Restoring ecosystems,restoring community: socioeconomic and cultural dimensions of a community-based coral reef restoration project

Environmental restoration projects are commonly touted for their ecological positives, but such projects can also provide significant socioeconomic and cultural benefits to local communities. We assessed the social dimensions of a large-scale coral reef restoration project in Maunalua Bay, O‘ahu, where >1.32 million kg of invasive marine macroalgae was removed from 11 hectares (90,000 m²; 23 acres) of impacted coral reef in an urbanized setting. We interviewed 131 community stakeholders and analyzed both quantitative and qualitative data to assess human uses of the environment, assess perceptions of environmental health, and characterize social dimensions (+/?) associated with the invasive algae removal effort. Results indicate substantial direct economic benefits, including the creation of more than 60+ jobs, benefiting more than 250 individuals and 81 households. The project helped develop a skilled workforce in a local business dedicated to environmental restoration and increased the capacity of community organizations to address other threats to reefs and watersheds. Other major benefits include revitalization of Native Hawaiian cultural practices and traditions and the successful use of harvested invasive algae as compost by local farmers. Our results show the project heightened community awareness and a broader sense of stewardship in the area, creating enabling conditions for collective community action. Our findings show that restoration projects that explicitly incorporate efforts to build community awareness, involvement, and a shared responsibility for a site may ultimately create the long-term capacity for sustainable stewardship programs. We conclude by discussing lessons learned for engaging productively with communities in environmental restoration and stewardship, which remains a central focus in conservation worldwide.     

Legitimacy,access, and the gridlock of tiger conservation: lessons from Melghat and the history of central India

Though tiger conservationists almost ubiquitously acknowledge the necessity of landscape approaches and the involvement of local people for effective tiger conservation, reconciling these two needs presents certain challenges for practitioners. Seeking to address both local exigencies and conservation goals, state-sponsored ecodevelopment initiatives have become commonly associated with Project Tiger reserves in India. However, in this essay I argue that by focusing on the proximate sources of tension between tiger conservation and local people (i.e., human–tiger conflict, habitat degradation, and prey depletion), these programs have reinforced the ultimate causes of such tension: the structural inequalities that exists between local people and state organizations. By linking the historical literature with my own fieldwork in the Melghat Tiger Reserve of the Central Indian Highlands, I show how the current structure of ecodevelopment largely mirrors that of colonial forestry by attempting to enforce natural resource property rights in a way that privileges the state and delegitimizes local relational mechanisms of access to natural resources. In doing so, ecodevelopment reflects the political structure that facilitated the rise of conflicts between tigers and people and reinforces the “gridlock of tiger conservation” (Rastogi et al. 2012). With this political ecology perspective, I advocate solidarity between conservation practitioners, local people, and state organizations in addressing these structural problems to further conservation efforts. Emphasizing co-management’s ability to accommodate multi-scalar forms of authority, I end by offering three lessons for conservation from Melghat’s experience with colonial forestry and ecodevelopment.     

Connecting the dots: mapping habitat connectivity for tigers in central India

Large connected landscapes are paramount to maintain top predator populations. Across their range, tiger (Panthera tigris) populations occur in small fragmented patches of habitat, often isolated by large distances in human-dominated landscapes. We assessed connectivity between 16 protected areas (PAs) in central India, a global priority landscape for tiger conservation, using data on land use and land cover, human population density, and transportation infrastructure. We identified and prioritized movement routes using a combination of least-cost corridor modeling and circuit theory. Our analyses suggest that there are several opportunities to maintain connectivity in this landscape. We mapped a total of thirty-five linkages in the region and calculated metrics to estimate their quality and importance. The highest quality linkages as measured by the ratio of cost-weighted distance to Euclidean distance are Kanha–Phen/Bandhavgarh–SanjayGhasidas/Melghat–Satpura, and cost-weighted distance to least-cost path length are Nawegaon–Tadoba/Achanakmar–SanjayGhasidas/Kanha–Phen. We used current flow centrality to evaluate the contribution of each PA and linkage toward facilitating animal movement. Values are highest for Kanha and Pench tiger reserves, and the linkages between Kanha–Phen, Kanha–Pench, and Pench–Satpura, suggesting that these PAs and linkages play a critical role in maintaining connectivity in central India. In addition, smaller areas such as Bor, Nawegaon, and Phen have high centrality scores relative to their areas and thus may act as important stepping stones. We mapped pinch points, which are sections of the linkages where tiger movement is restricted due to unfavorable habitat, transportation networks, human habitation, or a combination of factors. Currently, very limited data exist on tiger movement outside of PAs to validate model results. Regional-scale connectivity mapping efforts can assist managers and policy makers to develop strategic plans for balancing wildlife conservation and other land uses in the landscape.     

Conservation of animals traded for medicinal purposes in Brazil: Can products derived from plants or domestic animals replace products of wild animals?

Regional Environmental Change - The use and trade of animals in traditional medicine involves many different species, some of which are threatened with extinction. Thus, evaluating biological and...     

Evaluating the role of environmental quality in the sustainable rural economic development of England

The issue of the sustainable development of rural economies in England has recently received considerable attention. This is because many of the poorest areas in the country are rural, often of high environmental quality, but suffering from high unemployment and a lack of services and facilities. The rapid decline in agricultural incomes and in-migration of affluent urban workers since 1990 has exacerbated economic inequality in such areas. A number of factors have the potential to drive rural development and this paper applies, and considers, the feasibility of a method from the USA for combining economic and environmental variables in a regional growth model to examine the hypothesis that environmental quality is an important determinant of sustainable rural development in England. The model output suggests that, although environmental quality does play a role in sustainable rural development in England there are other, more important, factors driving development. These include business and communications infra-structure, the degree and opportunities for commuting and underlying employment prospects. The robustness and limitations of the method for combining economic and environmental variables is discussed in relation to the spatial interrelatedness of Local Authority Districts in England, and conclusions are drawn about areas for refinement and improvement of the method.

Acid generation upon thermal concentration of natural water: The critical water content and the effects of ionic composition

Thermal evaporation of a variety of simulated pore waters from the region of Yucca Mountain, Nevada, produced acidic liquids and gases during the final stages of evaporation. Several simulated pore waters were prepared and then thermally distilled in order to collect and analyze fractions of the evolved vapor. In some cases, distillates collected towards the end of the distillation were highly acidic; in other cases the pH of the distillate remained comparatively unchanged during the course of the distillation. The results suggest that the pH values of the later fractions are determined by the initial composition of the water. Acid production stems from the hydrolysis of magnesium ions, especially at near dryness. Near the end of the distillation, magnesium nitrate and magnesium chloride begin to lose water of hydration, greatly accelerating their thermal decomposition to form acid. Acid formation is promoted further when precipitated calcium carbonate is removed. Specifically, calcium chloride-rich pore waters containing moderate (10–20 ppm) levels of magnesium and nitrate and low levels of bicarbonate produced mixtures of nitric and hydrochloric acid, resulting in a precipitous drop in pH to values of 1 or lower after about 95% of the original volume was distilled. Waters with either low or moderate magnesium content coupled with high levels of bicarbonate produced slightly basic fractions (pH 7–9). If calcium was present in excess of bicarbonate, waters containing moderate levels of magnesium produced acid even in the presence of bicarbonate, due to the precipitation of calcium carbonate. Other salts such as halite and anhydrite promote the segregation of acidic vapors from residual basic solids. The concomitant release of wet acid gas has implications for the integrity of the alloys under consideration for containers at the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. Condensed acid gases at very low pH, especially mixtures of nitric and hydrochloric acid, are capable of corroding even alloys, such as nickel-based Alloy 22, which are considered to be corrosion-resistant under milder conditions.     

Residential runoff as a source of pyrethroid pesticides to urban creeks

Pyrethroid pesticides occur in urban creek sediments at concentrations acutely toxic to sensitive aquatic life. To better understand the source of these residues, runoff from residential neighborhoods around Sacramento, California was monitored over the course of a year. Pyrethroids were present in every sample. Bifenthrin, found at up to 73 ng/L in the water and 1211 ng/g on suspended sediment, was the pyrethroid of greatest toxicological concern, with cypermethrin and cyfluthrin of secondary concern. The bifenthrin could have originated either from use by consumers or professional pest controllers, though the seasonal pattern of discharge from the drain was more consistent with professional use as the dominant source. Stormwater runoff was more important than dry season irrigation runoff in transporting pyrethroids to urban creeks. A single intense storm was capable of discharging as much bifenthrin to an urban creek in 3 h as that discharged over 6 months of irrigation runoff.     

Long-term pollution by chlordecone of tropical volcanic soils in the French West Indies: A simple leaching model accounts for current residue

Chlordecone was applied between 1972 and 1993 in banana fields of the French West Indies. This resulted in long-term pollution of soils and contamination of waters, aquatic biota, and crops. To assess pollution level and duration according to soil type, WISORCH, a leaching model based on first-order desorption kinetics, was developed and run. Its input parameters are soil organic carbon content (SOC) and SOC/water partitioning coefficient (K_oc). It accounts for current chlordecone soil contents and drainage water concentrations. The model was valid for andosol, which indicates that neither physico-chemical nor microbial degradation occurred. Dilution by previous deep tillages makes soil scrapping unrealistic. Lixiviation appeared the main way to reduce pollution. Besides the SOC and rainfall increases, K_oc increased from nitisol to ferralsol and then andosol while lixiviation efficiency decreased. Consequently, pollution is bound to last for several decades for nitisol, centuries for ferralsol, and half a millennium for andosol.     

Satellite derived trends in NO2 over the major global hotspot regions during the past decade and their inter-comparison

We assessed satellite derived tropospheric NO₂ distribution on a global scale and identified the major NO₂ hotspot regions. Combined GOME and SCIAMACHY measurements for the period 1996-2006 have been used to compute the trends over these regions. Our analysis shows that tropospheric NO₂ column amounts have increased over the newly and rapidly developing regions like China (11 ± 2.6%/year), south Asia (1.76 ± 1.1%/year), Middle East (2.3 ± 1%/year) and South Africa (2.4 ± 2.2%/year). Tropospheric NO₂ column amounts show some decrease over the eastern US (−2 ± 1.5%/year) and Europe (0.9 ± 2.1%/year). We found that although tropospheric NO₂ column amounts decreased over the major developed regions in the past decade, the present tropospheric NO₂ column amounts over these regions are still significantly higher than those observed over newly and rapidly developing regions (except China). Tropospheric NO₂ column amounts show some decrease over South America and Central Africa, which are major biomass burning regions in the Southern Hemisphere.     

Air pollutant concentrations near three Texas roadways, part II: Chemical characterization and transformation of pollutants

Spatial gradients of vehicular emitted air pollutants were measured in the vicinity of three roadways in the Austin, Texas area: (1) State Highway 71 (SH-71), a heavily traveled arterial highway dominated by passenger vehicles; (2) Interstate 35 (I-35), a limited access highway north of Austin in Georgetown; and (3) Farm to Market Road 973 (FM-973), a heavily traveled surface roadway with significant truck traffic. A mobile monitoring platform was used to characterize the gradients of CO and NO_x concentrations with increased distance from each roadway, while concentrations of carbonyls in the gas-phase and fine particulate matter mass and composition were measured at stationary sites upwind and at one (I-35 and FM-973) or two (SH-71) downwind sites. Regardless of roadway type or wind direction, concentrations of carbon monoxide (CO), nitric oxide (NO), and oxides of nitrogen (NO_x) returned to background levels within a few hundred meters of the roadway. Under perpendicular wind conditions, CO, NO and NO_x concentrations decreased exponentially with increasing distance perpendicular to the roadways. The decay rate for NO was more than a factor of two greater than for CO, and it comprised a larger fraction of NO_x closer to the roadways than further downwind suggesting the potential significance of near roadway chemical processing as well as atmospheric dilution. Concentrations of most carbonyl species decreased with distance downwind of SH-71. However, concentrations of acetaldehyde and acrolein increased farther downwind of SH-71, suggesting chemical generation from the oxidation of primary vehicular emissions. The behavior of particle-bound organic species was complex and further investigation of the size-segregated chemical composition of particulate matter (PM) at increasing downwind distances from roadways is warranted. Fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) mass concentrations, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), hopanes, and elemental carbon (EC) concentrations generally exhibited concentrations that decreased with distance downwind of SH-71. Concentrations of organic carbon (OC) increased from upwind concentrations immediately downwind of SH-71 and continued to increase further downwind from the roadway. This behavior may have primarily resulted from condensation of semi-volatile organic species emitted from vehicle sources with transport downwind of the roadway.