Aquaculture expansion in Brazilian freshwaters against the Aichi Biodiversity Targets

The Convention on Biological Diversity proposed the Aichi Biodiversity Targets to improve conservation policies and to balance economic development, social welfare, and the maintenance of biodiversity/ecosystem services. Brazil is a signatory of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets and is the most diverse country in terms of freshwater fish, but its national policies have supported the development of unsustainable commercial and ornamental aquaculture, which has led to serious disturbances to inland ecosystems and natural resources. We analyzed the development of Brazilian aquaculture to show how current aquaculture expansion conflicts with all 20 Aichi Targets. This case suggests that Brazil and many other megadiverse developing countries will not meet international conservation targets, stressing the need for new strategies, such as the environmental management system, to improve biodiversity conservation.     

Violence and complex humanitarian emergencies: implications for livelihoods models

This paper explores the nature of the violence that characterises complex humanitarian emergencies and the related implications for modelling livelihoods systems. While noting the importance of livelihoods approaches in complex humanitarian emergencies, it deliberates the limitations of sustainable livelihoods frameworks when applied in environments marked by protracted instability. Adaptations to the model are discussed, with a particular focus on the relationships among violence, assets and liabilities within livelihoods systems. Political economy of violence theories intimate that the assets on which livelihoods systems are constructed in peaceful times may instead become life-and livelihood-threatening liabilities in periods of conflict. Adaptations to livelihood systems in violent settings require that analysts consider violence from policy, institutional and process perspectives. It is suggested that vulnerability should be re-conceptualised as endogenous to livelihoods systems in violent settings. Building on the work of others, a livelihoods model adapted for complex humanitarian emergencies is presented.     

Adoption of sustainable agriculture practices: Evidence from a semi-arid region of Ethiopia

In the wake of the resource constraints for external farm inputs faced by farmers in developing countries, sustainable agriculture practices that rely on renewable local or farm resources present desirable options for enhancing agriculture productivity. In this study, plot-level data from the semi-arid region of Ethiopia, Tigray are used to investigate the factors influencing farmers' decisions to adopt agriculture practices, with a particular focus on conservation tillage, compost and chemical fertilizer. A trivariate probit model is used to analyze the determinants of adoption of these practices. In addition, stochastic dominance analysis is used to compare the productivity impacts of compost with that of chemical fertilizer based on a six-year cross-sectional farm-level dataset. Our results indicate heterogeneity with regard to the factors that influence adoption decisions of the three practices and the importance of both plot and household characteristics on influencing adoption decisions. In particular, we found that household endowments and access to information, among other factors, impact the choice of sustainable farming practices significantly. Furthermore, the use of stochastic dominance analysis supported the contention that sustainable farming practices enhance productivity. They even proved to be superior to the use of chemical fertilizers — justifying the need to investigate factors that influence adoption of these practices and to use this knowledge to formulate policies that encourage adoption.     

Community partnered projects: a case study of a collaborative effort to improve sanitation in a marginalized community in northwest Mexico

There is a growing recognition in developing countries that community participation in water and sanitation projects is a necessary strategy in sustainable development. The main advantage of following such an approach is that, if participation can encourage a sense of ownership of the projects, the benefits of the project are more likely to extend over the long term. The case study at hand focuses on the challenges faced in implementing a wastewater treatment system to solve an environmental and public health problem in a rural community, Rosario de Tesopaco, in northwest Mexico. Until recently, the community has been unable to implement an effective plan to treat the wastewater generated in the community. The problems faced by the community can be attributed to the political arrangement of water and sanitation decentralization in Mexico that occurred in the mid 1980’s, whereby communities were required to meet wastewater treatment standards, but were not given the technical and political guidance needed to achieve this goal. However, in this instance, cooperation between the authorities in Rosario de Tesopaco, the federal agency for social development, and an academic institution has led to the successful design and approval of a wastewater treatment project. This achievement can be attributed to the use of an effective collaborative strategy, tailoring the project to the needs and capacity of the local community, positioning the community as the leaders and owners of the project. A model for following this strategy for developing rural sanitation projects in Mexico is proposed. Readers should send their comments on this paper to BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue.     

The use of ion exchange membranes for isotope analyses on soil water sulfate: laboratory experiments

To investigate the potential use of anion exchange membranes (plant root simulator [PRS] probes) for isotope investigations of the soil sulfur cycle, laboratory experiments were performed to examine the sulfate exchange characteristics and to determine the extent of sulfur and oxygen isotope fractionation during sulfate sorption and desorption on the probes in aqueous solutions and simulated soil solutions. The sulfate-exchange tests in aqueous solutions under varying experimental conditions indicated that the amount of sulfate exchanged onto PRS probes increased with increasing reaction time, initial sulfate concentration, and the number of probes used (= surface area), whereas the percentage of removal of available sulfate was constant irrespective of the initial sulfate concentration. The competition of nitrate and chloride in the solution lowered the amount of exchanged sulfate. The exchange experiments in a simulated soil under water-saturated and water-unsaturated conditions showed that a considerable proportion of the soil sulfate was exchanged by the PRS probes after about 10 d. There was no evidence for significant sulfur and oxygen isotope fractionation between soil sulfate and sulfate recovered from the PRS probes. Therefore, we recommend the use of PRS probes as an efficient and easy way to collect soil water sulfate for determination of its isotope composition.     

Immersed solid phase microextraction to measure chemical activity of lipophilic organic contaminants in fatty tissue samples

It is known that solid phase microextraction (SPME) fibers can be equilibrated directly within environmental matrices such as water, sediment and soil slurries. Here it is shown that this method can also be applied to biological tissue. SPME extraction of biological matrices reportedly causes lipophilic fouling of the fiber. However, we found no significant measurement bias when combining equilibrium sampling with fiber surface cleaning. The uptake of lipophilic organic pollutants from the tissue and into the SPME fiber coating was characterized by fast equilibrium partitioning without sample depletion and without impacting the sorptive properties of the fiber. The precision of the method when applied to hexachlorobenzene and several PCB congeners in harbor porpoise blubber was 15%, which includes the variation between SPME samplings, manual injections and the instrumental analysis. A good correlation (r(2)=0.95) was obtained between SPME measurements of PCB 153 in blubber and concentrations obtained via a traditional analytical approach. These results indicate that SPME is a promising technique for measuring chemical activity in biological tissue, which would make it a useful tool for studying chemical distribution in organisms as well as biodilution and biomagnification phenomena.     

Cryptic mammalian species: a new species of whiskered bat (Myotis alcathoe n. sp.) in Europe

The analysis of morphological, behavioural and genetic characters of whiskered bats revealed a new European bat species within the family Vespertilionidae. We describe the morphology, karyology, genetic similarity, ecology and distribution of Myotis alcathoe n. sp. It closely resembles Myotis mystacinus, Myotis brandtii and Myotis ikonnikovi in morphology, but all four species show clear genetic differences in two mitochondrial genes (ND1 and 12S rRNA). Myotis alcathoe n. sp. is the smallest species among the European whiskered bats and uses the highest-frequency echolocation calls of all the European Myotis species. It prefers to hunt in small valleys with deciduous trees and flowing water, which is an endangered habitat. Records from Greece and Hungary indicate a distribution range in south-eastern Europe.     

Brownfield redevelopment as a smart growth option in the United States

An evaluation is made of brownfields redevelopment as a smart growth policy compared to purchase of land, restrictive growth policies, changing transportation patterns, promoting compact development designs on the metropolitan fringe, and regional government. In the US brownfields redevelopment has clear advantages with regard to environmental protection, moral imperative, and government and special interest reactions. Its rank with regard to economic feasibility, ability to respond to changes in technology, and public reaction are not clear. A great deal more research is needed, especially about the costs of brownfield redevelopment and public preferences for housing type and location to be certain about brownfields redevelopment as a viable smart growth option.