Are intensive agricultural practices environmentally and ethically sound?

Soil is fragile and nonrenewable but the most basic of natural resources. It has a capacity to tolerate continuous use but only with proper management. Improper soil management and indiscriminate use of chemicals have contributed to some severe global environmental issues, e.g., volatilization losses and contamination of natural waters by sediments and agricultural fertilizers and pesticides. The increasing substitution of energy for labor and other cultural inputs in agriculture is another issue. Fertilizers and chemicals account for about 25% of the production energy investment in agriculture. An additional 60% is accounted for by machinery, gasoline, electricity, and power-related inputs. Fertilizer additions to cropland are not utilized fully and significant amounts, depending on conditions, are either lost in surface runoff or leached into the ground water. The annual discharge of dissolved solids from agricultural lands to the waterways in the USA is substantial. The increasing use of herbicides in agriculture is a threat to the quality of surface and ground water, although this threat is dependent upon both the chemistry of the compound and the ecosystem in which it is used. Especially within the Third World, development of an environmental ethic and environmental laws have not kept pace with the increase in pesticide use. Above all is the severe and global problem of soil degradation currently occurring at the rate of five to seven million hectares per year. The policy and moral aspects of these issues are discussed.     

生态补偿助力脱贫攻坚：协同、拮抗与对接

中央政府提出的“生态补偿脱贫一批”标志着生态补偿扶贫正逐步成为我国打赢脱贫攻坚战的重要途径之一。2020年是脱贫攻坚战的决胜之年，生态补偿如何有效助力脱贫攻坚成为研究的热点。本文以实践与政策为导向，运用文献研究法和逻辑分析法，在厘清生态补偿扶贫理念形成与发展的基础上，解析生态补偿与脱贫攻坚之间存在的协同效应和拮抗效应。研究发现生态补偿与脱贫攻坚在地理空间位置、实施主客体、标准、方式和途径等方面相耦合容易产生协同效应，在价值诉求、农户资源禀赋、政府部门工作等方面矛盾产生拮抗效应。生态补偿有效助力脱贫攻坚的关键在于构建对接机制以强化协同效应、弱化或去除拮抗效应。为此，通过建立精准的瞄准制度、稳定脱贫的长效机制、政府部门内部生态补偿扶贫协调机制等举措，构建生态补偿与脱贫攻坚的对接机制，以促进二者高效协同发展。     

Toward efficient riparian restoration: integrating economic, physical, and biological models

This paper integrates economic, biological, and physical models to explore the efficient combination and spatial allocation of conservation efforts to protect water quality and increase salmonid populations in the Grande Ronde basin, Oregon. We focus on the effects of shade on water temperatures and the subsequent impacts on endangered juvenile salmonid populations. The integrated modeling system consists of a physical model that links riparian conditions and hydrological characteristics to water temperature; a biological model that links water temperature and riparian conditions to salmonid abundance, and an economic model that incorporates both physical and biological models to estimate minimum cost allocations of conservation efforts. Our findings indicate that conservation alternatives such as passive and active riparian restoration, the width of riparian restoration zones, and the types of vegetation used in restoration activities should be selected based on the spatial distribution of riparian characteristics in the basin. The relative effectiveness of passive and active restoration plays an important role in determining the efficient allocations of conservation efforts. The time frame considered in the restoration efforts and the magnitude of desired temperature reductions also affect the efficient combinations of restoration activities. If the objective of conservation efforts is to maximize fish populations, then fishery benefits should be directly targeted. Targeting other criterion such as water temperatures would result in different allocations of conservation efforts, and therefore are not generally efficient.     

Integrating waste, manufacturing and industrial symbiosis: an analysis of recycling, remanufacturing and waste treatment firms in Texas

The continually increasing volume of the waste stream has led to numerous calls for strategies to close the loop on material use through industrial symbiosis strategies which direct used material and products (wastes) back to production processes. By use of a survey of recycling, remanufacturing and waste treatment firms in Texas, this paper asks if these firms can operate as a bridge between production and consumption/waste to efficiently increase the flow of used materials and products back to production processes at the local level. The results suggest that while most materials and used products are collected locally, only some can be re(consumed) locally. Moreover, the firms face negative perceptions about their activities from industry and the public at large that likely slow both the rate of entry of new firms into these markets and the expansion possibilities of existing firms. In addition, the types of conventions that characterize the interactions of more successful firms are not well developed in this sector(s). It is unlikely that recycling, remanufacturing and waste treatment firms can become central players in the production, consumption and waste cycle loop until society develops production design, marketing and consumption philosophies that include recycling and remanufacturing at a fundamental level.     

Integrating waste,manufacturing and industrial symbiosis: an analysis of recycling,remanufacturing and waste treatment firms in Texas

The continually increasing volume of the waste stream has led to numerous calls for strategies to close the loop on material use through industrial symbiosis strategies which direct used material and products (wastes) back to production processes. By use of a survey of recycling, remanufacturing and waste treatment firms in Texas, this paper asks if these firms can operate as a bridge between production and consumption/waste to efficiently increase the flow of used materials and products back to production processes at the local level. The results suggest that while most materials and used products are collected locally, only some can be re(consumed) locally. Moreover, the firms face negative perceptions about their activities from industry and the public at large that likely slow both the rate of entry of new firms into these markets and the expansion possibilities of existing firms. In addition, the types of conventions that characterize the interactions of more successful firms are not well developed in this sector(s). It is unlikely that recycling, remanufacturing and waste treatment firms can become central players in the production, consumption and waste cycle loop until society develops production design, marketing and consumption philosophies that include recycling and remanufacturing at a fundamental level.     

Waging the struggle for healthy eating: food environments,dietary regimes and Brazil's dietary guidelines

The struggle for healthy eating is a nascent social movement that represents active resistance to the hostile food environments created by multinational food and beverage corporations. Using a political economy approach and leveraging Winson's [2013. The industrial diet: the degradation of food and the struggle for healthy eating. Vancouver: UBC Press] concepts of dietary regimes and the industrial diet, this paper will examine the strengths and limitations of Brazil's new dietary guidelines and discuss its role as a precursor to a new dietary regime that incorporates social justice and sustainability.     

Indigenous Knowledge and Long-term Ecological Change: Detection, Interpretation, and Responses to Changing Ecological Conditions in Pacific Island Communities

When local resource users detect, understand, and respond to environmental change they can more effectively manage environmental resources. This article assesses these abilities among artisanal fishers in Roviana Lagoon, Solomon Islands. In a comparison of two villages, it documents local resource users’ abilities to monitor long-term ecological change occurring to seagrass meadows near their communities, their understandings of the drivers of change, and their conceptualizations of seagrass ecology. Local observations of ecological change are compared with historical aerial photography and IKONOS satellite images that show 56 years of actual changes in seagrass meadows from 1947 to 2003. Results suggest that villagers detect long-term changes in the spatial cover of rapidly expanding seagrass meadows. However, for seagrass meadows that showed no long-term expansion or contraction in spatial cover over one-third of respondents incorrectly assumed changes had occurred. Examples from a community-based management initiative designed around indigenous ecological knowledge and customary sea tenure governance show how local observations of ecological change shape marine resource use and practices which, in turn, can increase the management adaptability of indigenous or hybrid governance systems.     

生态消费对生态、资源与环境的影响

在生产和生活领域，树立科学的生态消费观念，按照生态消费观念的要求，遵循生态消费的特点，适度、持续、全面地开发利用生态资源。从理论上和实践上探讨了生态消费模式对生态、资源、环境的影响及现实意义，以期在生产和生活领域中大力倡导保护型、节约型、循环型的生态消费模式。     

Toward Policies and Decision-Making for Dam Removal

Dam removal has emerged as a critical issue in environmental management. Agencies responsible for dams face a drastic increase in the number of potential dam removals in the near future. Given limited resources, these agencies need to develop ways to decide which dams should be removed and in what order. The underlying science of dam removal is relatively undeveloped and most agencies faced with dam removal lack a coherent purpose for removing dams. These shortcomings can be overcome by the implementation of two policies by agencies faced with dam removal: (1) the development and adoption of a prioritization scheme for what constitutes an important dam removal, and (2) the establishment of minimum levels of analysis prior to decision-making about a dam removal. Federal and state agencies and the scientific community must encourage an initial experimental phase of dam removal during which only a few dams are removed, and these are studied intensively. This will allow for the development of the fundamental scientific understanding needed to support effective decision-making in the future and minimize the risk of disasters arising from poorly thought out dam removal decisions.     

Collaborative Implementation for Ecological Restoration on US Public Lands: Implications for Legal Context,Accountability, and Adaptive Management

The Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP), established in 2009, encourages collaborative landscape scale ecosystem restoration efforts on United States Forest Service (USFS) lands. Although the USFS employees have experience engaging in collaborative planning, CFLRP requires collaboration in implementation, a domain where little prior experience can be drawn on for guidance. The purpose of this research is to identify the ways in which CFLRP’s collaborative participants and agency personnel conceptualize how stakeholders can contribute to implementation on landscape scale restoration projects, and to build theory on dynamics of collaborative implementation in environmental management. This research uses a grounded theory methodology to explore collaborative implementation from the perspectives and experiences of participants in landscapes selected as part of the CFLRP in 2010. Interviewees characterized collaborative implementation as encompassing three different types of activities: prioritization, enhancing treatments, and multiparty monitoring. The paper describes examples of activities in each of these categories and then identifies ways in which collaborative implementation in the context of CFLRP (1) is both hindered and enabled by overlapping legal mandates about agency collaboration, (2) creates opportunities for expanded accountability through informal and relational means, and, (3) creates feedback loops at multiple temporal and spatial scales through which monitoring information, prioritization, and implementation actions shape restoration work both within and across projects throughout the landscape creating more robust opportunities for adaptive management.     

小水电代燃料生态保护工程对西部生态保护的重要意义

"小水电代燃料生态保护工程"是一项利国利民的大工程,它的实施将解决广大农牧民群众的生活用电取暖用电等问题,从而减少对林木植被的砍伐,对保护西部地区日益脆弱的生态环境起到积极的促进作用。     

Designing for interaction in research environments: A case study

Graduate researchers are an essential part of higher education (HE) in terms of its contribution to knowledge and the wider economy, but how the work environment influences behaviour and productivity in this work domain is poorly understood. Nevertheless, building programmes continue with a detectable trend towards more open office designs. Beyond issues of cost-efficiency, this reflects a popular belief in the significance of face-to-face interaction to research productivity. Using a combination of subjective and quantitative methods, this case study investigates the validity of this claim and how a redesigned environment impacts upon work practices and collaboration within a community of researchers. Although the new environment was judged favourably by occupants and managers, analysis suggests a less positive behavioural response. Contrary to expectation, we conclude that providing open plan environments is not sufficient to produce more collaborative practices in HE. We argue that this would require changes in the organisational structure, the reward structure for individual and team-driven tasks, and the firm policing of the management of change.     

Ethics,Narrative, and Agriculture: Transforming Agricultural Practice through Ecological Imagination

The environmental degradation caused by industrial agriculture, as well as the resulting social and health consequences, creates an urgency to rethink food production by expanding the moral imagination to include agricultural practices. Agricultural practices presume human use of the earth and acknowledge human dependence on the biotic community, and these relations mean that agriculture presents a separate set of considerations in the broader field of environmental ethics. Many scholars and activists have argued persuasively that we need new stories to rethink agricultural practice, however, the link—the story that does and can shape agricultural practice—has not yet been fully articulated in environmental discourse. My analysis explores how language has shaped existing agricultural models and, more important, the potential of story to influence agricultural practice. To do this, I draw upon cognitive theory to illustrate how metaphoric and narrative language structures thought and influences practice, beginning with my contention that industrial agriculture relies on a discourse of mechanistic relations between humans and a passive earth, language that has naturalized the chemically intensive monocultures prevalent in much of the American Midwest. However, alternative agricultures, including organic agriculture, agro-ecology, and ecological agriculture, emphasize qualities such as interdependence and reciprocity and do so as a deliberate response to the perceived inadequacies of industrial agriculture and its governing narrative. Exploring the different discourses of agricultural systems can help us think through different modalities for human relations with the biotic community and demonstrate story’s potential role in altering practice.     

Urban and Ecological Planning in Chicago: Science,Policy and Dissent

Home to some of the tallest buildings in the world, the urban landscape of Chicago announces itself long before visitors can reach it. This first impression is presently being contradicted by the implementation of an 80 937 ha ecological restoration in the city's greater metropolitan area. Using these projects as a case-study, the objective of this analysis is to understand the integration of environmental conservation efforts into urban life, exploring the viability of a model for combining urban renewal and environmental restoration. Controversies surrounding the Cook County Forest Preserve project familiarize us with some of the difficulties encountered in the science, policy and politics of urban ecological restoration projects. Though the city's urban and environmental history provides clues to precedents and structural opportunities for restorationists, it has not eliminated the doubts of those favouring conservation. However, the case shows that, while controversy may be a burden, it need not end initiatives for urban and environmental planning. Moreover, these controversies can be opportunities for an institutional learning and policy adaption process.     

Impacts of nutrient additions and digging for human waste disposal in natural environments, Tasmania, Australia

Very little research has been undertaken on the impacts of human toilet waste disposal in non-serviced sites in the wild. The objective of the present project was to determine the relative impacts of the mechanical disturbance of digging during the burial of toilet waste (faeces and toilet paper), and urination, on Tasmanian vegetation types that occur in areas used for wild country camping, in order to develop appropriate guidelines. The mechanical disturbance of digging cat-holes 15 cm deep, typical of those used for toilet disposal in the Tasmanian wild, had largely negative effects on the growth of a few native plant species. These effects were of little or no conservation significance. The nutrient additions simulated by the addition of artificial urine to undug ground and dug ground had largely positive effects on nine distinct types of native vegetation, encouraging the growth of many plant species at many sites, while discouraging the growth of moss at one site. No weed species found at any of the sites were significantly affected by the treatments. Thus, it appears that scattered disposal of urine, even combined with digging, is unlikely to present a major conservation problem in the Tasmania's wild country, and that present guidelines are appropriate, where achievable.     

生态资产核算与生态补偿机制研究

生态资产是实现人类可持续发展的重要基础,如何科学评估和核算生态资产并建立生态补偿机制具有重要的学术价值与现实意义。本文从厘清生态资产的概念与范畴出发,梳理了有关生态资产核算方法与生态补偿机制的研究进展,并对下一步研究的重点提出了相关建议。本文认为,加强城市群生态资产相关研究很有必要,建议从生态资产空间流转与代谢的视角出发,综合考虑宏观方法与微观方法相结合,定量化评估生态资产的存量和流量,刻画生态资产的空间流转路径与代谢网络关系,深入分析关键利益相关方的价值偏好,构建市场化生态资产补偿机制,为实现生态资产合理利用提供重要的理论参考与实证参照。     

生态文明产权制度的界定、分类及框架研究

生态文明产权制度是生态文明制度体系建设的根基。生态文明产权制度可划分为自然资源产权制度、环境资源产权制度和气候资源产权制度三大类别。自然资源产权制度包含水权、林权、矿权、渔权和能权,环境资源产权制度包含排污权和生态权,气候资源产权制度包含碳排污权和碳汇。在大国责任的国际背景下,生态文明产权可用总量控制是硬性约束,必须以自然、环境和气候资源的产权总量控制为前提,确保全国总体生态水平在可预见的时间达到可控制的范围之内。有效地推进自然、环境和气候资源的初始产权界定,运用生态文明产权价格机制促进生态文明产权交易,并运用生态文明产权保护制度确保初始产权界定、产权交易机制和产权价格机制的顺利推进和开展。形成以产权总量控制为前提,以初始产权的界定和分配为基础,以产权交易机制为手段,以产权价格机制为核心,以产权保护制度为保障生态文明产权制度框架。