Water demand management in England and Wales: Constructions of the domestic water user

Measures to manage demand include implicit and explicit messages about domestic water users, which have important potential impacts on their perceptions and practices. Drawing on recent literature, this paper identifies three different ‘dimensions’ along which demand management measures' constructions of the water user may vary: these relate to whether the water user is passive or active, whether they are motivated by individual or common needs and whether they perceive water as a right or a commodity. Demand management measures currently used in England and Wales are then discussed and analysed. The paper concludes by highlighting the importance of communications associated with demand management, and in particular, notes the need to consider the cumulative impact of messages and their interactions with people's existing understandings.     

Children's appreciation of outdoor places in a poor neighborhood

Children 7–12 years of age, living in a poor neighborhood, photographed outdoor places where they liked to go in their neighborhood. In individual interviews, they discussed their photos, selected their favorite place, and discussed the places they disliked. Children identified parks and playgrounds most often both as liked and disliked places, and spaces near an acquaintance's home as their favorite place. Liked places varied according to children's age and degree of vegetation. Children's negative perceptions of places were centered on safety threats. Children distinguish favorite places from liked places only by the greater number of positive characteristics and activities they offer children. The study highlights how positive and negative features coexist in places of importance to these children.     

Plant indicator status and implications for natural disaster management in both developed communities and indigenous communities

Only a few rigorous studies have attempted to focus on the topic of plant indicators in relation to natural disasters, although recently an increasing number of people have realized its significance. In an effort to aid disaster management, this article studied and aimed to improve the status of plant indicators in predicting or signaling natural disasters. Using a qualitative content analysis, the plant indicators’ uncertain status and certain status are systematically compared using specific plants, developed community efforts, indigenous community traditions, and characteristics of natural disaster management. A key tenet is that all stakeholders must change plant indicators’ uncertain status to certain status by comprehensively elaborating on the integration between developed communities and indigenous communities, plant indicators as a research agenda, the inclusion of plant indicators in disaster management policy and local plans, and education and training.     

Stakeholder preferences towards conservation versus development for a wetland in Sri Lanka

In determining the importance of criteria in the management of wetlands, two key issues arise: that is whether they should be conserved for environmental benefits, or whether they should be used for development activities. This is indeed the conflict faced in many natural resource management problems. This paper considers the development of stakeholder preferences in a region in Sri Lanka for representative criteria based on defined objectives for wetland management. Data were obtained spatially from a paired comparison based survey using the analytic hierarchy process to investigate the importance attached to the criteria by stakeholders who live and work in the wetland region. Distinct groups showing different concerns towards importance of objectives are shown to exist over the whole area and spatially. However, the consensus view of favouring conservation of the environment is indicated by 80% of the sample.     

Towards sustainable community‐based natural resource management in the indigenous Meqmegi community in Taiwan: Rethinking impacts of local participation

This paper examines approaches for local resident participation in community‐based natural resource management (CBNRM); focusing particularly on the potential impacts that local participation imposes on the natural environment. This study used qualitative methods to collect data, and selected Meqmegi, an indigenous community in Taiwan, as a case study. The findings indicate that many opportunities can be created that stimulate a community to participate in natural resource management; moreover, residents are prone to use their own ways to participate. Therefore, although local participation is praised for its people‐oriented way of natural resource management, impacts from the participation process will ultimately be imposed on the environment. We suggest that more consideration be given to the environmental conditions during the process of local participation via CBNRM to make sure that impacts on the environment are positive, and lead to a truly sustainable future.     

Responding to Pressure on Local Natural Resources: the Story of Three Villages in South-Eastern Nigeria

There has been a recent move by development professionals away from formal “scientific” attempts to address problems caused by changing environmental conditions, towards a greater reliance on the innovative ability and indigenous knowledge of local people. This has necessitated a greater understanding of the way in which communities respond to environmental and socio-economic change. Using a model that predicts community responses to pressure on local natural resources, and data collected in three villages in south-eastern Nigeria, an attempt is made to document the way in which people react and adapt to change. It is concluded that with sufficient time communities will usually develop new resource management and agricultural systems. However, where change is occurring rapidly, a facilitator is required to encourage and accelerate local innovation so that farming and natural resource management systems can be appropriately adjusted before severe environmental degradation takes place.     

Valuing nature-based recreation in public natural areas of the Apalachicola River region, Florida

As more people visit natural areas for tourism and recreation purposes, it is becoming increasingly important to understand the value they place on these natural resources. Specifically, tourists to Florida have been increasingly interested in visiting natural areas, forests, parks, and preserves-highlighting the importance of this new and growing phenomenon. We analyze visitors' demand for nature-based recreation in the Apalachicola River region of Florida using the travel cost method. The results from a count data regression model reveal that on average visitors would pay 74.18 dollars per visit-day for nature-based recreation resulting in a total economic value of 484.56 million dollars attributable to nature-based recreation in the Apalachicola River region. Results of this study provide useful information for natural resources management in the region and a rationale to preserve Florida's unique ecosystems.     

Turning Scientific Approaches into Practical Conservation Actions: The Case of Comunidad Indigena de Nuevo San Juan Parangaricutiro, Mexico

Optimum natural resource management and biodiversity conservation are desirable goals. These, however, often exclude each other, since maximum economic benefits have promoted drastic reductions in biodiversity throughout the world. This dilemma confronts local stakeholders, who usually go for maximizing economic inputs, whereas other social (e.g., academic) sectors are favor conservation practices. In this paper we describe the way two scientific approaches—landscape and participatory research—were used to develop sound and durable land use scenarios. These two approaches included expert knowledge of both social and environmental conditions in indigenous communities. Our major emphasis was given to detect spatially explicit land use scenarios and capacity building in order to construct a decision support system operated by stakeholders of the Comunidad Indigena de Nuevo San Juan Parangaricutiro in Mexico. The system for decision-making was fed with data from inventories of both abiotic and biotic biodiversity components. All research, implementation, and monitoring activities were conducted in close collaboration with members of the indigenous community. As a major result we obtained a number of forest alternative uses that favor emerging markets and make this indigenous community less dependent on a single market. Furthermore, skilled members of the community are now running the automated system for decision-making. In conclusion, our results were better expressed as products with direct benefits in local livelihoods rather than pure academic outputs.     

Traditional Coping Mechanism and Environmental Sustainability Strategies in Nnewi, Nigeria

Nnewi is situated some 30 kilometres South East of Onitsha in Anambra State in the southeastern part of Nigeria. This highly commercial town has undergone rapid urbanisation and industrialisation within the past two decades, since the end of the 1967–1970 Nigerian civil war. The Igbo community of the study area had traditionally employed bioconversion methods and other indigenous technology to process or recycle bio and non-degradable wastes. Industrialisation has enjoyed priority status in this locality as a requirement for modernisation and economic progress. The rapid urbanisation, aggressive industrialisation, and the attendant uncontrolled population growth have had a deleterious impact on the environment. There is now a wide range of industrial wastes that are released daily into the environment. Effects of these activities on the socio-cultural practices of the people, plant genetic resources and the environment are highlighted. In addition to palliative measures suggested here, a call is made to revisit the successful indigenous waste treatment and management technology formerly practised by the Igbo community. The importance of combining modern biotechnological approaches with the indigenous technology, norms and practices of Nwewi people to effect suitable waste treatment and management, as well as improving the living habits and the education of the people about their environment, is recommended. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Social Acceptability of Water Resource Management: A Conceptual Approach and Empirical Findings from Portland,Oregon1

Abstract: Surface water resources in urban areas serve multiple functions ranging from recreation to wildlife habitat. As a result, diverse values influence people’s views about resource protection, potentially leading to conflicting interests. In metropolitan Portland, Oregon, natural resource planning has recently focused on habitat restoration as well as stormwater and pollution mitigation, especially through the protection of riparian areas. Due to opposition over proposed regulations in the study region, this research examines public attitudes about an array of resource management efforts. The primary research question is: what is the extent of positive–negative attitudes about water resource protection, and what theoretical dimensions underlie diverse judgments? After empirical survey results are presented, I outline a conceptual approach for future assessments of environmental attitudes while highlighting important value‐based dimensions of judgments. Although flexible, the framework allows broad comparisons to advance knowledge about the social acceptability of varied water resource management approaches across diverse places and contexts.     

Place attachment and place identity in natives and non-natives

Place attachment is an affective bond that people establish with specific areas where they prefer to remain and where they feel comfortable and safe. Place identity, however, has been defined as a component of personal identity, a process by which, through interaction with places, people describe themselves in terms of belonging to a specific place. Most research has observed positive correlations between these variables in populations that have maintained ongoing interactions over long periods of time. This work presents two studies in which we compare place attachment to place identity in samples differentiated according to birthplace and length of residence, and the magnitude of these bonds to different places. The results of the first study revealed differences between intensity of attachment and identity depending on place of origin and place assessed. The second study found that identity and attachment tend to coincide in natives, while individuals from other places give higher scores for attachment than for identity. Results from the two studies have enabled us to consider that place attachment develops before place identity, at least in the case of the non-natives. Both studies reveal that bonds are stronger with the city than with the neighbourhood, but that attachment and identity with the island are stronger than either of them.     

Indigenous Grass Ecology and Socio-Economic Values in Swaziland

The fast-degrading land resources of Swaziland requires a multi-faceted approach to their management. One resource of utmost importance to all Swazis is grass. Grass research over the years had focused on pasture grass, while other uses have been neglected. The omission is a serious one and could be attributed to the neglect of indigenous grass knowledge and people's socio-economic values of grasses. Grass as a major resource is used for cattle feed, ecological control measures, medicinal plants and crafts. Within the study area, 46 grass species were identified and described by the local people. The neglect of the people's knowledge and utilitarian values of grass is a waste of resources. Thus, for grass research to be relevant to the people and national development objectives, research scientists should rethink their approach; they need to recognize and incorporate the indigenous knowledge about other uses of grasses.     

Connecting with Country in Mungo National Park,Australia: a case study to measure the emotional dimension of experience and place attachment

Connecting people with nature improves well-being, but how people connect with natural places is not well documented. We asked 43 people (19 Aboriginal Australians, 24 non-Aboriginal people) about the messages they received from Country during an interactive experience in the remote Mungo National Park, Australia, and analysed the physical senses, emotions and cognitive processes they mentioned. The physical senses mentioned by most respondents were sight, hearing and motion (particularly walking). These senses helped people receive messages from Country and connect with place. We used the primary-process emotional systems of Panksepp [2010. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 12 (4), 533–545] as a framework to capture the emotional dimension of experience. Most people reported positive emotions; they spoke about being nurtured by the group and the land (CARE), and the intense joy (PLAY) of being part of the community, being on Country and being accompanied by Aboriginal people. However, our results indicate the framework does not capture the breadth of positive emotions, particularly those associated with connection to place and spiritual experiences. Both groups mentioned cognitive processes reflecting their beliefs, existing knowledge, or sharing and acquiring new knowledge. Our results indicate that the emotional dimension of experience has the potential to measure connection to place, and provide a subjective measure of well-being. More research is needed to document this dimension of experience, and how it changes with context. Our case study provides further insight for those who manage protected areas and seek to enrich the experience of visitors.     

Knowledge, values, uses and management of the Araucaria araucana forest by the indigenous Mapuche Pewenche people: A basis for collaborative natural resource management in southern Chile

One of the most important endemic tree species of Chile and at the same time one of the most endangered ones is Araucaria araucana (Mol.) C. Koch, the monkey‐puzzle tree. It grows in the Andes Mountains, homeland of the indigenous Mapuche Pewenche people who depend on this tree. This paper is based on field research that investigated the ecological knowledge, uses and management of the Araucaria araucana forest by indigenous Mapuche Pewenche people based on the socio‐cultural, spiritual and ecological relationships they have with the Araucaria forest, to find out how indigenous people and their knowledge could contribute to sustainable Araucaria forest management. A Mapuche Pewenche community located in the IX region of Chile contributed to this study. Based on the analyses this paper illustrates the nature of indigenous ecological knowledge of Araucaria araucana on the one hand, and its utility in native forest management on the other. The research shows that the Mapuche Pewenche hold ecological knowledge and conduct practices to manage their Araucaria forest in a balanced way. They conserve and use forest biodiversity at one and the same time. This paper provides recommendations for sustainable Araucaria forest management and conservation strategies ex‐situ and in‐situ incorporating indigenous knowledge and scientific knowledge and for promoting a collaborative natural resources management.     

论我国自然保护地公众参与制度的困境与出路

2019年6月《关于建立以国家公园为主体的自然保护地体系的指导意见》的颁布,指出自然保护地建设应“探索全民共享机制”,突出了公众参与制度的重要意义。在我国自然保护地建设过程中,公众参与制度虽然得到了较为广泛的关注,但仍面临诸多实践困境。通过分析现阶段自然保护地的立法和实践现状,探析公众参与制度在自然保护地建设中的适用路径和困境阻碍,对公众参与制度的立法表达、管理体系和保障机制等方面提出建议,从而进一步完善自然保护地中的公众参与制度,为推进我国生态文明建设提供制度支撑。     

Improving the Integration of Recreation Management with Management of Other Natural Resources by Applying Concepts of Scale from Ecology

In this article, we examine how issues of scale affect the integration of recreation management with the management of other natural resources on public lands. We present two theories used to address scale issues in ecology and explore how they can improve the two most widely applied recreation-planning frameworks. The theory of patch dynamics and hierarchy theory are applied to the recreation opportunity spectrum (ROS) and the limits of acceptable change (LAC) recreation-planning frameworks. These frameworks have been widely adopted internationally, and improving their ability to integrate with other aspects of natural resource management has significant social and conservation implications. We propose that incorporating ecologic criteria and scale concepts into these recreation-planning frameworks will improve the foundation for integrated land management by resolving issues of incongruent boundaries, mismatched scales, and multiple-scale analysis. Specifically, we argue that whereas the spatially explicit process of the ROS facilitates integrated decision making, its lack of ecologic criteria, broad extent, and large patch size decrease its usefulness for integration at finer scales. The LAC provides explicit considerations for weighing competing values, but measurement of recreation disturbances within an LAC analysis is often done at too fine a grain and at too narrow an extent for integration with other recreation and resource concerns. We suggest that planners should perform analysis at multiple scales when making management decisions that involve trade-offs among competing values. The United States Forest Service is used as an example to discuss how resource-management agencies can improve this integration.     

Understanding Social Complexity Within the Wildland–Urban Interface: A New Species of Human Habitation?

The lack of knowledge regarding social diversity in the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) or an in-depth understanding of the ways people living there interact to address common problems is concerning, perhaps even dangerous, given that community action is necessary for successful wildland fire preparedness and natural resource management activities. In this article, we lay out the knowledge and preliminary case study evidence needed to begin systematically documenting the differing levels and types of adaptive capacity WUI communities have for addressing collective problems such as wildland fire hazard. In order to achieve this end, we draw from two theoretical perspectives encompassing humans' interactions with their environment, including (1) Kenneth Wilkinson's interactional approach to community, (2) and certain elements of place literature. We also present case study research on wildfire protection planning in two drastically different California communities to illustrate how social diversity influences adaptive capacity to deal with hazards such as wildland fire. These perspectives promote an image of the WUI not as a monolithic entity but a complex mosaic of communities with different needs and existing capacities for wildland fire and natural resource management.     

Global localism: Recentering the research agenda for biodiversity conservation

Global environmental crisis narratives about biodiversity loss promote conservation research on how human activities impact natural resources and link scientific findings to protectionist policies. This paper critiques how local knowledge, over space and through time, is constructed for these studies and integrated with ecological measures and qualitative interpretations of biodiversity conditions. As a case example, we describe how ethnoecological research at Mt. Kasigau, a biodiversity hot spot in Southeastern Kenya, changes ‘scientific’ views on human–resource relations. Species richness in woody plants and local knowledge about trees show resource continua on the mountain that question the designation of diverse undisturbed forests and degraded human‐utilized lands. Local narratives document spatially dynamic and adaptive relationships between the Kasigau Taita and their plant resources as they moved up and down the mountain in response to environmental conditions and extra local forces. We argue that greater ‘local learning’ about local places is important to hypothesizing and potentially guiding ‘global action’ for biodiversity conservation.     

“Just Another Hoop to Jump Through?” Using Environmental Laws and Processes to Protect Indigenous Rights

Protection of culturally important indigenous landscapes has become an increasingly important component of environmental management processes, for both companies and individuals striving to comply with environmental regulations, and for indigenous groups seeking stronger laws to support site protection and cultural/human rights. Given that indigenous stewardship of culturally important sites, species, and practices continues to be threatened or prohibited on lands out of indigenous ownership, this paper examines whether or not indigenous people can meaningfully apply mainstream environmental management laws and processes to achieve protection of traditional sites and associated stewardship activities. While environmental laws can provide a “back door” to protect traditional sites and practices, they are not made for this purpose, and, as such, require specific amendments to become more useful for indigenous practitioners. Acknowledging thoughtful critiques of the cultural incommensurability of environmental law with indigenous environmental stewardship of sacred sites, I interrogate the ability of four specific environmental laws and processes—the Uniform Conservation Easement Act; the National Environmental Policy Act and the California Environmental Quality Act; the Pacific Stewardship Council land divestiture process; and Senate Bill 18 (CA-2004)—to protect culturally important landscapes and practices. I offer suggestions for improving these laws and processes to make them more applicable to indigenous stewardship of traditional landscapes.