Nature Reserve and Ecotourism Development in China＇s Wuzhishan Mountain Region

As the protected areas of land and coastal environment, nature reserves are designed to address how to reconcile the conservation of biodiversity, the quest for economic and social development and the maintenance of cultural values. This paper establishes a framework for nature reserve development that seeks to incorporate ecotourism into its strategies. The overall purpose was to identify the information needs required for a comprehensive nature reserve that incorporates ecotourism related values. It also illustrates the utility of this framework in the context of the Wuzhishan Mountain Region of China. A literature review, the first phase of a visionary strategy and a subsequent gap analysis for available management information were undertaken in order to achieve this paper＇s purpose. Finally, recommendations axe pre-sented for integrating ecotourism into nature reserve development in the Wuzhishan Mountain Region.     

Nature Reserve and Ecotourism Development in China’s Wuzhishan Mountain Region

As the protected areas of land and coastal environment, nature reserves are designed to address how to reconcile the con- servation of biodiversity, the quest for economic and social de- velopment and the maintenance of cultural values. This paper establishes a framework for nature reserve development that seeks to incorporate ecotourism into its strategies. The overall purpose was to identify the information needs required for a comprehen- sive nature reserve that incorporates ecotourism related values. It also illustrates the utility of this framework in the context of the Wuzhishan Mountain Region of China. A literature review, the first phase of a visionary strategy and a subsequent gap analysis for available management information were undertaken in order to achieve this paper’s purpose. Finally, recommendations are pre- sented for integrating ecotourism into nature reserve development in the Wuzhishan Mountain Region     

Land cover changes in the Lachuá region,Guatemala: patterns,proximate causes,and underlying driving forces over the last 50 years

Identifying the patterns of land cover change (LCC) and their main proximate causes and underlying driving forces in tropical rainforests is an urgent task for designing adequate management and conservation policies. The Lachuá region maintains the largest lowland rainforest remnant in Guatemala, but it has been highly deforested and fragmented during the last decades. This is the first paper to describe the patterns of LCC and the associated political and socioeconomic factors in the region over the last 50 years. We estimated spatial and temporal variations in LCC from a random sample of 24 1-km² landscape plots during three time periods (1962–1987, 1987–2006, and 2006–2011) and evaluated how they were related to some important proximate causes and underlying driving forces. During the study period, 55 % of forest cover disappeared, at an annual rate of 1.6 %. The deforestation rate increased from 0.6 % (during the first study period) to 2.8 % (last period), but there was very high spatial variation. Landscape plots located outside conservation areas and close to roads lost between 80 and 100 % of forest cover, whereas the forest cover in landscapes located within protected areas remained intact during the study period. The establishment of new human settlements, roads, and annual crops was the main proximate cause during the first period, but during the second and third periods, open areas were mainly created to establish cattle pastures. Because ~75 % of forest cover has disappeared outside the protected areas, the conservation of this biodiversity hot spot will depend on the expansion of protected areas, and the promotion of forest regrowth and alternative biodiversity-friendly land uses in the landscape matrix.     

Coordinative Development in Population,Resources and Environment—China's Central Concern in Developing Science and Technology

Abstract

Population, resources and environment constitute the basis for economic and social advances. Their coordinative development is the key factor for the continuous, stable and harmonious development of economy and society. China is a developing country which needs to mobilize the whole society to coordinate among population, resources and environment and to keep publicity and research in pace so as to deepen people's understanding and improve the methods of achieving this coordination.     

Analysis on the Relationship between Socio-economy and Development of Science and Technology in Jiaxing City

Currently, the progress of science and technology has become a key factor in promoting economic development. And the backwardness of science and technology at the grassroots level has undoubtedly restricted the process of China＇s construction of socialist new countryside. Taking socio-economy and the development of science and technology in Jiaxing as a breakthrough point, and based on the related data of Jiaxing during 1998-2004, this paper analyzes thoroughly the interactive relationship between socio-economy and the development of science and technology. This paper strives to summarize the development track and model of the grassroots work of science and technology so as to provide local governments with references and grounds for drawing up policies for the local work of science and technology.     

Desertification and Sustainable Development of the Heihe River Basin in Arid Northwestern China

The Heihe River Basin of northwestern China is one of several areas severely affected by desertification. This article outlines the status of desertification in this basin. There are mainly 5 types of desertification in the Heihe River Basin, namely soil and water erosion, sandy desertification, soil aridization, soil salinization and vegetation degradation. Among the 5 types of desertification, the main desertification type is sandy desertification with an area of 10 771.97 km2; Second type is soil salinization with an area of 10 591.82 km2; Next to the soil salinization is the type of soil and water erosion with an area of 5 747.68 km2 and the other types of desertification in the Heihe River Basin are soil aridization with just area of 1 369.96 km2 and vegetation degradation type with an area of 1 490.48 km2 respectively. Both natural and man-made factors are responsible for the causes of desertification development, among which the latter is the main driving force for desertification in the basin.     

Toward a ‘Sustainable’ land degradation? Vulnerability degree and component balance in a rapidly changing environment

Land degradation is a process negatively affecting environmental sustainability and requires permanent monitoring for understanding its nonlinear trajectories of change over time and space. Environmental sustainability is linked to a theoretical definition of dynamic balance among various components contributing to the ecosystem quality and functioning. The aim of this study is to develop a diachronic analysis (1960–2010) of the equilibrium/disequilibrium condition of key environmental factors (climate, soil, vegetation, land-use) influencing the vulnerability of land to degradation in a Mediterranean country experiencing processes of desertification at the local scale. Three indicators of components’ balance have been proposed and tested for spatial and temporal coherence. Land classified at high vulnerability and low component’s balance has been identified as a possible target for mitigation strategies against desertification; the surface area of this class increased rapidly during 1960–2010 and concentrated in high-intensity agricultural lowlands of northern Italy.     

Toward environmental sustainability: how do urbanization,economic growth,and industrialization affect biocapacity in Brazil?

The South American country Brazil is one of the richest countries in terms of natural resources, representing 14 percent of the world’s total biocapacity. However, the biocapacity (biosphere’s ability to generate resources and sequester waste) per capita in Brazil has shown a massive decline over the last five decades, while economic growth and urbanization have rapidly increased for the same period. Brazil is one of the largest creditors of biocapacity to the world, and biocapacity loss in Brazil can lead to devastating environmental consequences. Therefore, this work empirically investigates the influence of urbanization, economic growth, and industrialization on biocapacity controlling human capital from 1961 to 2016 in Brazil. The Bayer and Hack cointegration test, the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) technique, and Hacker and Hatemi-J (J Econ Stud 39:144–160, 2012) causality tests are employed. The findings unfolded a U-shaped relationship between economic growth and biocapacity, evidencing that economic growth reduces biocapacity, but after achieving a threshold level, it promotes biocapacity. Urbanization has a negative relationship with biocapacity per capita, indicating that urbanization is a significant driver of the biocapacity loss in Brazil. Further, urbanization and economic growth Granger cause biocapacity. Lastly, relevant policy implications are proposed to overcome the reduction in biocapacity.

     

Systematic Contradiction Between Heritage Conservation and Tourism Development： Cleaning the Temple and Cemetery of Confucius and the Kong Family Mansion in Qufu

In recent years, with the rapid development of the tourist industry, world heritage sites become more and more popular among tourists from home and abroad. Therefore, heritage tourism has become a new hotspot. However, while world heritage sites are making obvious economic benefit from tourism, they also bring various problems and contradictions, of which the most troublesome one is the contradiction between heritage conservation and tourism development. To discuss and analyze the root and the essence of the above contradiction and find a way to bring about harmony between them is an important program faced by our national heritage management practice and academic research. Based on the case of cleaning the Temple and Cemetery of Confucius and the Kong Family Mansion in Qufu, this paper analyzes the reasons why our national world cultural heritage sites bring about the above contradiction in the process of tourism development and points out that the improper system and stake-holders＇ benefit imbroglio are respectively the root and the essence of the contraction. Then, it also puts forward corresponding solutions.     

The oil palm boom: socio-economic implications for Q’eqchi’ households in the Polochic valley,Guatemala

Oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) has become one of the most rapidly expanding crops in the world. Many countries have promoted its cultivation as part of a broader rural development strategy aimed at generating paid work and producing both export commodities and biofuels. However, oil palm expansion has often occurred at the expense of ecosystems and subsistence agriculture, and on lands riddled with tenure conflicts. In this article, we analyse the implications of the combined effect of labouring in oil palm plantations and land access on households, and we discuss how these implications affect human well-being in two indigenous communities of the Polochic valley, Guatemala. Combining participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and land-time budget analysis at household level, we reveal how oil palm cultivation increases incomes for plantation workers’ households, but decreases the productivity of maize cultivation, reduces the time that household members have available for other activities and, particularly, reduces women’s resting time. In contrast, households that focus more intensively on maize cultivation show higher degrees of food security and women can allocate more time to social activities. However, our results also show that maize consumption per capita has not decreased in households working in oil palm plantations since such crop is considered sacred by the Q’eqchi’ and plays a central role in their diet and culture. In conclusion, we argue that while working for an oil palm cultivation can increase specific elements of the basic material conditions for a good life, other aspects such as food security, health, freedom of choice, and social relationships can become deteriorated.     

Analysis of long-term changes in the dates of seasonal phenomena in plants and insects of the Il’men Reserve as related to climatic factors

The results of monitoring the dates of the onset of flowering and leaf budding in eight herbaceous and woody plant species and the first appearance of three insect species in the Il’men Reserve (1972–2005) were processed by means of regression and correlation analyses. No significant changes in test parameters were revealed in the majority of these species. Only two early spring plants, coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara L.) and goat willow (Salix caprea L.), showed a weak tendency toward earlier flowering in the 1980s and 1990s. This is explained primarily by the absence of any significant trends in spring and summer air temperatures in the study region over the observation period. On the other hand, interannual fluctuations in the dates of plant flowering and insect appearance were well manifested not only in early spring but also in late-spring species. These fluctuations proved to depend largely on spring temperatures: in years with early and warm springs, flowering and leaf budding in plants and the appearance of first individuals in insects were recorded on significantly earlier dates.     

‘Environmental and Economic Costs of the Application of Pesticides Primarily in the United States’

An obvious need for an updated and comprehensive study prompted this investigation of the complex of environmental costs resulting from the nation’s dependence on pesticides. Included in this assessment of an estimated $10 billion in environmental and societal damages are analyses of: pesticide impacts on public health; livestock and livestock product losses; increased control expenses resulting from pesticide-related destruction of natural enemies and from the development of pesticide resistance in pests; crop pollination problems and honeybee losses; crop and crop product losses; bird, fish, and other wildlife losses; and governmental expenditures to reduce the environmental and social costs of the recommended application of pesticides.The major economic and environmental losses due to the application of pesticides in the USA were: public health, $1.1 billion year⁻¹; pesticide resistance in pests, $1.5 billion; crop losses caused by pesticides, $1.4 billion; bird losses due to pesticides, $2.2 billion; and groundwater contamination, $2.0 billion.*Readers should send their comments on this paper to: BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue.     

Correlation between Urban Land Change Process and Socioeconomic Development since the 1980s in Jiangsu Province

Studying the process and characteristics of urban land change in different phases of urbanization and different economic development is much important for understanding urban land change and management at a macro level. Taking the example of Jiangsu Province, the present paper studied the correlation between urban land change process and socioeconomic development from 1981 to 2003 on the basis of statistical data. The results showed the following three aspects. First, urban land area has changed periodically and the research duration can be divided into two periods: from 1981 to 1994 and from 1995 to 2003. In each period, the changing trend is the same, i.e. slow at first and then quick. Studying from the comprehensive change status, the characteristic of fluctuant change is significant with three acute change pinnacles in 1988, 1991 and 2002 which were corresponded to turning point years of economic development phases of Jiangsu Province respectively. Second, the synchronization between urban land change and urbanization level change is not strict. With the evolution of urbanization phases, the change pace of urbanization level increased remarkably, but urban land change rate did not increase significantly accordingly. Third, the area of urban land has exponentially increased with the increase of per capita GDP. In different economic development levels classified by per capital GDP, land resource cost for economic development is different, respectively 29.01 hm2, 26.34 hm2, 26.22 hm2, and 11.14 hm2 for the increase of 100 million RMB GDP when the per capita GDP is under 1000, 1000–2000, 2000–5000 and over 5000 RMB.     

Development of the Greening of Industrial Firms in the Cities along Taihu Lake： A Case Study in Wuxi City, Jiangsu Province

Under the globalization, the coastal China becomes a hot area of the international manufacturing investment due to its priority location, excellent environment, lower labor and land costs, etc. However, the fast industrialization has aroused the great demolishment to the local ecological environment. For example, the heavy water eutrophication in Taihu Lake has affected the source of drinking water for the cities around the lake. Anyway, in order to keep the economic increase and reduce the resource ex- pense and pollution at the same time, it is necessary to encourage the greening of industrial enterprises actively for sustainable de- velopment. On the basis of the investigation of industrial enter- prises in Wuxi city within Taihu Basin, the relatively developed region in coastal China, this paper analyzed the development process of green industry. This article concluded that governmen- tal principal is the main pressure for enterprises to protect envi- ronment while the market factor plays a part role. Moreover, en- terprises in the high technology development zone work better in environmental protection than those in the villages and towns, while the large enterprises work better than those small enterprises.     

CDM Project Activities in China＇s Iron and Steel Industry：Current Status,Barriers and Development Strategies

China is now facing huge pressure from both the domestic concern of energy security and the global community's call for emission reduction commitment. As one of the major energy consumers and greenhouse gas emitters, China's iron and steel industry has a huge clean development mechanism (CDM) potential. This article both quantitatively and qualitatively analyzes the current status of CDM project activities in the iron and steel industry in China, including characteristics of approved project types, applicable methodologies, and potential technology fields. From the perspective of project implementation, the article summarizes development barriers such as high investment risk, difficulty in project identification, strict requirements on PPDs, long registration waiting time, and etc. Policy suggestions are also put forwarded to help better promote the development of CDM projects in the iron and steel industry.     

Is the Clean Development Mechanism delivering benefits to the poorest communities in the developing world? A critical evaluation and proposals for reform

This paper explores whether the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), a flexibility mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol, has contributed to poverty alleviation in countries that host CDM projects. We argue that the CDM should deliver pro-poor benefits to the communities in which projects are established, since poverty alleviation is integral to sustainable development, which is one of the main purposes of the CDM. After briefly discussing the background of the CDM, we discuss assessment difficulties to which research is prone when evaluating CDM projects for alleged sustainable development contributions. Section 4 brings together and analyses available empirical research on the pro-poor benefits the CDM purportedly delivers to host country communities, concluding that the CDM has failed to deliver poverty alleviation. Therefore, without attempting to be exhaustive, we suggest policy reforms that aim to redirect the CDM to those most in need of assistance.     

A Review of Environmental Sociology and the Sociology of Natural Resources： Insights for the Development of Environmental Sociology in China

Environmental sociology and the sociology of natural resources are two key subdisciplines of the sociological study on the interactions between nature and human society. Previous discussion on the relationships of these two fields has largely focused on their distinctions and synthesis in western （particularly American） academia. Environmental sociology emerged as an important sociological subdiscipline in China in the early 1990s and is under vigorous disciplinary construction at present. By contrast, the sociology of natural resources is still a novel term for most Chinese researchers. This article provides a systematic review of recent literature on the relationships between environmental and natural resource sociologies, which should provide important implications for the further development of environmental sociology in China.     

‘Eco-city’ to ‘disaster-resilient eco-community’: a concerted approach in the coastal city of Puri, India

The need for environmental and urban planning reached a critical point in the year 2007, when one-half of the world's population could be defined as living in cities. Urbanisation in India is also increasing at a fast rate. Urban chaos in India, emanating from the continuous ignorance of fragile ecosystems, calls for the reshaping of existing cities as ‘eco-cities’. The ‘eco-city’—a well-known concept in the western world—is new to the Indian context. While western connotations of eco-cities should not be discarded outright in the context of India, core concerns vary significantly for obvious reasons. Recognising two facts—firstly, eco-city development is altogether a fresh approach to human settlement development in India, and, secondly, the manifold increase in the vulnerability of cities—this paper discusses documented good practice, reinforcing evolution towards the eco-city vision. Lessons drawn from the examples cited are further deconstructed in the light of their contribution to urban risk reduction, which provides direction to appreciating the ‘disaster-resilient eco-community’ concept in Puri, a coastal city in India. Further, this paper attempts to unravel existing community-based practices in Puri, which are boon to the local environment and invariably reduce disaster risk. These seemingly modest neighbourhood initiatives symbolise immense societal wealth, which can be calibrated appropriately for reducing urban environmental risk as well. This paper also illustrates how a ‘disaster resilient eco-community’ approach is inevitable in the present and future contexts not only to preserve sustainable development gains but also to secure human well-being.     

Does energy efficiency and trade openness matter for energy transition? Empirical evidence for countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development

Environment, Development and Sustainability - An energy transition is currently underway around the world, in response to the objectives laid out by international agreements. Since the Kyoto...     

Cultural Relevance for Rural Community Development in China: A Case Study in Bai, Jingpo and Huyaodai Communities of Yunnan Province

A three-year study over the Bai, Jingpo and Huayaodai communities in Yunnan Province reveals that the community development is significantly influenced in various ways by such cultural factors as the concepts of development; concepts and traditions of inter-community relationships, consumption, mar- riage and gender; patterns of decision-making and production, resource and income allocation; as well as the role of information dissemination systems, religion and ritual. Based on the analysis over the interactive relevance between each factor and community development, some strategies and methods for dealing with such a cultural relevance in development projects are recommended.