democratization of civil society in Brazil in the 1990s, found their objectives in conflict over forested parcels that settlers want for conversion to agriculture but that are important for wildlife conservation. In the Atlantic Forest, where 95% of the forest is gone, we reviewed three cases of Brazilian nongovernmental organization (NGOs) engagement with the land-reform movement with respect to forest remnants neighboring protected areas that have insufficient habitat for the long-term survival of unique endangered species. In the Pontal do Paranapanema (São Paulo), Poço das Antas (Rio de Janeiro), and southern Bahia, environmental NGOs have supported agricultural alternatives that improve livelihood options and provide incentives for habitat conservation planning. Where land-reform groups were better organized, technical cooperation on settlement agriculture permitted the exploration of mutual interests in conciliating the productive landscape with conservation objectives. Processes of regular consultation among NGOs, environmental agencies, and the private sector revealed that there was less zero-sum conflict over the same lands than commonly perceived. In both groups, technicians found forested lands less suitable for small-scale agriculture, and leaders took risks to justify and support claims to alternative existing agricultural lands. Based on the cases we examined, the construction of landscapes with both forest stewardship and poverty-reducing agrarian reform faces continued obstacles from contradictory agrarian and environmental sector policies and inadequate economic incentives for forest stewardship on private lands.     

Simple Spatial Modeling Tool for Prioritizing Prescribed Burning Activities at the Landscape Scale

Abstract:   Resources for prescribed fire are frequently insufficient to manage public lands for all conservation and resource management objectives, necessitating prioritization of the application of fire across the landscape within any given year. Defining tradeoffs when applying prescribed fire to large landscapes is problematic not only because of the complexity of weighing competing management objectives at the landscape scale, but also because of the difficult nature of independently applying need-to-burn criteria to large areas. We present a case study of a simple modeling process implemented at Eglin Air Force Base in the Florida Panhandle (U.S.A.) to prioritize the application of prescribed fire. In a workshop setting, managers and biologists identified key conservation criteria and landscape management objectives that drive the application of prescribed fire. Remote sensing and other spatial data were developed to directly or indirectly represent all these criteria. Using geographic information system software, managers and biologists weighted each criterion according to its relative contribution to overall burn prioritization, and individual values for the criterion were scored according to how they influence the need to burn. Subsequently, this process has been validated and modified through ecological monitoring. This modeling process has also been applied to the 77,400-ha Blackwater River State Forest, public land adjacent to Eglin Air Force Base, demonstrating its applicability to lands with varying management priorities. The advantages of this model-based approach for prioritizing prescribed fire include the reliance on accessible, inexpensive software, the development of spatially explicit management objectives, the ease of transferability, and clearly stated assumptions about management that may be tested and reviewed through monitoring and public comment.     

A drop in the bucket: when is a pay raise a pay raise?

Although merit pay continues to receive much theoretical and practical attention, little systematic effort is devoted to determining how large a pay raise must be before employees see it as a pay raise. This study uses psychophysical reasoning and techniques in a sample of 192 student ‘employees’ to establish the size of pay raise thresholds in a relatively controlled setting. Results indicate that, below about the 7 per cent level, increases in pay amounts are unlikely to evoke positive perceptual and attitudinal reactions among employees. Theoretical, methodological, and practical implications of these results are highlighted. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Integrating Nonindigenous Aquatic Plant Control with Protection of Snail Kite Nests in Florida

The endangered snail kite (Rostrhamus sociabilis) feeds primarily on the freshwater apple snail (Pomacea paludosa) in Florida. The nonindigenous, floating water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) and water lettuce (Pistia stratiotes) impede kites from finding snails. Effective control of these aquatic plants in the littoral zone of central and south Florida lakes benefits kites by maintaining open foraging habitat. However, incidental herbicide spraying of nesting substrates result in nest collapse when kites breed in nonwoody, emergent plants [cattail (Typha spp.) and giant bulrush (Scirpus validus)] in the outer littoral zone during lower lake levels. Many endangered species recovery plans and their implementation have experienced problems due to inaction and/or noncooperation by various governmental agencies and their personnel. Herein, we describe the development and implementation of a buffer zone strategy to prevent secondary impacts from an aquatic plant control program to snail kites nesting on lakes in central and south Florida. A strategy was jointly developed by personnel of five state and federal agencies to control herbicide application near kite nesting areas during the normal breeding season. Although requiring various modifications during its implementation, this cooperative effort successfully integrated aquatic plant control objectives with snail kite conservation on Lake Okeechobee during 1988. The program was expanded the following year to lakes Kissimmee and Tohopekaliga. Since the implementation of the snail kite impact preclusion program, no nest loss was attributed to incidental herbicide applications on lakes Okeechobee, Kissimmee, and Tohopekaliga.     

Sorption-Desorption of Atrazine and Diuron in Soils from Southern Brazil

The objective of this study was to investigate the behavior of sorption and desorption of the herbicides atrazine (6-chloro-N ²-ethyl-N ⁴-isopropyl-1,3,5-triazine-2,4-diamine) and diuron [3-(3,4-dichlorophenyl)-1,1-dimethyleurea] in soil samples from a typical lithosequence located in the municipality of Mamborê (PR), southern Brazil. Five concentrations of ¹⁴C-atrazine and ¹⁴C-diuron were used for both herbicides (0.48, 0.96, 1.92, 3.84, and 7.69 mg L^?1). Sorption of both herbicides correlated positively with the organic carbon and clay content of the soil samples. Sorption isotherms were well described by the Freundlich model. The slope values of the isotherm (N) ranged from 0.84 to 0.90 (atrazine) and from 0.75 to 0.79 (diuron) for the lithosequence samples. Sorption of diuron was high regardless of the soil texture or the concentration added. The desorption isotherms for atrazine and diuron showed good fit to the Freundlich equation (R ² ≥ 0,87). Atrazine slope values for the desorption isotherms were similar for the different concentrations and were much lower than those observed for the sorption isotherms. Significant hysteresis was observed in the herbicide desorption. When the two herbicides were compared, it was found that diuron (N = 0.06–0.22) presented more pronounced hysteresis than atrazine. The results showed that, quantitatively, a greater atrazine fraction applied to these soils remains available to be leached in the soil profile, as compared to diuron.     

Report on International Affairs Committee

This is a report on Meetings of Representatives of National Air Pollution Preventions Associations to Consider the Establishment of an International Union, held in Washington, D. C, June 18–19, 1964 and Houston, Texas, June 21–22, 1964.     

Desulfurization of Caribbean Fuel

An American Petroleum Institute study of desulfurization of Caribbean fuel oil was completed in February 1967. The report is unique in that proprietary information was made available to the contractor, the Bechtel Corp., by task force members and licensors of desulfurization processes. Thus confidential information never before available to a single organization was used to develop feasibility and incremental costs of various processes for desulfurization. The report provides needed guideposts for decision-making by governmental units as well as by industry. Incremental costs are presented for intermediate levels of desulfurization from the normal level for Caribbean heavy fuel oil of 2.6% down to 0.5%, as well as the sensitivity of costs to sulfur credits and to rate of recovery of invested capital. Degree of justifiable confidence in the various data is discussed. Effects of desulfurization on other characterisics of the fuel oil are also discussed.     

Utility of North Atlantic Right Whale Museum Specimens for Assessing Changes in Genetic Diversity

Abstract: We examined six historical specimens of the endangered North Atlantic right whale ( Eubalaena glacialis ) using DNA isolated from documented baleen plates from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Sequences from the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region from these samples were compared with those from a near-exhaustive survey (269 of approximately 320 individuals) of the remaining right whales in the western North Atlantic Ocean. Our results suggest that there has been only relatively modest change in maternal lineage diversity over the past century in the North Atlantic right whale population. Any significant reduction in genetic variation in the species most likely occurred prior to the late nineteenth century. One historical specimen was from the last documented female capable of propagating one of the maternal lineages in the population today; no females in the existing population have been found to carry this mtDNA haplotype. Analysis of the only specimens from the eastern North Atlantic right whale population ever to be examined revealed that eastern and western North Atlantic right whales may not have been genetically differentiated populations. Loss of gene diversity experienced by North Atlantic right whales over the last century has been modest, and the six decades of protection have been successful in maintaining much of the maternal lineage diversity that was present in the late nineteenth century.     

Patterns of Giving and Receiving Help During Severe Winter Conditions: A Research Note

Severe winter conditions and blizzards may cause persons to be stranded, unable to move from one place to another. Being stranded under such conditions can be life-threatening and often requires help. This is a study of giving and receiving help among people who were stranded during severe winter conditions and blizzards in Bowling Green, Ohio, USA and the surrounding countryside in 1976–1977. Mail questionnaire data were collected from the Bowling Green, Ohio telephone directory which included listings from both rural and urban areas. The family, followed by friends and neighbors, were most important in the giving and receiving of help. There was little difference between the responses of rural and urban residents. Propinquity was found to be an important intervening variable.