A KALEIDOSCOPE MODEL: DEFINING NATURAL ENVIRONMENTS

Research on the relationship between people and nature has rarely incorporated a definition of natural environments. This exploratory project was designed to uncover underlying themes which comprise conceptualization of natural environments. Fourteen interviews were conducted with adult respondents, combining a biographical section with a picture sorting exercise. Content analysis revealed a myriad of dimensions and attributes which can be organized into four meta-level themes used to categorize environments as natural or not natural. The meta-themes included: (1) people as separate from nature; (2) assessment of natural elements; (3) human impact on nature; and (4) the human place within natural environments. Further analysis of the meta-level themes led to hypothesis generation about possible subcategories of natural environments, including ‘totally natural’, ‘civilized natural’, ‘semi-natural’ and ‘quasi-natural’. ‘Non-natural’ environments were also included in this schema, as they define the boundary of natural environments. A kaleidoscope model is used to illustrate how nature is defined through a complex web of interrelationships.     

The beauty and the beast: Some preliminary comparisons of ‘high’ versus ‘popular’ residential architecture and public versus architect judgments of same

This research examined differences between the features of ‘high’ and ‘popular’ style residential architecture and between responses to those styles by architects and non-architects. Forty slides (20 of each style) were scored in terms of physical properties. They were also rated by 20 architects and 20 non-architects. The research identified distinct physical features of each style. ‘High’ style residential architecture had fewer materials, more concrete, simpler forms, more white, and off-center entrances. They were judged as more complex, novel, and exciting. ‘Popular’ style residential architecture was characterized by use of more building materials, horizontal orientation, hip roofs, framed windows, centered entrances, and warm colors. Architects and non-architects differed in how they characterized and evaluated the two kinds of buildings, Architects rated the ‘high’ buildings as more clear, coherent pleasant, relaxing, and meaningful. Models of preference revealed that both groups favored novelty and coherence (or clarity), but the non-architects favored simplicity and ‘popular’ attributes, while the architects favored complexity and ‘high’ attributes.     

‘El Gallo''s’ Last Flight for Jeremy Anderson: In Memoriam

The ‘Clark Phenomenon’ began in 1966 with two major events: the publication of a special number of the Journal of Social Issues with the (now admittedly sexist) title of ‘Man's Response to the Physical Environment’, and the arrival of Jim Blaut on campus. This watershed year, just two decades ago, also may have marked the transition from infancy to adolescence of the reborn field of ‘environmental cognition’. This article traces these early middle years of environmental cognition and its related emphases at Clark, the leadership of certain members of the faculty of the Graduate School of Geography in bringing the new field to full flower, the spinoffs and inevitable reactive forces, and the application of environmental cognition to problems of intercultural communication on environmental issues of an international scope. Such application is a later reflection of the social and political consciousness of the 1960s, the concern to relate environmental psychology to what was taking place in the U.S.A. and in the ‘emerging’ nations of the so-called developing world. In all of this, the Clark influence was, and remains, relevant.     

Incentives for low-input land-use types and their influence on the attractiveness of landscapes

Changes in agricultural policy have traceable effects on landscape aesthetics. For the catchment area of Lake Greifensee, an economic land-use model predicted land-use changes caused by agricultural policy. Three scenarios implementing different direct payment schemes show that land-use intensity will decrease by 2011 compared with the ‘reference status’ 2000.The output of the economic land-use model is explicit in space. It was assessed by the ‘naturalness’ perception factor of the method proposed by Hoisl et al. [1989. Landschaftsästhetik in der Flurbereinigung. Materialien zur Flurbereinigung—Heft 17. Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Ernährung, Landwirtschaft und Forsten, München] with regard to landscape aesthetics. Even though lower land-use intensity is generally predicted by 2011, the values of the ‘naturalness’ perception factor do not significantly improve if the payment scheme remains unchanged, or if the payment scheme is amended by incentives for specific location of the ecological compensation areas (ECAs). A significant reduction in the values of the ‘naturalness’ perception factor was found when subsidies for ECA's were cancelled. This leads us to the conclusion that in order to keep Swiss landscapes as attractive as they are at present, policy must sustain incentives for low-intensity land-use types.     

Scenario-visualization for the assessment of perceived green space qualities at the urban-rural fringe

The provision of green space is increasingly being perceived as an important factor for quality of life. However, green spaces often face high developmental pressure. The main objective of this study is to investigate a prospective approach to green space planning by combining three-dimensional (3D) visualization of green space scenarios and survey techniques to facilitate improved participation of the public. Aside from the ‘Status quo’, scenarios ‘Agriculture’, ‘Recreation’, ‘Nature conservation’ and ‘Wind turbines’ are visualized in three dimensions. In order to test responses, a survey was conducted both in print format and on the Internet. Overall, 49 different visualizations that belong to one of the scenarios were available in the survey and were rated according to the perceived esthetic, recreational and ecological values.The highest rated scenes include vegetation elements such as meadows with orchards, single trees, shrubs or forest. The least attractive scenes are those where buildings are highly dominant or where there are no vegetation elements.Based on the ratings for the individual images and on the corresponding scenarios, our study shows that there is high potential for improving the existing landscape. All suggested changes are either rated about equal to or considerably higher than the status quo, with the scenario ‘Nature conservation’ receiving the highest scores.     

Does taxation alter exploration? : The effect of uncertainty and risk

The effect of resource rent taxation on mineral exploration is a controversial issue on which very little research has been carried out. Simple numerical examples are used in this paper to demonstrate that a ‘pure’ resource rent tax, or Brown Tax, can reduce the extent of exploration of a ‘promising’ deposit by a risk averse explorer, but encourage exploration of ‘unpromising’ deposits. This counter-intuitive result is explained in terms of the effect of the tax and of exploration on the costs of risk and uncertainty.     

The return of returnable bottles: A study of consumers' and retailers' attitudes and practices concerning returnable bottles

The authors highlight the importance of the trippage of a returnable bottle to the current beverage container debate. Results of recent surveys of consumers and retailers are presented, which show that the reasons for low trippages in the UK are more complex than the conventional diagnosis that ‘consumers cannot be bothered to return bottles’. In many instances consumers thought that the ‘returnable bottle was ‘non- returnable’ and many consumers found it difficult to return bottles to the shops. Making it easier for consumers to return the bottle would appear to be a more effective method of raising trippage than increasing the deposit levels.     

A social topography of home and horizon: The misfit, the dutiful, and longing for home

The environmental perception wave at Clark University was already in full swing when Anne Buttimer arrived in Fall 1970 with curiosities about social space, ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’, ‘home’ and ‘reach’, from a project on residential area design in Glasgow, Scotland. Lessons learned from the intense interaction between geographers and psychologists were enormously valuable for subsequent work with geography students at Clark during the 1970s. Since then she has worked on temporality and environmental experience, migration and identity, with colleagues in Sweden, and has pursued autobiographically-based approaches to questions of creativity and context and the history of geographic thought and practice. In retrospect, she claims, one of the most valuable results of the perception wave was to provoke awareness of the lenses through which reality is experienced by people in different cultures, and that includes the disciplinary cultures into which researchers themselves are socialized.     

The spatiotemporal sequencing of everyday activities in the large-scale environment

Choices of where to carry out everyday activities in large-scale environments were conceptualized as a process of forming ‘travel plans’, and, to test a model of how such plans are formed, three experimental simulations of a planning task were performed in the laboratory. In Experiment 1, subjects (high school students) were found to choose a shortest route to travel between a number of actual, familiar locations in a town by first choosing the order between the locations that minimized straight-line (Euclidean) distances, then choosing the shortest paths between the locations in the constrained order. The order choices were, in Experiment 2, found to be made by minimizing distance locally rather than globally, except in some cases when ‘spatial configurations’ of the locations were discovered. Both the results of this experiment and of Experiment 3 suggested that such discoveries were facilitated by a simultaneous representation of the locations which was possible when they were positions on a display, committed to short-term memory or available for perceptual inspection, but to a less extent when they were actual locations.     

GIS-based assessment of the threat to world forests by patterns of non-sustainable civilisation nature interaction

The paper presents a novel transdisciplinary approach to investigate non-sustainable civilisation–nature interactions in the context of global change. The approach rests on the decomposition of intricate dynamics of Global Change into problematic patterns civilisation nature interactions (‘syndromes’) this is done by an iterative process of observations, data and theoretical system analysis and GIS-based modelling attempts. These syndromes of global change characterise endangering and risky developments of civilisation nature interaction and represent a baseline for measuring and indicating ‘non-sustainability’; in order to have a sustainable development it is necessary to have a far-reaching absence of syndromes. They encompass the core problems of global change, e.g. soil degradation, climate change, threats to biodiversity or global deforestation. Patterns are defined as characteristic constellations of global change trends (‘symptoms’). Cause–effect schemes of symptoms and their interrelations are constituted as complex phenomena resulting from interactions over the different spheres of the Earth system (biosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere, population, pedosphere, economy, psychosocial sphere, social organisation, science and technology). The approach is illustrated by an analysis of civilisation–nature interaction patterns relevant for global deforestation. Global forest ecosystems have been chosen for this investigation because of their important role in the global carbon cycle and their importance for biological diversity. The resulting geographical patchwork of the combined dispositions and intensities of the different syndromes describes current and future regional threats to forests by their underlying global cause–effect patterns of civilisation–nature interaction.     

Satisfying shoppers’ psychological needs: From public market to cyber-mall

In many cities in North America and Europe, shopping centres are replacing the traditional high street shops. At the same time, electronic shopping is growing rapidly. In this paper, the results of a literature review of environment–behaviour research on shopping and shopping environments (e.g., farmer's markets, shopping centres, and electronic shopping) are presented. The focus of analysis is on how the physical features (e.g., layout and background music) influence shoppers’ experiences, and on how well these environments satisfy the psychological needs of their shoppers (e.g., social interaction, sensory stimulation, and security and comfort). Any implications for environmental design, and the future of shopping environments are discussed. A conceptual framework and suggestions for future research are proposed.     

Pattern of representation of countries in cognitive maps of the world with special reference to Africa

Although for a long time environmental psychologists have been concerned with the nature and process of environmental perception and its representation in map forms, global sketch maps have not been popular in mainstream research. Further, conceptual and theoretical insights into the subject are yet to be fully achieved; and quite significantly, comparative analysis has been limited by the concentration of research efforts in the developed countries of Europe and America. In the same vein, the challenge of clarifying the psychological, spatial and social underpinnings of cognitive maps and their contributory role in day-to-day space-related problem solving and decision-making brings to the fore the need for cross-disciplinary and across-regional studies. This paper examines the world's image from an African perspective, exploring those countries of the world that are best known to Africans and the factors responsible for the pattern of recall and representation in the maps drawn by them. Some 656 maps were collected from 13 sites in 11 countries. Analysis of the frequency of inclusion of countries was first carried out; chi-square analysis was then performed on the frequency of inclusion by level of a country's economic development, population, geographical size and relative location from Nigeria and Africa. The results from qualitative interpretation show that while images of countries may have been influenced by composite and multifaceted factors, embracing historical and cultural associations, media images and invocations, Africans, nevertheless, tended to recall nations following some descending hierarchy, with ‘developed/geographically prominent countries’, ‘we’ (i.e. Africa), ‘others’ and ‘unknown’ countries as discernible clusters. From statistical test, population and spatial size of countries, the proximity of countries to the assessors and to some extent, level of economic development, were found to be significant in accounting for the pattern of recall and representation in cognitive maps. The paper shows that in spite of the evident limitations of mental sketches they hold some promise for our understanding of cross-regional variations in the images of the world, which could be important to the building of relevant social and geographical education to foster global understanding.     

Public understanding and its effect on recycling performance in Hampshire and Milton Keynes

Improving the recycling rate might be the primary aim of ‘recycling targets’, but good diversion from disposal can be achieved in different ways. Public participation is obviously critical to success; however it is not just how many people participate, but how well they do so, that is important. Analysis of public attitude research gave insight into how effectively recyclers were participating, and examined levels of public understanding. These were correlated with design parameters and publicity and education strategies to try to identify aspects of successful schemes that led to high quality of participation.     

Novel inoculants for an environmentally-friendly crop production

The high input of agrochemicals into soils is a major agricultural technique for enhancement of plant crop production, but it is also an environmental hazard. Concern over health hazards related to agrochemicals, especially on radioactively polluted territories, as well as economic problems, have promoted fundamental research to search for new agrobiotechnologies. Nonsymbiotic plant growth-promoting Rhizobacteria (PGPR) are often used as inoculants; however, they are not as effective as endophytic bacteria. These bacteria have the advantage of living within the plant tissue, protecting the plant from superinfection by soil bacteria, and recolonizing the plant surface after some stress situations in the soil. Although the use of beneficial microorganisms is not a new idea, it is an idea that is not heavily utilized. Application of inoculants designed on the base of competitive endophytic bacteria may be a full or partial alternative to agrochemicals, and can diminish the level of penetration and accumulation of heavy metals and radionuclides inside plants. This study evaluates the input of the association of the bacteria, isolated from the plant interior, in the crop of corn (Zea mays) and develops inoculants on their base. Nitrogen-fixing Klebsiella oxytoca VN13 along with Xanthomonas maltophilia VN12 were found to be useful bacteria, the former capable of excreting auxins and antimicrobial substances, the latter promoting assimilation of soil phosphorous by the plants. As the association of the two bacteria has been chosen as an effective endophytic system for the inoculant development, the two are mixed to form an inoculant ‘Duet’ which is directly inoculated into seeds. Corn inoculated with this ‘Duet’ produced greater yields, and possessed a greater percentage of protein. In addition, experiments performed in Chernobyl, showed that the ‘Duet’ could protect the plant from radionuclides penetration. It is suggested that a novel inoculant, ‘Kleps’, be applied, as the formulation is simple, it is inexpensive, it can be produced on a large scale, and it can be stored for a long period of time in a relatively small volume. It is clear that simple formulations of novel inoculants can be designed on the base of the competitive endophytic bacteria for an environmentally friendly crop production on poor and polluted territories as an alternative to the use of agrochemicals.     

One laptop per child,local refurbishment or overseas donations? Sustainability assessment of computer supply scenarios for schools in Colombia

With the intention of bridging the ‘digital divide’ many programmes have been launched to provide computers for educational institutions, ranging from refurbishing second hand computers to delivering low cost new computers. The fast and economical provision of large quantities of equipment is one of the many challenges faced by such programmes. If an increase is to be achieved in the sustainability of computer supplies for schools, not only must equipment be provided, but also suitable training and maintenance delivered. Furthermore, appropriate recycling has to be ensured, so that end-of-life equipment can be dealt with properly. This study has evaluated the suitability of three computer supply scenarios to schools in Colombia: (i) ‘Colombian refurbishment’, -refurbishment of computers donated in Colombia, (ii) ‘Overseas refurbishment’, -import of computers which were donated and refurbished abroad, and (iii) ‘XO Laptop’, -purchase of low cost computers manufactured in Korea. The methods applied were: Material Flow Assessment, -to assess the quantities-, Life Cycle Assessment, -to assess the environmental impacts, and the application of the Multiple Attribute Utility Theory, -to analyse, evaluate and compare different scenarios. The most sustainable solution proved to be the local refurbishment of second hand computers of Colombian origin to an appropriate technical standard. The environmental impacts of such practices need to be evaluated carefully, as second hand appliances have to be maintained, require spare parts and sometimes use more energy than newer equipment. Providing schools with second hand computers from overseas and through programmes such as ‘One Laptop Per Child’ has the disadvantage that the potential for social improvements – such as creation of jobs and local industry involvement – is very low.     

Challenges to liberalism: The case of Australian energy policy

This paper considers liberal and nationalist economic policy approaches to the ownership and development of Australian energy resources (oil, gas, coal and uranium). In the two decades prior to 1983, Australia pursued economic policies in relation to its energy resources which could broadly be described as ‘nationalist’. Governments of the day intervened in development decisions in an effort to enhance the ‘national interest’. From 1983, along with the deregulation of the Australian economy as a whole, policy relating to energy resources was liberalised. Development of energy reserves henceforth occurred according to the dictates of the market. This paper argues that recent Australian energy policy initiatives reflect an increase in nationalist influences and a retreat from the liberalisation agenda that dominated energy policy making in the 1980s and 1990s. Three examples are discussed where policy has been influenced by a nationalist framework: (1) the domestic gas reservation policy in Western Australia; (2) Australian government efforts to promote a ‘value adding’ nuclear processing industry and (3) Australian Labor Party policy giving preferential financial incentives for gas to liquids projects. The re-emergence of nationalism in Australia is occurring either because policy makers now favour it as a path to energy security or in some cases because they believe that appeals to nationalism will generate political support.     

Home beyond the house: Experiences of place in an evolving retirement community

This research presents the results of a qualitative study of a small sample of older adults (n = 25), age 55+ who have recently moved to an area that is rapidly changing from a tourist community into a retirement community. The study has two main research objectives: (a) to use Oswald and Wahl's heuristic meaning of home framework to explore the relationships between older adults and their homes and communities, integrating theories from environmental psychology, environmental gerontology and human geography, and (b) to discuss the empirical findings focussing on the core concepts of meaning of home and sense of belonging for new retirees to an area. Findings: For new retirees, there exists a zone between the home and community, that can be viewed as a geographic space comprised of overlapping and interwoven personal, social and physical domains. This zone between the physical house and the surrounding community can be construed as having certain elastic qualities and permeable boundaries that blur the distinctions between home and community. A focus on the micro-environment of the home dwelling and the macro-environment of the neighbourhood and community then appears relevant for understanding place attachment for these persons. This idea of the ‘home beyond the house’ – is one of the most important contributions of this research. Our results view the heuristic framework of Oswald and Wahl as a valuable tool for building understanding about the meaning of home for older adults by drawing attention to the domains themselves, and more importantly, to the interrelationships between them. Consequently, for younger in-migrants, the boundary between home and community blurs into one larger, symbolic entity experienced as ‘home’.