Sustainable Development and Institutional Design: The Example of the Mersey Basin Campaign

The Mersey Basin Campaign was established in 1985 in the North West of England to address continuing problems of water quality and associated landward dereliction of the River Mersey and its tributaries. The Campaign's premise that water quality should be improved both for its own sake and as a stimulus to regeneration has proved to be well founded and has subsequently been extended to embrace community action to help nurture watercourse improvement and care. The Campaign can now be seen as a model for engaging co-ordinated environmental action through a partnership approach. This paper explores the nature of the Mersey Basin Campaign as an example of the new structures which are being developed in order to help deliver the new environmentalpolicy agenda. It is argued that the Campaign stands as a model for what will become an increasing need to develop focused environmental planning and management at the sub-regional and regional scales.     

Sex differences in mass loss rate and growth efficiency in Antarctic fur seal (Arctocephalus gazella) pups at Macquarie Island

We investigated the relationship between the mass gained by a pup during a period of maternal attendance (as an index of milk intake) and the duration of the preceding foraging trip in relation to the mass-specific rate of mass loss during fasting periods and the growth rate of Antarctic fur seal (Arctocephalus gazella) pups at Macquarie Island. We found that (1) serially weighed male pups grew significantly faster than females pups and that (2) fasting female pups lost mass at a significantly higher rate (2.55% day⁻¹) than male pups (2.12% day⁻¹) of the same mass; (3) during periods of maternal attendance, there were no intersexual differences in the amount of mass gained by pups of the same size, hence (4) female pups required a higher daily mass gain to grow at the same rate as male pups. Our results show that intersexual differences in growth rate may be accounted for by intersexual differences in mass-specific rate of mass loss, because females lost 0.42% more of their total mass per day (i.e. 4.2 g kg⁻¹ day⁻¹) compared with male pups of the same body mass. Despite intersexual differences in growth rates, our results indicate equality of maternal expenditure between the sexes. Intersexual differences in the rate of mass loss may be due to differences in the metabolic rate, activity level and/or body composition of male and female pups. Received: 19 August 1998 / Received in revised form: 19 April 1999 / Accepted: 19 April 1999     

Differentiating antecedents of organizational commitment: a test of March and Simon's model

Recent theory regarding the nature of organizational commitment suggests that viewing it as comprised of two dimensions, value commitment and continuance commitment, is of theoretical and practical value. This field study found the differential antecedents of these two commitment dimensions to be consistent with the March and Simon (1958) framework using the two-dimensional organizational commitment questionnaire from Mayer and Schoorman (1992). Organizational tenure, retirement benefits, education, and age were more highly correlated with continuance commitment, while felt participation, perceived prestige, job involvement, and role ambiguity were more highly correlated with value commitment. Analysis using LISREL 7 supported the pattern of relationships between the antecedents and the two commitment dimensions. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Criteria and indicators for a bioenergy production industry identified via stakeholder participation

As bioenergy production expands and new bioenergy-based technologies emerge, there is a growing concern regarding the sustainability of their ecological and socioeconomic impacts. Comprehensive sustainability assessments are needed to address this concern and to assure that the development of the bioenergy industry meets sustainability goals. Most sustainability assessments for bioenergy are expert-driven, broad, and largely motivated by an interest in optimizing international trade in bioenergy. As a result, social and cultural sustainability targets are vague or underdeveloped. In this study, we developed a sustainability assessment for a regional bioenergy production industry in Upper Michigan, using stakeholder participation. Semi-structured interviews and focus group meetings were used to elicit participants’ concerns and opinion. These concerns were translated into sustainability Criteria and Indicators (C&Is), many of which could be supported with available science. Some of the C&Is identified by participants were unique to the region. Sustainability C&Is were broadly categorized into economic (C = 5; I = 22), environmental (C = 6; I = 12), social (C = 3; I = 9), policy and regulations (C = 3; I = 13), and institutional capacity (C = 4; I = 13). While participants could identify indicators for most of the criteria (many of which are also supported by existing literature), further research and validation will be necessary to identify measurable, practical, and bias-free indicators for all criteria.