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.     

Incorporating basic needs to reconcile poverty and ecosystem services

Conservation managers frequently face the challenge of protecting and sustaining biodiversity without producing detrimental outcomes for (often poor) human populations that depend on ecosystem services for their well-being. However, mutually beneficial solutions are often elusive and can mask trade-offs and negative outcomes for people. To deal with such trade-offs, ecological and social thresholds need to be identified to determine the acceptable solution space for conservation. Although human well-being as a concept has recently gained prominence, conservationists still lack tools to evaluate how their actions affect it in a given context. We applied the theory of human needs to conservation by building on an extensive historical application of need approaches in international development. In an innovative participatory method that included focus groups and household surveys, we evaluated how human needs are met based on locally relevant thresholds. We then established connections between human needs and ecosystem services through key-informant focus groups. We applied our method in coastal East Africa to identify households that would not be able to meet their basic needs and to uncover the role of ecosystem services in meeting these. This enabled us to identify how benefits derived from the environment were contributing to meeting basic needs and to consider potential repercussions that could arise through changes to ecosystem service provision. We suggest our approach can help conservationists and planners balance poverty alleviation and biodiversity protection and ensure conservation measures do not, at the very least, cause serious harm to individuals. We further argue it can be used as a basis for monitoring the impacts of conservation on multidimensional poverty.     

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。     

中国西部地区生态扶贫策略研究

西部地区是我国贫困面最大、贫困程度最深的地区,同时也是生态环境最脆弱的地区.改革开放以来,虽然西部地区社会经济发展水平得到了一定的提高,但与东中部地区的收入差距却在不断的扩大.同时,随着全国贫困人口绝对规模的减少,贫困人口的分布进一步向西部地区集中,生态环境在诸多致贫因素中越来越突出.文章从西部贫困地区与生态脆弱区和重要生态功能区空间分布的关联性以及地区贫困对生态环境的影响等方面深入解析了西部地区贫困和生态环境互为因果的耦合机理;分析了当前西部地区扶贫开发面临的生态环境、资金、人力资本、管理体制等方面的严峻挑战;提出了生态扶贫的概念和基本内涵,即:生态建设与扶贫开发同步进行,生态恢复与脱贫致富相互协调;设计了原地扶贫和离地扶贫两大生态扶贫模式,并提出了不同生态扶贫模式的特点、实施范围和基本内容.原地扶贫通过创造生态管护就业岗位,发展当地特色生态绿色产业体系,实现贫困人口在当地就业,增加贫困人口的收入.同时,通过拓展整村推进和本地教育工程,改善贫困地区生产、生活条件,提高贫困人口稳定脱贫能力.离地扶贫则以生态移民为主,并结合城镇化战略,引导贫困地区劳动力向城镇和东部沿海地区转移,通过异地就业、生活实现脱贫.最后,提出了实施生态扶贫战略的相关政策建议,包括以教育为核心的人力资本开发,以特色农副产品开发、特色生态旅游和绿色品牌建设为核心的特色优势产业发展,以及以生态移民制度和政府管理体制为核心的制度建设创新等.     

The impact of the New Cooperative Medical Scheme in Sangzhi County,Hunan Province

In August 2011,the Sangzhi County government,Hunan Province,adopted a series of new health care policies as a national pilot of the New Cooperative Medical Scheme(referred to as 2011 NCMS).These policies were designed to further resolve illness-led poverty and the poor state of health care in the local area.The program had a positive impact and spread to other regions in Hunan Province.This paper will discuss the progress made as a result of the policies and several issues that challenge the scheme in practice.A total sample of 1212 individuals and 303 households were included in the analysis,and98 interviews were conducted with people related to the scheme.Our major findings indicate that the 201!NCMS has significantly reduced the out-of-pocket medical payment of rural residents,and also increased the township hospitals’patient flow.However,the medical scheme still faces many challenging issues during the implementation.With the increasing interest among the Chinese policy makers in strengthening and promoting the Sangzhi Model,the impacts of the scheme deserve greater attention in practice so as to further improve NCMS in rural China.     

Fuel poverty and vulnerability in the EU low-carbon transition: the case of renewable electricity

The European Union (EU) and member states alike are following a tradition of addressing fuel poverty and vulnerability at the point of purchase by final consumers by seeking to influence the impact of income, energy price and the built environment on the ability of household consumers to access the energy that they need. By focusing on the conditions of energy transmission in the most rapidly growing renewable electricity sector in the UK – offshore wind – this paper aims to question whether the regulatory socio-technological framing of renewable electricity transmission is reproducing conditions for fuel poverty and vulnerability in the UK. By drawing a comparison with renewable electricity transmission in Bulgaria, this paper argues that the problem might be symptomatic of the EU as a whole. While not arguing against the proliferation of renewable electricity and its importance in meeting the 2020 targets, this paper calls for expanding the scope of fuel poverty alleviation policy throughout the whole renewable electricity supply chain, building on Helm's argument that energy companies at the middle of the supply chain are better suited to deliver fuel policy.     

Managing Watershed Externalities in India: Theory and Practice

Watershed development is the focus of poverty alleviation programs in rural India. Watershed projects aim to solve problems of externalities, but they also create their own externalities, which cause uneven distribution of costs and benefits that undermine project objectives and harm the poor. Numerous approaches exist to internalize externalities, including awareness creation, moral suasion, investment subsidies, regulatory limits and fines, indirect benefits, mergers, and recent innovations like payment for environmental services and cap and trade. These can be judged on several criteria; the best approach would solve the problem cost effectively and help or at least not hurt poor people. Watershed projects in India were examined to identify the approaches taken to internalize watershed externalities. Investment subsidies and indirect employment benefits are the least effective approaches theoretically, but they are the most commonly applied, most likely because they are easy to administer and bring popular short term gains. Some theoretically favorable approaches that have been used elsewhere, such as payment for environmental services, may not work as well in India due to high transaction costs. However, one key innovation that easily could be applied in India is to make investment subsidies contingent on performance. Legal support and property rights reform would be needed for other favorable approaches.     

Poverty and the Deterioration of Natural Soil Capital in the Peruvian Altiplano

The Peruvian altiplano is a marginal agricultural region with limited infrastructure, climate constraints, and high levels of poverty. Data were collected from 265 farms in four different agricultural regions, and data from three of those regions are analyzed here. Regressions were run with soil nutrient loss, soil depth loss, and yield loss over the past 20 years, as perceived by farmers. Location, topographical and management factors were considered. Additional regressions were run to examine the determinants of two agricultural management practices which were found to affect soil quality, namely fallowing and ploughing vertical furrows. Use of traditional fallowing (aynoca) was associated with helping to preserve soil quality, and was practiced by households with more education, with higher non-farm income, and in villages which had benefitted from natural resource development projects. Vertical furrowing similarly was associated with helping preserve soil quality, and was practiced by households with fewer unmet basic needs. These results have implications for the agricultural and development strategies to be followed in the region.     

省域旅游扶贫工程研究

旅游扶贫工程是解决贫困问题、促进区域协调发展的重要途径。以广东为代表，在省城范围内开展的立体化协作旅游扶贫工程是一个实践创新，上个月政府主导、区域协调、系统动作、产业扶贫等特点和优势。本文在广东三年多来的实践基础上，首次提出“省域旅游扶贫工程”概念，并对这一新兴的旅游扶贫模式进行了系统研究，探讨了其运行机制，分析了其实施过程中可能面临的挑战和误区，最后提出了基于政策实践的相关建议。