Accounting for the Impact of Conservation on Human Well‐Being

Conservationists are increasingly engaging with the concept of human well‐being to improve the design and evaluation of their interventions. Since the convening of the influential Sarkozy Commission in 2009, development researchers have been refining conceptualizations and frameworks to understand and measure human well‐being and are starting to converge on a common understanding of how best to do this. In conservation, the term human well‐being is in widespread use, but there is a need for guidance on operationalizing it to measure the impacts of conservation interventions on people. We present a framework for understanding human well‐being, which could be particularly useful in conservation. The framework includes 3 conditions; meeting needs, pursuing goals, and experiencing a satisfactory quality of life. We outline some of the complexities involved in evaluating the well‐being effects of conservation interventions, with the understanding that well‐being varies between people and over time and with the priorities of the evaluator. Key challenges for research into the well‐being impacts of conservation interventions include the need to build up a collection of case studies so as to draw out generalizable lessons; harness the potential of modern technology to support well‐being research; and contextualize evaluations of conservation impacts on well‐being spatially and temporally within the wider landscape of social change. Pathways through the smog of confusion around the term well‐being exist, and existing frameworks such as the Well‐being in Developing Countries approach can help conservationists negotiate the challenges of operationalizing the concept. Conservationists have the opportunity to benefit from the recent flurry of research in the development field so as to carry out more nuanced and locally relevant evaluations of the effects of their interventions on human well‐being. Consideración del Impacto de la Conservación sobre el Bienestar Humano     

新疆北疆地区少数民族贫困县可持续发展水平时空变化解构——以木垒哈萨克自治县为例

可持续发展水平时空解构表明,木垒县可持续发展能力很弱,资源问题成为限制其经济发展、社会发展及环境保护的主要因素。近8年来,木垒县可持续发展水平虽然呈良性上升状态,但其上升主要归功于社会发展因素,经济发展指数、资源指数等对其上升的推动性并不强。仅以提高经济发展水平为目的的掠夺式开发,使得资源匮乏的木垒县因此出现较为严重的资源性环境问题,并制约经济水平的提高。上述分析表明,资源指数成为新疆北疆地区少数民族贫困县可持续发展的基础,少数民族贫困县的贫困现状与其可持续发展能力弱是密切联系的。消除贫困的前提条件是实现可持续发展,因此,提高新疆少数民族贫困县的可持续发展水平这项任务迫切而重要。     

How much more exposed are the poor to natural disasters? Global and regional measurement

This paper proposes a simple indicator to measure the exposure to natural disasters for the poor and non-poor population, in order to assess the global and regional trend of natural hazard and poverty. Globally, poor people are two times more exposed to natural disasters than the non-poor in the twenty-first century. The time trend varies across regions, with poor people in East Asia and Pacific being most exposed to natural disasters, followed by those in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. The change of exposure measure over time is decomposed into two factors: a pure exposure change, which could be fuelled by climate change; and a concentration component. The result shows that the total net increase of exposure between the 1970s and the 2000s is driven significantly by the increased concentration of the poor (26 per cent) in disaster-prone areas, whereas the contribution of that factor remains very small for the non-poor (six per cent).     

Profiling unauthorized natural resource users for better targeting of conservation interventions

Unauthorized use of natural resources is a key threat to many protected areas. Approaches to reducing this threat include law enforcement and integrated conservation and development (ICD) projects, but for such ICDs to be targeted effectively, it is important to understand who is illegally using which natural resources and why. The nature of unauthorized behavior makes it difficult to ascertain this information through direct questioning. Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda, has many ICD projects, including authorizing some local people to use certain nontimber forest resources from the park. However, despite over 25 years of ICD, unauthorized resource use continues. We used household surveys, indirect questioning (unmatched count technique), and focus group discussions to generate profiles of authorized and unauthorized resource users and to explore motivations for unauthorized activity. Overall, unauthorized resource use was most common among people from poor households who lived closest to the park boundary and farthest from roads and trading centers. Other motivations for unauthorized resource use included crop raiding by wild animals, inequity of revenue sharing, and lack of employment, factors that created resentment among the poorest communities. In some communities, benefits obtained from ICD were reported to be the greatest deterrents against unauthorized activity, although law enforcement ranked highest overall. Despite the sensitive nature of exploring unauthorized resource use, management‐relevant insights into the profiles and motivations of unauthorized resource users can be gained from a combination of survey techniques, as adopted here. To reduce unauthorized activity at Bwindi, we suggest ICD benefit the poorest people living in remote areas and near the park boundary by providing affordable alternative sources of forest products and addressing crop raiding. To prevent resentment from driving further unauthorized activity, ICDs should be managed transparently and equitably.     

基于DEA与ESDA的中国国家级贫困县发展效率的测度与时空演化研究

本研究从发展效率角度出发,以592个国家级贫困县为研究对象,构建了投入-产出指标体系,采用数据包络分析法,测度了2002和2012年中国国家级贫困县的发展效率,并基于GIS空间分析法对发展效率的空间差异格局进行了深入分析。研究发现:第一、国家级贫困县覆盖的面积在扩大,西南地区的贵州省和西北地区的甘肃省成为目前国家扶贫开发的重点和难点地区。第二、特色资源的利用和开发是国家级贫困县实现经济发展的关键。贫困地区往往具有得天独厚的矿产资源、自然景观资源等,利用好上述资源可以促使贫困地区真正实现经济的成长发展。2002年DEA有效的贫困县主要是自然资源、人力资源和旅游资源相对丰富的地区,这些地区通过相关资源的开发已经实现了自身经济的"内生式增长",而且这些地区基本都已经退出了国家级贫困县的范畴。贵州和甘肃等各类资源非常匮乏的地区成为DEA效率最低的国家级贫困县集中区。这两个省份地理位置闭塞,自然条件恶劣,资源禀赋贫乏,缺乏可以支撑经济内生发展的支撑。第三、DEA有效和DEA效率偏低的贫困县都表现出一定的空间相关性。根据贫困县的空间临接性,采取集中连片的扶贫开发政策符合贫困县的实际情况。第四、2002-2012年间,国家级贫困县县域经济的热、冷点格局发生了很大变化。国家级贫困县的经济发展态势出现了很大的改变。     

The Historical Dynamics of Social–Ecological Traps

Environmental degradation is a typical unintended outcome of collective human behavior. Hardin’s metaphor of the “tragedy of the commons” has become a conceived wisdom that captures the social dynamics leading to environmental degradation. Recently, “traps” has gained currency as an alternative concept to explain the rigidity of social and ecological processes that produce environmental degradation and livelihood impoverishment. The trap metaphor is, however, a great deal more complex compared to Hardin’s insight. This paper takes stock of studies using the trap metaphor. It argues that the concept includes time and history in the analysis, but only as background conditions and not as a factor of causality. From a historical–sociological perspective this is remarkable since social–ecological traps are clearly path-dependent processes, which are causally produced through a conjunction of events. To prove this point the paper conceptualizes social–ecological traps as a process instead of a condition, and systematically compares history and timing in one classic and three recent studies of social–ecological traps. Based on this comparison it concludes that conjunction of social and environmental events contributes profoundly to the production of trap processes. The paper further discusses the implications of this conclusion for policy intervention and outlines how future research might generalize insights from historical–sociological studies of traps.     

基于农户视角的脱贫类型划分与路径研究——以新晃侗族自治县84个出列村为例

以新晃侗族自治县（以下称“新晃县”）84个出列村农户为研究对象,从基础设施、教育医疗、收入状况、产业发展四个方面构建脱贫成效指标体系,对2019年新晃县出列村农户脱贫成效的空间格局、脱贫类型划分与路径进行研究。结果表明：（1）新晃县出列村农户脱贫成效呈现出明显的空间分异特征,基础设施脱贫成效平均得分为2.53,整体呈“北高南低”的态势;教育医疗脱贫成效平均得分为2.65,呈现出“东南高、西北低”的空间分布格局;收入脱贫成效平均得分为2.48,呈高、中、低得分区域交替分布态势;产业脱贫成效平均得分为4.23,但差异明显,仅东部、南部少数村域得分较高。（2）新晃县出列村农户脱贫类型可分为单因素主导脱贫型、双因素驱动脱贫型、多因素综合脱贫型三个大类和F因素主导型、F-E因素驱动型、P-E-I因素综合型等13个小类,同时针对不同脱贫类型提出巩固脱贫成效的策略与路径。     

易地扶贫搬迁对西藏典型迁入村可持续发展的影响

基于联合国2030年可持续发展目标（UN-SDGs）,融入生态系统服务,建立了面向易地扶贫搬迁政策的村落和农牧户尺度可持续发展评价指标体系,定量分析了西藏典型易地扶贫搬迁迁入村——白朗村及村内农牧户在搬迁前后可持续发展目标实现状况变化。结果表明：在村落尺度,易地扶贫搬迁实施后迁入村在消除贫困（SDG 1）、能源可持续（SDG 7）和可持续住区（SDG 11）三项目标下的可持续发展指标数值较搬迁前显著增加,但可持续发展指数总分降低2.91%;易地扶贫搬迁政策直接影响的农牧户收入、用水和交通等可持续发展指标的可持续发展指数贡献率从49.4%增加至54.23%,但政策间接影响的生态系统相关的指标,其可持续发展指数贡献率由50.6%降低至45.77%;在农牧户尺度,易地扶贫搬迁显著促进了搬迁农牧户消除贫困（SDG 1）和体面工作（SDG 8）目标的实现,且在村落资源总量有限、大量人口迁入的情况下原住农牧户各项可持续发展指标依然稳定增长。研究为白朗村搬迁后的管理和投入工作提供方向,并为未来其他地区搬迁工作中的土地利用规划制定和迁入人口数量的确定提供思路。     

Impacts of Marine Protected Areas on Fishing Communities

Abstract: Marine protected areas (MPAs) are a popular conservation strategy, but their impacts on human welfare are poorly understood. To inform future research and policy decisions, we reviewed the scientific literature to assess MPA impacts on five indicators of human welfare: food security, resource rights, employment, community organization, and income. Following MPA establishment, food security generally remained stable or increased in older and smaller MPAs. The ability of most fishing groups to govern MPA resources changed. Increased resource rights were positively correlated with MPA zoning and compliance with MPA regulations. Small sample sizes precluded statistical tests of the impacts of MPAs on employment, community organization, and income. Our results demonstrate that MPAs shape the social well‐being and political power of fishing communities; impacts (positive and negative) vary within and among social groups; and social impacts are correlated with some—but not all—commonly hypothesized explanatory factors. Accordingly, MPAs may represent a viable strategy for enhancing food security and empowering local communities, but current practices negatively affect at least a minority of fishers. To inform policy making, further research must better document and explain variation in the positive and negative social impacts of MPAs.     

政府减贫行为的动态效应——中国农村减贫问题的SVAR模型实证分析(1990-2008)

脱贫人口返贫率偏高是中国农村贫困问题的一个显著特征.这种客观现实要求我们,应该仔细考察农村贫困发生率、贫困深度和贫困强度对政府干预行为的跨期响应,从而动态地而不是静态地评价政府减贫行为绩效.本文将普惠式的农村农业发展政策与扶贫政策一起纳入减贫分析框架,构建一个结构向量自回归模型(SVAR)模型,以弥补现有文献用多变量时间序列数据通过单方程模型回归分析的局限,从SVAR模型中获得结构冲击响应函数,动态地评价政府行为的减贫效应.实证分析表明,目前的政府行为,无论是普惠式的农村农业发展政策,还是瞄准贫困人口的扶贫政策,对农村贫困的政策干预都没有形成持久的影响,冲击响应衰减很快.为了降低脱贫人口返贫率,政府减贫政策的目标应定位于提升贫困人口的自身发展能力,扩展贫困人口参与经济增长的机会,使经济增长成为他们获取稳定收益的源泉.