Quantifying the squeezing or stretching of fisheries as they adapt to displacement by marine reserves

The designation of no‐take marine reserves involves social and economic concerns due to the resulting displacement of fishing effort, when fishing rights are removed from those who traditionally fished within an area. Displacement can influence the functioning of the fishery and success of the reserve, yet levels of displacement are seldom quantified after reserve implementation and very rarely before that. We devised a simple analytical framework based on set theory to facilitate reserve placement. Implementation of the framework requires maps of fishing grounds, fishing effort, or catch per unit effort for at least 2 years. The framework quantifies the level of conflict that a reserve designation might cause in the fishing sector due to displacement and the opportunities to offset the conflict through fisher spatial mobility (i.e., ability of fishers to fish elsewhere). We also considered how the outputs of the framework can be used to identify targeted management interventions for each fishery. We applied the method in Honduras, where the largest marine protected area in Central America is being placed, for which spatial data on fishing effort were available for 6 fisheries over 3 years. The proposed closure had a greater negative impact on the shrimp and lobster scuba fisheries, which concentrated respectively 28% and 18% of their effort inside the reserve. These fisheries could not accommodate the displacement within existing fishing grounds. Both would be forced to stretch into new fishing grounds, which are available but are of unknown quality. These stakeholders will likely require compensation to offset costly exploratory fishing or to travel to fishing grounds farther away from port.     

A Cost-Effective Weighing Chamber for Particulate Matter Filters

ABSTRACT

Particulate matter (PM) is a ubiquitous air pollutant that has been receiving increasing attention in recent years due in part to the association between PM and a number of adverse health outcomes, including mortality and increases in emergency room visits and respiratory symptoms, as well as exacerbation of asthma and decrements in lung function.^1-5 As a result, the ability to accurately sample ambient PM has become important, both to researchers and to regulatory agencies. The federal reference method for the determination of fine PM as PM_2.5 in the atmosphere recommends that particle-sampling filters be conditioned and weighed in an environment with constant temperature and relative humidity (RH).⁶ It is also recommended that vibration, electrostatic charges, and contamination of the filters from laboratory air be minimized to reduce variability in filter weight measurements. These controls have typically been maintained in small, environmentally controlled “cleanrooms.” As an alternative to constructing an elaborate cleanroom, we have designed, and presented in this paper, an inexpensive weighing chamber to maintain the necessary level of humidity control.     

Resourcefulization approaches to pollution control of chromate residues in China

Over 2 million tons of chromate residues as hazardous wastes have been accumulated from chromate production processes during the past more than 30 years in China. Some serious pollution problems have been caused due to no appropriate technology and management. Approaches are reviewed to pollution control of chromate residues by utilizing them as secondary resources in this paper. In addition to legislation for pollution control, chromate residues can be used as raw materials to produce a great diversity of useful industrial products. Strategies are also recommanded for the resourcefulization of chromate residues.     

Catalyzing sustainable fisheries management through behavior change interventions

Small-scale fisheries are an important livelihood and primary protein source for coastal communities in many of the poorest regions in the world, yet many are overfished and thus require effective and scalable management solutions. Positive ecological and socioeconomic responses to management typically lag behind immediate costs borne by fishers from fishing pressure reductions necessary for fisheries recovery. These short-term costs challenge the long-term success of these interventions. However, social marketing may increase perceptions of management benefits before ecological and socioeconomic benefits are fully realized, driving new social norms and ultimately long-term sustainable behavior change. By conducting underwater visual surveys to quantify ecological conditions and by conducting household surveys with community members to quantify their perceptions of management support and socioeconomic conditions, we assessed the impact of a standardized small-scale fisheries management intervention that was implemented across 41 sites in Brazil, Indonesia, and the Philippines. The intervention combines TURF reserves (community-based territorial use rights for fishing coupled with no-take marine reserves) with locally tailored social-marketing behavior change campaigns. Leveraging data across 22 indicators and 4 survey types, along with data from 3 control sites, we found that ecological and socioeconomic impacts varied and that communities supported the intervention and were already changing their fishing practices. These results suggest that communities were developing new social norms and fishing more sustainably before long-term ecological and socioeconomic benefits of fisheries management materialized.     

Emission Inventories of Carbon-containing Greenhouse Gases in China and Technological Measures for Their Abatement

The report summarizes surveys on carbon inventories and initiatives on sustainable carbon cycling taken by the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, where the authors work/worked. The first part of the report, which appeared in the preceding issue of this journal, deals with the concept of sustainable carbon cycling, the historic evolution of carbon cycling processes in China, carbon pool enhancement, value addition, carbon sequestration and carbon balance. This very paper, as the second part of the report, covers the results of carbon dynamics modeling, emission inventories of various carbon-containing greenhouse gases and their potential abatement measures.     

Role of interaction between selenium and organic matters on causes of Kaschin-Beck disease

Influences of organic matters of soil and water on speciation and biological utilization of selenium are discussed. Humic acid is found to be the main pool of selenium in soil and affects the bio-availability of the element in soil-plant system. Fulvic acid from drinking water inhibits the absorption of selenium taken from diet. The relationship between high content of organic matters of water and selenium deficiency on the causes of KBD could be reflected in the limited synthesis of glutathione peroxidase, which is generally stimulated by fulvic acid from drinking water.     

Determination of dissolved selenium species in environmental samples

This article reports on the technique for the determination of selenium at ppt level and the procedure for the speciation of dissolved selenium in the environmental samples. By combining the high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and a fluorescent detector (FLD), this technique permits the determination of selenium at 0.001 μg/L for Se(IV) and 0.005 μg/L for Se(VI) and the total concentration of selenium for a sample volume of 20 ml. In the speciation procedure, Se(IV) is firstly determined based on the selectivity of 2, 4 - diaminonaphthalene (DAN), the Se (VI) and the total element concentration are determined after reduced to Se(IV) by boiling in 4 mol/L HCl and by digesting in HNO3-HClO4 mixture, respectively. Discussions are given on the relationship between selenium speciation in waters and soil water extract and solution pH, EH and total organic carbon concentration (TOC).