Knowledge and beliefs regarding agricultural pesticides in rural Guatemala

Throughout Central America, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Zamorano Pan-American Agricultural School support a Safe Pesticide Use program. In 1993, a study of results was carried out among farmers and housewives in eastern Guatemala. Aspects of the methodology included: (1) participation of extension workers in all aspects of the study; (2) small, region-focused samples (eight cells, 30 interviews per cell); (3) comparison to control groups of untrained farmers and housewives; (4) a traditional questionnaire for studying acquisition of specific knowledge; and (5) a flexible instrument for building a cognitive map of knowledge and beliefs regarding pesticides. The cognitive map is a step toward applying modern psychocultural scaling, an approach already well developed for medicine and public health, to environmental problems. Positive results detected include progress at learning the meaning of colors on containers that denote toxicity and where to store pesticides. Pesticide application problems detected were mention by farmers of highly toxic, restricted pesticides as appropriate for most pest problems and of insecticides as the correct solution to fungus problems, and the widespread belief that correct pesticide dosage depends on number of pests seen rather than on land or foliage surface. Health-related problems detected were admission by a vast majority of housewives that they apply highly toxic pesticides to combat children's head-lice; low awareness that pesticides cause health problems more serious than nausea, dizziness, and headaches; and a common belief that lemonade and coffee are effective medicines for pesticide poisoning.     

Culture and the environment in the United States

The beliefs of Americans about the proper relationship between humans and their environment were profoundly affected by waves of immigration from Europe. Immigrants valued ownership of land, individuality, freedom, domination of nature, and technological development. These themes remain strong today as centerpieces of the American dominant social paradigm (DSP).That DSP has been reexamined and found wanting by an increasing proportion of Americans. This departure from the old DSP has progressed further among the public than among the elite who have a greater stake in preserving the status quo. Environmentalists constitute a vanguard trying to lead the people to a new, more environmentally oriented social paradigm. The beliefs of the old DSP and the new environmental paradigm (NEP) are contrasted in Table 2. Briefly, the NEP advocates stress love of nature rather than domination of it; compassion for other peoples, future generations, and other species; planning to avoid risk; limits to growth; fundamental social change; and a new structuring of politics.These two worldviews are likely to be in vigorous conflict for several decades in the USA. Social learning, spurred by deterioration of the old ways, is likely to lead Americans to a new perspective on their relationship to nature.With the advice and assistance of Barbara V. Fisher.     

Strategic exploitation with learning and heterogeneous beliefs

We study the effect of learning with heterogeneous beliefs on the exploitation of a renewable common-pool resource. To that end, we extend the Great Fish War model of Levhari and Mirman (1980) to a learning environment in which several agents interact strategically and learn about the distribution of the stochastic evolution of the resource. We find that the effect of anticipation of learning with heterogeneous beliefs is twofold. First, the anticipation of learning makes future payoffs more uncertain, which induces the agents to decrease present exploitation due to the precautionary motive. Second, under heterogeneity of beliefs, there is a differential informational externality that induces the agents to increase or decrease present exploitation. We also perform a comparative analysis on the Cournot–Nash equilibrium with learning by studying the effect of optimism and riskiness on resource exploitation.     

Carcass Provisioning to Support Scavengers: Evaluating a Controversial Nature Conservation Practice

A number of scavenger species have suffered population declines across Europe. In attempts to reverse their decline, some land and wildlife managers have adopted the practice of leaving or placing out carcasses of wild or domestic herbivores to provide a source of carrion. However, this can be a controversial practice, with as yet unclear outcomes for many target species and the ecosystems they are part of. Here we bring out the key aspects of this increasingly common conservation practice illustrated using three contrasting cases studies. We show that the provision of carcasses is often motivated by a desire to benefit charismatic species or to facilitate nutrient cycling throughout an ecosystem. Evidence for the effectiveness of this practice in achieving these objectives, however, is mostly lacking, with ecologists studying “easier” species groups such as beetles and therefore not providing relevant insights. Moreover, conflicts between environmental policies that carcass provisioning is aimed at and other social and economic objectives do occur but these projects are often designed without taking into account this broader context. We conclude that expecting carcasses to simply be “good for biodiversity” may be too naïve a view. A greater knowledge of the impact of carcass provisioning and placement on ecosystems and society at large is required before it can become a more effective conservation tool at a wider scale.     

The sensitivity of current and future forest managers to climate-induced changes in ecological processes

Climate vulnerability of managed forest ecosystems is not only determined by ecological processes but also influenced by the adaptive capacity of forest managers. To better understand adaptive behaviour, we conducted a questionnaire study among current and future forest managers (i.e. active managers and forestry students) in Austria. We found widespread belief in climate change (94.7 % of respondents), and no significant difference between current and future managers. Based on intended responses to climate-induced ecosystem changes, we distinguished four groups: highly sensitive managers (27.7 %), those mainly sensitive to changes in growth and regeneration processes (46.7 %), managers primarily sensitive to regeneration changes (11.2 %), and insensitive managers (14.4 %). Experiences and beliefs with regard to disturbance-related tree mortality were found to particularly influence a manager’s sensitivity to climate change. Our findings underline the importance of the social dimension of climate change adaptation, and suggest potentially strong adaptive feedbacks between ecosystems and their managers.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13280-015-0737-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.