Sustainable Development and Wildlife Conservation in Tanzanian Maasailand

Many current wildlife conservation efforts in Africa focus on providing local communities with economic incentives to utilize wildlife as a form of land use in order to achieve the twin goals of ecological preservation as well as sustainable human economic development. Tanzanian Maasailand is home to some of the greatest concentrations of large mammals remaining outside National Parks and reserves, as well as a uniquely traditional human culture in the form of the Maasai themselves. Both are increasingly threatened by a variety of factors; poaching and habitat loss for wildlife, and the increasing marginalization of their pastoralist economy with regards to the Maasai. The fundamental cause of declining wildlife populations and biodiversity loss is that the Maasai have little economic or social interest in wildlife due to centralized management and financial benefits which are directed primarily to the Tanzanian state. Maasai pastoralism is highly compatible with wildlife, and the potential for the local communities to sustainably manage and benefit from this resource is promising. However, implementation of effective community-based natural resource management in the area faces political, cultural, and economic obstacles which will be critical in determining the outcomes of both conservation and community development efforts in Maasailand.     

Improving the Evaluation of Conservation Programs

Abstract: The evaluation of conservation programs is rare but increasingly important in improving their effectiveness. Regular evaluations of conservation programs and the implementation of recommendations resulting from such assessments are infrequent because of resistance by participants and lack of funding. Evaluations may be internal or external, depending on the purpose of the review and how broadly it is focused. We strongly recommend external peer review of long-term complex conservation programs every 5 years, supported by more frequent (annual) internal reviews. Criteria for success must encompass both biological and social measures and include learning and the application of new knowledge to management. Evaluations must also go beyond monitoring to assess the value of the program. We emphasize the need to include the organization and function of a conservation program (the process) in any evaluation in addition to substantive criteria for success, which usually involve biological measures (numbers). A dysfunctional program organization and process can as effectively cripple a conservation effort as can a major biological catastrophe. We provide examples of different types of conservation program evaluations, including moderated workshops and case-study analysis, and provide advice on the logistics and organization of the review, emphasizing the importance of the evaluation process itself to a successful outcome. One important aspect of an evaluation is having an individual with leadership ability and considerable expertise to organize the format and oversee the review process itself. Second, it is essential at the outset to ensure agreement among the program participants and the review committee on the goals and objectives of the conservation program, what is to be evaluated, and the criteria for defining success. Finally, the best evaluations are inclusive and involve all participants and stakeholders.     

大鼠类Alu重复序列的克隆及其在染色体DNA突变分析中的应用

从大鼠低Ｃｏｔ值ＤＮＡ文库分离到一种类Ａｌｕ的重复序列,命名为ＲＡＬＲＳ－１。对ＲＡＬＲＳ－１克隆并进行了测序,长度为２８３ｂｐ,发现其中含有单一的微卫星（ｍｉｃｒｏｓａｔｅｌｌｉｔｅ）序列ＡＧ,ＡＧＧ和ＡＧＧＧ。ＲＡＬＲＳ－１ＤＮＡ序列在大鼠单倍体基因组中的拷贝数为１５００００～３３００００。依ＲＡＬＲＳ－１中的一段序列合成了一２８寡核苷酸探针（ＡＧＧＧ）７,对大鼠正常组织和肿瘤组织ＤＮＡ指数谱     

An Examination of Governance Arrangements at Kisakasaka Mangrove Reserve in Zanzibar

This study employs insights largely derived from critical reflections on the common pool resources (CPR) theory to examine the current governance arrangements in place to manage the mangrove forest at Kisakasaka, in Zanzibar, Tanzania. Kisakasaka was used as a site for a community-based management pilot project of forest resources in Zanzibar. After some initial success in setting up a local management structure and regulating access to the mangrove for mainly charcoal production, there are now clear indications that forest conditions have deteriorated dramatically with concomitant ongoing resource use problems for local villagers who have relied heavily on forest resources as a source of cash income. Extra-local factors, such as urban population increases and associated market pressures for charcoal, are also conjectured to overlay and interact with the institutional problems at Kisakasaka. As a result, over concern about the deterioration in the condition of the mangrove forest, the responsible government authority decided not to renew the community-based governance arrangements after an initial five-year pilot period. While revealing the inadequacies of existing governance arrangements and of its relationship to deteriorating forest conditions at Kisakasaka, this study concludes by suggesting an approach to more fully understand forces driving local resource management and use.     

The Estuarine Component of the Us E.P.A.'S Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program

The US Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Research and Development has initiated the Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program (EMAP) to monitor status and trends in the condition of the nation's near coastal waters, forests, wetlands, agro-ecosystems, surface waters, deserts and rangelands. the programme is also intended to evaluate the effectiveness of Agency policies at protecting ecological resources occurring in these systems. Monitoring data collected for all ecosystems will be integrated for regional and national status and trends assessments. the near coastal component of EMAP consists of estuaries, coastal waters, and the Great Lakes. Near coastal ecosystems have been regionalized and classified, and an integrated sampling strategy has been developed. EPA and NOAA have agreed to coordinate and, to the extent possible, integrate the near coastal component of EMAP with the NOAA National Status and Trends Program. A demonstration project was conducted in estuaries of the mid-Atlantic region (Chesapeake Bay to Cape Cod) in the summer of 1990. in 1991, monitoring continued in mid-Atlantic estuaries and was initiated in estuaries of a portion of the Gulf of Mexico. Preliminary results indicate: there are no insurmountable logistical problems with sampling on a regional scale; several of the selected indicators are practical and sensitive on the regional scale; and an efficient effort in future years will provide valuable information on condition of estuarine resources at regional scales.     

C-Lock (Patent Pending): A System for Estimating and Certifying Carbon Emission Reduction Credits for the Sequestration of Soil Carbon on Agricultural Land

The C-Lock system was developed to address the need for an improved method of quantifying and certifying project-level carbon emission reduction credits (CERC). It was designed to enable individual landowners to efficiently quantify, certify, pool, market and trade CERCs generated by agricultural management practices. We provide a general overview of the C-Lock system as it has been implemented for the USA State of South Dakota. C-Lock is comprised of four linked components: a web interface, a client database, a Geographic Information System (GIS) database of soil, climate and generalized land use history parameters, and the CENTURY soil carbon model. The user-friendly interface elicits generalized land-use and crop history information from the client from 1900 through 1989, then explicit annual information from 1990 onward. A climate-zone level landuse and crop management database is used to fill in gaps in the client-provided data. These data are used to drive the CENTURY model, which estimates annual changes in soil carbon stocks. Monte Carlo simulation is used to estimate uncertainty bounds, and these are applied to the CENTURY outputs in order to provide probabilistic estimates of accrued CERCs in a manner that is transparent and verifiable. In a demonstration application, CERCs are estimated for three different land-use scenarios on a representative field in eastern South Dakota: reduced tillage or conservation (no-till) management of a corn (maize)/wheat/soybean rotation, and enrollment in the Conservation Reserve Program, which entails establishing permanent grass cover. The credits are based on a business-asusual scenario of conventional tillage.     

Characterization of exhaust particles from military vehicles fueled with diesel,gasoline, and JP-8

Diluted exhaust from selected military aircraft ground-support equipment (AGE) was analyzed for particulate mass, elemental carbon (EC) and organic carbon (OC), SO4(2-), and size distributions. The experiments occurred at idle and load conditions and utilized a chassis dynamometer. The selected AGE vehicles operated on gasoline, diesel, and JP-8. These military vehicles exhibited concentrations, size distributions, and emission factors in the same range as those reported for nonmilitary vehicles. The diesel and JP-8 emission rates for PM ranged from 0.092 to 1.1 g/kg fuel. The EC contributed less and the OC contributed more to the particulate mass than reported in recent studies of vehicle emissions. Overall, the particle size distribution varied significantly with engine condition, with the number of accumulation mode particles and the count median diameter (CMD) increasing as engine load increased. The SO4(2-) analyses showed that the distribution of SO4(2-) mass mirrored the distribution of particle mass.