生物多样性的全球治理

生物多样性问题日益严重,依靠单个国家难以解决,而必须依靠国际社会的共同努力。生物多样性是全球治理的一个重要对象和领域。国家是生物多样性全球治理的基本主体,政府间国际组织是生物多样性全球治理的重要主体,非政府组织和跨国公司是生物多样性全球治理的重要补充,它们均在生物多样性的全球治理中发挥着应有的作用。     

单一文化不利于人与自然的动态平衡——漫谈生物多样性与文化多样性

人类属于生物,生物多样性内在地就不应排除人类文化。按广义的理解,文化多样性是生物多样性的一部分。生物多样性与文化多样性相互作用,因此保护生物多样性,要拓展视野,要落到实处,就要重视民族文化多样性的保护,不能脱离传统和实际讲所谓的"科学"。     

环保总局有关负责人表示采取四项措施提高国家保护生物多样性整体水平

5月22日是第14个“国际生物多样性日”。今年国际生物多样性日的主题是“生物多样性与气候变化”。国家环保总局有关负责人表示，生物多样性与气候变化息息相关，中国政府将继续采取有效措施，加强生物多样性保护，降低气候变化造成的风险和损失。     

生物多样性:地球的生命之网

生物多样性(Biological diversity)是指地球上的生物(包括动物、植物、微生物)在所有形式、层次和联合体中生命的多样化,包括生态系统多样性、物种多样性和基因多样性。生物多样性是地球上生命经过几十亿年发展进化的结果,它形成了一个生命网,我们人类是这个生命网上的组成部分,并依赖它生存。为了保护全球的生物多样性,1992年在巴西当时的首都里约热内卢召开的联合国环境与发展大会上,153个国家签署了《生物多样性公约》。2001年,联合国大会通过决议,将每年的5月22日定为生物多样性国际日。每年的这一天,世界各国都举行大规模的纪念活动。今年国际生物多样性日的主题为"生物多样性促进可持续发展"。为了让更多的读者了解生物多样性的重要意义,本刊整理出部分有关生物多样性的报道,以飨读者。     

保护生物多样 防止外来入侵物种

5月22日国际生物多样性日,由环境保护部、中国科学院等主办的国际生物多样性日纪念大会召开。今年的主题是“保护生物多样性,防止外来入侵物种”,会议为我们展示了生物多样性之美,并呼吁人类行动起来保护环境、保护生物多样性。     

大英县生物多样性保护规划布局研究

生物多样性保护是全球关注的热点话题。为更好地指导城市生物多样性保护规划,在这里以大英县为例,结合大英县生物多样性现状、经济发展状况及地理气候条件,依据生物多样性保护相关法律法规,对其生物（植物）多样性保护规划的布局作一探讨。     

青海生物多样性信息及其监测

生物多样性监测是生物多样性保护必不可少的组成部分。生物多样性现状和生物多样性保护的决策，必须以充分、准确的信息为依据。监测对象与时间空间尺度的确定，以及指示物种的选择，应是生物多样性监测过程中予以充分关注的内容。     

生物多样性、人类健康与疾病

生物多样性是人类健康的基础,它保障人类的食物安全,并为人类提供药物资源和医疗研究资源。生物多样性在传染病的出现和传播中起着双重的作用,一方面,生物多样性可能是一个大的潜在新病原体源,另一方面,科学研究又表明,生物多样性能够抑制已有疾病传播或新疾病的出现。鉴于生物多样性对人类健康的极端重要性,在生物多样性受到严重破坏的今天,我们有必要采取积极的应对措施。     

我国的景观生态学研究及其与生物多样性保护的关系

景观生态学是生物多样性保护的重要基础学科之一。生物多样性应包括群落的多样性和景观的多样性。生物多样性保护，应采用区域景观保护战略。     

生物多样性保护专门立法是推进生态文明建设的需要

正制定一部综合性的"生物多样性保护法"是加强生物多样性保护顶层设计、形成生物多样性保护法律制度体系的必然要求,同时也是履行有关国际承诺、更好推进我国生态文明建设的需要。本文在回顾我国生物多样性保护立法现状的基础上,分析了当前我国生物多样性保护单行立法模式的不足,从而提出设立综合性"生     

Conversion of temperate forests into heaths: Role of ecosystem disturbance and ericaceous plants

Fire and logging in nutrient-poor temperate forests with certain ericaceous understory plants may convert the forests into heaths. The process of disturbance-induced heath formation is documented by using examples ofCalluna in western Europe,Kalmia in Newfoundland, andGaultheria (salal) in coastal British Columbia. In a cool, temperate climate, rapid vegetative growth ofCalluna, Kalmia, and salal following disturbance results in increasing organic accumulation (paludification), nutrient sequestration, soil acidification, and allelochemicals. These are thought to be the main reasons to conifer regeneration failure in disturbed habitats. If continuation in forest is a land-use objective, then temperate forests with an ericaceous understory should not be logged unless effective silvicultural methods are devised to control the ericaceous plants and restore forest regeneration. Preharvest vegetation control may be considered as an option. Failure to control the understory plants may lead to a long-term vegetation shift, from forest to heathland, particularly in nutrient-poor sites. Successful methods of controllingKalmia andGaultheria, however, have yet to be developed. While theKalmia- andGaultheria- dominated heathlands are undesirable in Canada and the Pacific Northwest, a wide range ofCalluna heathlands of western Europe are being conserved as natural and seminatural vegetation.     

Using Paleo Reconstructions to Improve Streamflow Forecast Lead Time in the Western United States

In water stressed regions, water managers are exploring new horizons that would help in long‐range streamflow forecasts. Oceanic‐atmospheric oscillations have been shown to influence streamflow variability. In this study, long‐lead time streamflow forecasts are made using a multiclass kernel‐based data‐driven support vector machine (SVM) model. The extended streamflow records based on tree ring reconstructions were used to provide a longer time series data. Reconstructed data were used from 1658 to 1952 and the instrumental record was used from 1953 to 2007. Reconstructions for oceanic‐atmospheric oscillations included the El Niño‐Southern Oscillation, Pacific Decadal Oscillation, Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, and North Atlantic Oscillation. Streamflow forecasts using all four oscillations were made with one‐year to five‐year lead times for 21 gages in the western United States. This is the first study that uses both instrumental and reconstructed data of oscillations in SVM model to improve streamflow forecast lead time. SVM model was able to provide “satisfactory” to “very good” forecasts with one‐ to five‐year lead time for the selected gages. The use of all the oscillation indices helped in achieving better predictability compared to using individual oscillations. The SVM modeling results are better when compared with multiple linear regression model forecasts. The findings are statistical in nature and are expected to be useful for long‐term water resources planning and management.     

Urban ecological systems: scientific foundations and a decade of progress

Urban ecological studies, including focus on cities, suburbs, and exurbs, while having deep roots in the early to mid 20th century, have burgeoned in the last several decades. We use the state factor approach to highlight the role of important aspects of climate, substrate, organisms, relief, and time in differentiating urban from non-urban areas, and for determining heterogeneity within spatially extensive metropolitan areas. In addition to reviewing key findings relevant to each state factor, we note the emergence of tentative "urban syndromes" concerning soils, streams, wildlife and plants, and homogenization of certain ecosystem functions, such as soil organic carbon dynamics. We note the utility of the ecosystem approach, the human ecosystem framework, and watersheds as integrative tools to tie information about multiple state factors together. The organismal component of urban complexes includes the social organization of the human population, and we review key modes by which human populations within urban areas are differentiated, and how such differentiation affects environmentally relevant actions. Emerging syntheses in land change science and ecological urban design are also summarized. The multifaceted frameworks and the growing urban knowledge base do however identify some pressing research needs.     

Neighbourhood characteristics and urban gardens in the Toledo metropolitan area: staffing and voluntarism,food production,infrastructure, and sustainability practices

Urban gardens are important sources of sustenance for communities with limited access to food. Hence, this study focuses on food production in gardens in the Toledo metropolitan area in Northwest Ohio. We administered surveys to 150 garden managers from November 2014 to February 2015 in our attempt to better understand how neighbourhood racial composition and poverty levels are related to staffing and voluntarism, food production and distribution, the development of infrastructure, and the adoption of sustainability practices in urban gardens. The results from 30 gardens are presented in this paper. We used Geographic Information Systems to map the gardens and overlay the map with 2010 census data so that we could conduct demographic analyses of the neighbourhoods in which the gardens were located. Though the gardens were small – two acres or less – up to 46 varieties of food were grown in a single garden. Gardens also operated on small budgets. Food from the gardens was gifted or shared with friends, family, and neighbourhood residents. Gardens in predominantly minority neighbourhoods tended to have fewer institutional partners, less garden infrastructure, and had adopted fewer sustainable practices than gardens in predominantly White neighbourhoods. Nonetheless, residents of predominantly minority and high-poverty neighbourhoods participated in garden activities and influenced garden operations. Volunteering and staffing were racialised and gendered.     

Predicting deer-vehicle collisions in an urban area

Collisions with deer and other large animals are increasing, and the resulting economic costs and risks to public safety have made mitigation measures a priority for both city and wildlife managers. We created landscape models to describe and predict deer-vehicle collision (DVCs) within the City of Edmonton, Alberta. Models based on roadside characteristics revealed that DVCs occurred frequently where roadside vegetation was both denser and more diverse, and that DVCs were more likely to occur when the groomed width of roadside right-of-ways was smaller. No DVCs occurred where the width of the vegetation-free or manicured roadside buffer was greater than 40 m. Landscape-based models showed that DVCs were more likely in more heterogeneous landscapes where road densities were lower and speed limits were higher, and where non-forested vegetation such as farmland was in closer proximity to larger tracts of forest. These models can help wildlife and transportation managers to identify locations of high collision frequency for mitigation. Modifying certain landscape and roadside habitats can be an effective way to reduce deer-vehicle collisions.     

BIOLOGICAL INDICATORS AND BIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF ESTUARINE/COASTAL POLLUTION1

ABSTRACT: Sustained interest in and concern about the health status of the aquatic environment has resulted in extensive research focused on (1) effects of pollution on survival, growth, and reproduction of resource species at all life stages; (2) diseases of fish and shellfish, as they may be related to pollution and as they may serve as indicators of environmental stress; and (3) contaminant body burdens in fish and shellfish - their effects on the aquatic animals and their potential effects on humans. Effects, lethal and sublethal, of pollutants on life history stages of fish and shellfish have been documented, as have impacts on local stocks in badly degraded habitats, but as yet there has been no adequate quantitative demonstration of effects on entire aquatic species - probably because of the difficulty in sorting out relative effects of the many environmental factors that influence abundance. Sublethal effects, especially those that result in disease, have been examined intensively, and some diseases and disease syndromes have been associated statistically with pollution. Other pollution indicators (biochemical, physiological, genetic, behavioral, and ecological) have also received some attention, as have body burdens of contaminants in aquatic species. Research, especially that conducted during the past decade, has done much to clarify the many pathways and toxic effects of contaminants on aquatic animals, and has also helped to identify mechanisms for survival of fish and shellfish in the presence of environmental changes caused by human activities.     

Journalists' views of advertiser pressures on agricultural news

All major journalism ethical codes explicitly state that journalists should protect editorial copy from undue influence by outside sources. However, much of the previous research on agricultural information has concentrated on what information various media communicate (gatekeeping studies) or communication's role in increasing innovation adoption (diffusion studies). Few studies have concentrated specifically on organizational and structural constraints that might adversely affect agricultural journalists' ethical standards; those that have, focus largely on farm magazines. A study of newspaper reporters who cover agricultural news found that the most pressing ethical concern is the effect of advertiser (agri-business) pressure on editorial copy, and that their concerns in general parallel those of farm magazine writers and editors. The majority reported being in situations in which they might be exposed to advertiser pressure, including pressures to change or withhold editorial copy. Large minorities suggested that advertising pressures affect the overall environment in which agricultural journalists work, and more than one in ten said they allow advertiser pressures to influence editorial decisions. The newspaper reporters who cover agricultural beats showed slightly more resistance to advertiser pressure than did farm magazine editors in a parallel study.     

Definition Procedures Have Little Effect on Performance of Environmental Classifications of Streams and Rivers

Mapped environmental classifications are defined using various procedures, but there has been little evaluation of the differences in their ability to discriminate variation in independent ecological characteristics. We tested the performance of environmental classifications of the streams and rivers of France that had been defined from the same environmental data using geographic regionalization and numerical classification of individual river valley segments. Test data comprised invertebrate assemblages, water chemistry, and hydrological indexes obtained from sites throughout France. Classification performance was measured by analysis of similarity (ANOSIM). Geometric regions defined by a regular grid and without regard to environmental variables and a posteriori classifications based on clustering the test datasets defined lower and upper bounds of performance for a given number of classes. Differences in classification performances were generally small. The ANOSIM statistics for the a posteriori classifications were around twice that of all environmental classifications, including geometrically defined regions. The hydro-ecoregions performed slightly better for the invertebrate data and the network classification performed slightly better for the chemistry and hydrological data. Our results indicate that environmental classifications that are defined using different procedures can be comparable in terms of their ability to discriminate variation of ecological characteristics and that alleged differences in performance arising from different classification procedures can be small relative to unexplained variation. We conclude that definition procedures might have little effect on the performance of large-scale environmental classifications and decisions over which procedures to use should be based primarily on pragmatic considerations.     

MANGANESE CYCLE IN IMPOUNDMENT WATER

Manganese entering impounded water will undergo a cyclic transformation. Oxidation precipitates manganese from top waters. At the bottom of the lake, biological activity will render manganese soluble by both intracellular as well as extracellular activity. The study was made to demonstrate that biological reduction and transformation, organometallic complexation, together with the presence of carbon dioxide and the lowering of pH all have some effect on the solubility of manganese. Dissolved manganese may be brought back to top waters during the lake overturn and therefore deteriorates the water quality.     

Provincial development plans in Zimbabwe: an analysis of their content,structure and methodology

Zimbabwean provincial plans were instituted to help in the achievement of the national goal of the creation of an egalitarian, socialist and integrated society. The national goal itself was adopted as an antithesis to the dualist society characterised by spatial, economic, social, politican and technological inequalities that Zimbabwe inherited from colonialism. This meant that provincial plans had to play both a functional (or growth allocating/distribution) and a territorial (or redistribution) role.

This paper reviews their role in achieving the national goal by examining their functions, content, structure and methodology. The paper concludes that because of their nature, provincial plans are not suitable tools for the achievement of the national goal.