Landcare Networks in Australia: State-sponsored Participation Through Local Organizations

Landcare is an Australian success story and an important example of the potential of state-sponsored community participation. An important trend encouraged by the lead agencies is for Landcare groups to be linked through so-called networks. Linking together may appeal to groups as a way of increasing their capacity to compete for scarce resources and enhance their impact on agencies, regional catchment committees and government. Network formation is also driven by government and agency demands for efficiency, accountability and effective regional planning. In this paper the authors draw on their 1997 study of the Ovens Valley Landcare Network in Victoria. This research suggested networks are important local organisations and enhance the impact of groups by improving inter-group communication and 'pulling down' resources. Network processes also contributed to robust, productive, agency-community partnerships and suggested participation can increase community influence on decision making and be compatible with adaptive management.     

Auditing the Socio-economic Impacts of a Major Construction Project: The Case of Sizewell B Nuclear Power Station

This paper presents the findings of a post-auditing study which compares the actual and predicted socio-economic impacts (including traffic) of a major power station construction project in the UK. An attempt is made to determine the accuracy of the predictions presented at the public inquiry into the development, drawing on the results of a developer-funded monitoring exercise undertaken for the duration of the eight-year construction programme. The study found that a very high proportion of testable predictions prepared prior to the inquiry could be audited; of these, 60% were either within predicted ranges or accurate to within 20% of predicted values. However, one in seven predictions had errors of more than 50%. The study revealed no consistent bias towards either under- or over-estimation of impacts. The paper explores the reasons for the predictive errors identified in the study; these include a range of project-specific and more generic factors, several of which are likely to be applicable to other large-scale construction projects. The study is particularly useful in the field of EIA because it relates to several weak areas in current practice: the assessment of socio-economic impacts, construction effects, and monitoring and auditing.     

Depth and muscle temperature of Pacific bluefin tuna examined with acoustic and pop-up satellite archival tags

Six Pacific bluefin tuna were tracked with ultrasonic telemetry and two with pop-up satellite archival tags (PSATs) in the eastern Pacific Ocean in 1997, 1998, and 1999. Both pressure and temperature ultrasonic transmitters were used to examine the behavior of the 2- to 4-year-old bluefin tuna. The bluefin spent over 80% of their time in the top 40 m of the water column and made occasional dives into deeper, cooler water. The mean slow-oxidative muscle temperatures of three fish instrumented with pressure and temperature transmitters were 22.0–26.1 °C in water temperatures that averaged 15.7–17.5 °C. The thermal excesses in slow-oxidative muscle averaged 6.2–8.6 °C. Variation in the temperature of the slow-oxidative muscle in the bluefin was not correlated with water temperature or swimming speeds. For comparison with the acoustic tracking data we examined the depth and ambient temperature of two Pacific bluefin tagged with pop-up satellite archival tags for 24 and 52 days. The PSAT data sets show depth and temperature distributions of the bluefin tuna similar to the acoustic data set. Swimming speeds calculated from horizontal distances with the acoustic data indicate the fish mean speeds were 1.1–1.4 fork lengths/s (FL s⁻¹). These Pacific bluefin spent the majority of their time in the top parts of the water column in the eastern Pacific Ocean in a pattern similar to that observed for yellowfin tuna. Received: 4 April 2000 / Accepted: 25 October 2000     

Effectiveness in Conservation Practice: Pointers from Medicine and Public Health

Abstract: Practical conservation activity is increasing globally and is being undertaken by many different government and nongovernmental organizations. In the majority of cases, justification for proposed actions is experience-based rather than evidence-based, action is often taken without monitoring or evaluation of effectiveness, and results are rarely widely disseminated. Conservation has been compared with medicine as a crisis discipline in which action is often required urgently in the absence of good information. The practice of medicine has recently gone through an effectiveness revolution that has improved the criteria upon which treatment strategies are based by progressing from reliance on personal experience to reliance on scientific evidence. We draw parallels between medicine and conservation and present a practical framework to encourage evidence-based conservation action. Our rationale is that conservation actions for which scarce resources are sought should be justified by good scientific evidence. In our view this will also encourage more research addressing practical issues in conservation management.     

Need and nestmates affect begging in tree swallows

We conducted an experiment on nestling tree swallows (Tachycineta bicolor) to examine predictions from signalling models for the evolution of conspicuous begging behaviour. Specifically, we examined the relationship between (1) nestling begging intensity and hunger, (2) begging intensity and parental provisioning and (3) begging intensity and nestmate condition. Forty broods of 9-day-old nestlings were removed from their nests for 1 h and assigned to one of the following three treatments: (1) all nestlings in the brood deprived of food (n = 13), (2) all nestlings in the brood fed (n = 11) or (3) half the nestlings in the brood deprived and half fed (n = 16). Videotapes before and after the treatments showed that begging intensity increased in broods in which all of the nestlings had been deprived and decreased in broods in which all of the nestlings had been fed. Deprived nestlings in the half-and-half treatment did not change their begging intensity in response to treatment, while fed nestlings in this treatment group showed a decrease in begging intensity. Parent tree swallows increased their feeding rate to deprived broods and decreased their rate to fed broods. Within broods, parents decreased their feeding rate to fed nestlings, but showed no significant change in feeding to deprived nestlings. Our results suggest that begging intensity is influenced by hunger and that parents appear to respond to variation in begging intensity. The begging of nestmates also appears to influence begging independently of need. These results are consistent with predictions derived from signalling models of begging. Received: 20 June 1997 / Accepted after revision: 19 January 1998     

An evaluation of the toxicity and bioaccumulation of cisplatin in the marine environment using the macroalga, Ulva lactuca

The cytotoxic drug, cisplatin (cis-PtCl₂(NH₃)₂), has been added to cultures of the marine macroalga, Ulva lactuca, under various experimental conditions. Both accumulation and internalisation over a 48 h period was greater when cisplatin was added to coastal sea water (salinity = 33) from a distilled water solution than when added to either sea water or estuarine water (salinity = 16.5) from a saline solution. This effect is attributed to the greater abundance of the more reactive monoaqua complex (cis-PtCl(OH₂)(NH₃)₂⁺) in the distilled water solution and kinetic constraints on its conversion back to cis-PtCl₂(NH₃)₂ in sea water. Despite its mode of action at the cellular level, cisplatin added up to concentrations of 150 nM did not incur a measurable reduction in the efficiency of photochemical energy conversion under any of experimental conditions tested.     

Inorganic arsenic and trace elements in Ghanaian grain staples

A total of 549 samples of rice, maize, wheat, sorghum and millet were obtained from markets in Ghana, the EU, US and Asia. Analysis of the samples, originating from 21 countries in 5 continents, helped to establish global mean trace element concentrations in grains; thus placing the Ghanaian data within a global context. Ghanaian rice was generally low in potentially toxic elements, but high in essential nutrient elements. Arsenic concentrations in rice from US (0.22 mg/kg) and Thailand (0.15 mg/kg) were higher than in Ghanaian rice (0.11 mg/kg). Percentage inorganic arsenic content of the latter (83%) was, however, higher than for US (42%) and Thai rice (67%). Total arsenic concentration in Ghanaian maize, sorghum and millet samples (0.01 mg/kg) was an order of magnitude lower than in Ghanaian rice, indicating that a shift from rice-centric to multigrain diets could help reduce health risks posed by dietary exposure to inorganic As.     

Governance of Water Resources in the Phase of Change: A Case Study of the Implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive in Sweden

In this article, focusing on the ongoing implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive, we analyze some of the opportunities and challenges for a sustainable governance of water resources from an ecosystem management perspective. In the face of uncertainty and change, the ecosystem approach as a holistic and integrated management framework is increasingly recognized. The ongoing implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) could be viewed as a reorganization phase in the process of change in institutional arrangements and ecosystems. In this case study from the Northern Baltic Sea River Basin District, Sweden, we focus in particular on data and information management from a multi-level governance perspective from the local stakeholder to the River Basin level. We apply a document analysis, hydrological mapping, and GIS models to analyze some of the institutional framework created for the implementation of the WFD. The study underlines the importance of institutional arrangements that can handle variability of local situations and trade-offs between solutions and priorities on different hierarchical levels.     

Kinetic limitations on tracer partitioning in ganglia dominated source zones

Quantification of the relationship between dense nonaqueous phase liquid (DNAPL) source strength, source longevity and spatial distribution is increasingly recognized as important for effective remedial design. Partitioning tracers are one tool that may permit interrogation of DNAPL architecture. Tracer data are commonly analyzed under the assumption of linear, equilibrium partitioning, although the appropriateness of these assumptions has not been fully explored. Here we focus on elucidating the nonlinear and nonequilibrium partitioning behavior of three selected alcohol tracers - 1-pentanol, 1-hexanol and 2-octanol in a series of batch and column experiments. Liquid-liquid equilibria for systems comprising water, TCE and the selected alcohol illustrate the nonlinear distribution of alcohol between the aqueous and organic phases. Complete quantification of these equilibria facilitates delineation of the limits of applicability of the linear partitioning assumption, and assessment of potential inaccuracies associated with measurement of partition coefficients at a single concentration. Column experiments were conducted under conditions of non-equilibrium to evaluate the kinetics of the reversible absorption of the selected tracers in a sandy medium containing a uniform entrapped saturation of TCE-DNAPL. Experimental tracer breakthrough data were used, in conjunction with mathematical models and batch measurements, to evaluate alternative hypotheses for observed deviations from linear equilibrium partitioning behavior. Analyses suggest that, although all tracers accumulate at the TCE-DNAPL/aqueous interface, surface accumulation does not influence transport at concentrations typically employed for tracer tests. Moreover, results reveal that the kinetics of the reversible absorption process are well described using existing mass transfer correlations originally developed to model aqueous boundary layer resistance for pure-component NAPL dissolution.