Five lessons to guide more effective biodiversity conservation message framing

Communication and advocacy approaches that influence attitudes and behaviors are key to addressing conservation problems, and the way an issue is framed can affect how people view, judge, and respond to an issue. Responses to conservation interventions can also be influenced by subtle wording changes in statements that may appeal to different values, activate social norms, influence a person's affect or mood, or trigger certain biases, each of which can differently influence the resulting engagement, attitudes, and behavior. We contend that by strategically considering how conservation communications are framed, they can be made more effective with little or no additional cost. Key framing considerations include, emphasizing things that matter to the audience, evoking helpful social norms, reducing psychological distance, leveraging useful biases, and, where practicable, testing messages. These lessons will help communicators think strategically about how to frame messages for greater effect.     

Conservation, commercialisation and confusion: harvesting of Ischyrolepis in a coastal forest, South Africa

Harvesting of non-timber forest products is an integral component of rural livelihoods throughout the developing world. At times this is at odds with conservation objectives. Reconciliation of the two requires examination of local level contexts and needs. This paper reports on the harvesting needs for Ischyrolepis by a rural community in South Africa, against the setting that they had recently been prohibited from harvesting by the local conservation officials. Interviews were conducted with conservation officials to understand the reasoning for the prohibition. Local demand for Ischyrolepis was assessed by household surveys, as well as in-depth interviews with traders. The density and size class distribution of Ischyrolepis was determined using transects. The total annual demand for Ischyrolepis was determined to be approximately only 2.7% of the standing crop. The bulk of the annual demand was for small-scale trade, the income from which was a primary source of income for the few harvesters. Very little evidence could be found indicating that harvesting was damaging the resource or its habitat, and local knowledge suggested that the abundance of the species was stimulated by harvesting. Even if market demand were to increase, the size of the shoots required means that less than 20% of the standing crop could be harvested annually. Current regulations around harvesting are in a state of revision, and hence confusion prevails regarding if harvesting is permissible, and if so, under what conditions, which is detrimental to both conservation and livelihoods. Readers should send their comments on this paper to: BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue.     

Visualising the equilibrium distribution and mobility of organic contaminants in soil using the chemical partitioning space

Assessing the behaviour of organic chemicals in soil is a complex task as it is governed by the physical chemical properties of the chemicals, the characteristics of the soil as well as the ambient conditions of the environment. The chemical partitioning space, defined by the air-water partition coefficient (K(AW)) and the soil organic carbon-water partition coefficient (K(OC)), was employed to visualize the equilibrium distribution of organic contaminants between the air-filled pores, the pore water and the solid phases of the bulk soil and the relative importance of the three transport processes removing contaminants from soil (evaporation, leaching and particle erosion). The partitioning properties of twenty neutral organic chemicals (i.e. herbicides, pharmaceuticals, polychlorinated biphenyls and volatile chemicals) were estimated using poly-parameter linear free energy relationships and superimposed onto these maps. This allows instantaneous estimation of the equilibrium phase distribution and mobility of neutral organic chemicals in soil. Although there is a link between the major phase and the dominant transport process, such that chemicals found in air-filled pore space are subject to evaporation, those in water-filled pore space undergo leaching and those in the sorbed phase are associated with particle erosion, the partitioning coefficient thresholds for distribution and mobility can often deviate by many orders of magnitude. In particular, even a small fraction of chemical in pore water or pore air allows for evaporation and leaching to dominate over solid phase transport. Multiple maps that represent soils that differ in the amount and type of soil organic matter, water saturation, temperature, depth of surface soil horizon, and mineral matters were evaluated.     

Description and evaluation of a model of deposition velocities for routine estimates of air pollutant dry deposition over North America.: Part I: model development

This paper describes the development of a detailed dry deposition model for routine computation of dry deposition velocities of SO₂, O₃, HNO₃ and fine particle SO₄²⁻ across much of North America. Four different dry deposition/surface exchange sub-models have been combined with the current Canadian weather forecast model (Global Environmental Multiscale model) with a 3 h time resolution and a horizontal spatial resolution of 35 km. The present model uses the US Geological Survey North American Land Cover Characteristics data to obtain fourteen different land use and five seasonal categories. The four sub-models used are a multi-layer model for gaseous species over taller canopy land-use types, a big-leaf model for gaseous species over lower canopies (including bare soil and water) and for HNO₃ under all surface types and, two different models for SO₄²⁻, one for tall canopies and the other for short canopies. All necessary parameters for each sub-model, chemical species, land-use and seasonal categories have been selected from available data libraries or from the values reported in the literature. The purpose for developing this model (referred to as the Routine Deposition Model (RDM)), when coupled with air concentration data, is to provide estimates of seasonal dry deposition, which can be combined with wet deposition to produce total deposition estimates. Model theory is discussed in this paper and model sensitivity tests and results will be presented in a companion paper.     

Social dimensions of mining: Research,policy and practice challenges for the minerals industry in Australia

The social dimensions of the mining industry are increasingly acknowledged as critical to business success, yet remain the least understood aspect of the business concept of sustainable development—the ‘triple bottom line’ of economy, environment and society.     

Book reviews

Sustainable Industrialisation. David Wallace, 1996, London, Royal Institute of International Affairs, (Earthscan), 120 pp. ISBN 1 85383 352 5, £11.95 (pbk)

Managing Green Technologies for Global Competitiveness. Christian Ndubisi Madu, 1996, London, Quorum Books, distributed by Eurospan, ISBN 0 89930 827 9, £47.95 (hbk)

Greening People, Human Resources and Environmental Management. Walter Wehrmeyer (Ed.) 1996, Sheffield, Greenleaf Publishing, 416 pp. ISBN 1 874719 15 2, £29.50 (hbk)

The Environment for Children: understanding and acting on the environmental hazards that threaten children and their parents. David Satterthwaite, Roger Hart, Caren Levy, Diana Mitlin, David Ross, Jac Smit & Carolyn Stephens, 1996, London, Earthscan Publications, 284 pp. ISBN 1 85383 326 6, £13.95

Local Sustainability: managing and planning ecologically sound places. Paul Selman, 1996, London, Paul Chapman, x + 175pp, index. ISBN 1 85396 300 3, £14.95