Dynamics of the Community of Hole-nesting Birds upon Reduction of Industrial Emissions (the Example of the Middle Ural Copper Smelter)

Russian Journal of Ecology - The dynamics of the species richness, breeding density, and structure of the community of birds occupying nest-boxes upon a 50-fold reduction of atmospheric emissions...     

2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) photodegradation on WO3-TiO2-SBA-15 nanostructured composite

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - A current environmental problem is the uncontrolled use of various pesticides that are harmful to the environment and public health. The herbicide...     

Dynamics of Tree and Shrub Vegetation in the Eastern Sayan Mountain Tundra

Russian Journal of Ecology - Climate change entails shifts in the ranges of woody plants along both latitudinal and altitudinal gradients in the boreal forest biome. In this study,...     

Analysis of the Shifts of Phenological Events in Birds as Indicators of Climatogenic Changes

Russian Journal of Ecology - A new method for assessing the response of biota to climatic changes in the ecosystem has been tested. In the Central Forest Natural Biosphere Reserve, the average...     

Preparation of Viscose Fibres Stripped of Reactive Dyes and Wrinkle-Free Crosslinked Cotton Textile Finish

The chemical recycling of cellulosic fibres may represent a next-generation fibre–fibre recycling system for cotton textiles, though remaining challenges include how to accommodate fibre blends, dyes, wrinkle-free finishes, and other impurities from finishing. These challenges may disrupt the regeneration process steps and reduce the fibre quality. This study examines the impact on regenerated viscose fibre properties of a novel alkaline/acid bleaching sequence to strip reactive dyes and dimethyloldihydroxyethyleneureas (DMDHEU) wrinkle-free finish from cotton textiles. Potentially, such a bleaching sequence could advantageously be integrated into the viscose process, reducing the costs and environmental impact of the product. The study investigates the spinning performance and mechanical properties (e.g., tenacity and elongation) of the regenerated viscose fibres. The alkaline/acid bleaching sequence was found to strip the reactive dye and DMDHEU wrinkle-free finish from the cotton fabric, so the resulting pulp could successfully be spun into viscose fibres, though the mechanical properties of these fibres were worse than those of commercial viscose fibres. This study finds that reactive dyes and DMDHEU wrinkle-free finish affect the viscose dope quality and the regeneration performance. The results might lead to progress in overcoming quality challenges in cellulosic chemical recycling.     

Progress and challenges in consolidating the management of Amazonian protected areas and indigenous territories

Effective management refers to the ability of a protected area or indigenous territory to meet its objectives, particularly as they relate to the protection of biodiversity and forest cover. Effective management is achieved through a process of consolidation, which among other things requires legally protecting sites, integrating sites into land‐use planning, developing and implementing management and resource‐use plans, and securing long‐term funding to pay for recurrent costs. Effectively managing all protected areas and indigenous territories in the Amazon may be needed to avoid a deforestation tipping point beyond which regional climatic feedbacks and global climate change interact to catalyze irreversible drying and savannization of large areas. At present, protected areas and indigenous territories cover 45.5% (3.55 million km²) of the Amazon, most of the 60–70% forest cover required to maintain hydrologic and climatic function. Three independent evaluations of a long‐term large‐scale philanthropic initiative in the Amazon yielded insights into the challenges and advances toward achieving effective management of protected areas and indigenous territories. Over the life of the initiative, management of sites has improved considerably, particularly with respect to management planning and capacity building, but few sites are effectively managed and many lack sufficient long‐term financing, adequate governance, support of nongovernmental organizations, and the means to withstand economic pressures. The time and money required to complete consolidation is still poorly understood, but it is clear that philanthropic funding is critical so long as essential funding needs are not met by governments and other sources, which could be on the order of decades. Despite challenges, it is encouraging that legal protection has expanded greatly and management of sites is improving steadily. Management of protected areas in other developing countries could be informed by improvements that have occurred in Amazonian countries.     

Unintentional non-traffic injury and fatal events: Threats to children in and around vehicles

Objective: There have been substantial reductions in motor vehicle crash–related child fatalities due to advances in legislation, public safety campaigns, and engineering. Less is known about non-traffic injuries and fatalities to children in and around motor vehicles. The objective of this study was to describe the frequency of various non-traffic incidents, injuries, and fatalities to children using a unique surveillance system and database.

Methods: Instances of non-traffic injuries and fatalities in the United States to children 0–14 years were tracked from January 1990 to December 2014 using a compilation of sources including media reports, individual accounts from families of affected children, medical examiner reports, police reports, child death review teams, coroner reports, medical professionals, legal professionals, and other various modes of publication.

Results: Over the 25-year period, there were at least 11,759 events resulting in 3,396 deaths. The median age of the affected child was 3.7 years. The incident types included 3,115 children unattended in hot vehicles resulting in 729 deaths, 2,251 backovers resulting in 1,232 deaths, 1,439 frontovers resulting in 692 deaths, 777 vehicles knocked into motion resulting in 227 deaths, 415 underage drivers resulting in 203 deaths, 172 power window incidents resulting in 61 deaths, 134 falls resulting in 54 deaths, 79 fires resulting in 41 deaths, and 3,377 other incidents resulting in 157 deaths.

Conclusions: Non-traffic injuries and fatalities present an important threat to the safety and lives of very young children. Future efforts should consider complementary surveillance mechanisms to systematically and comprehensively capture all non-traffic incidents. Continued education, engineering modifications, advocacy, and legislation can help continue to prevent these incidents and must be incorporated in overall child vehicle safety initiatives.     

The place of nature in conservation conflicts

Conservation conflicts are gaining importance in contemporary conservation scholarship such that conservation may have entered a conflict hype. We attempted to uncover and deconstruct the normative assumptions behind such studies by raising several questions: what are conservation conflicts, what justifies the attention they receive, do conservation-conflict studies limit wildlife conservation, is scientific knowledge stacked against wildlife in conservation conflicts, do conservation-conflict studies adopt a specific view of democracy, can laws be used to force conservation outcomes, why is flexibility needed in managing conservation conflicts, can conservation conflicts be managed by promoting tolerance, and who needs to compromise in conservation conflicts? We suggest that many of the intellectual premises in the field may defang conservation and prevent it from truly addressing the current conservation crisis as it accelerates. By framing conservation conflicts as conflicts between people about wildlife or nature, the field insidiously transfers guilt, whereby human activities are no longer blamed for causing species decline and extinctions but conservation is instead blamed for causing social conflicts. When the focus is on mitigating social conflicts without limiting in any powerful way human activities damaging to nature, conservation-conflict studies risk keeping conservation within the limits of human activities, instead of keeping human activities within the limits of nature. For conservation to successfully stop the biodiversity crisis, we suggest the alternative goal of recognizing nature's right to existence to maintenance of ecological functions and evolutionary processes. Nature being a rights bearer or legal person would imply its needs must be explicitly taken into account in conflict adjudication. If, even in conservation, nature's interests come second to human interests, it may be no surprise that conservation cannot succeed.