Creating safer workplaces: assessing the determinants and role of safety climate

PROBLEM: Although there has been considerable interest in safety climate, relatively little attention has been given to the factors that determine safety climate or to testing the hypothesized mediating role of safety climate with respect to safety-related outcomes. METHOD: Questionnaire responses were obtained from 2,208 employees of a large national retail chain in 21 different locations. RESULTS: After controlling for demographic variables, three factors: environmental conditions, safety-related policies and programs, and general organizational climate, accounted for 55% of the variance in perceived safety climate. Interestingly, organizational climate made a significant contribution to safety climate, even after controlling for the other more safety-relevant variables. Partial correlations showed that safety policies and programs had the largest observed correlation with safety climate, followed by two of the dimensions of organizational climate (communication and organizational support). Using Baron and Kenny's (J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 51 (1986) 1173) procedures, the principal effects of the various work situation factors on perceived safety at work were found to be direct rather than mediated by safety climate. Safety climate influenced perceived safety at work, but its role as a mediator was limited. IMPACT ON INDUSTRY: These results are discussed in terms of other recent findings on safety climate and the growing interest in understanding management and organizational factors in the context of workplace safety.     

Cultural ecology of Whitethroat (Sylvia communis) habitat management by farmers: winter in farmland trees and shrubs in Senegambia

The presence of Whitethroats and their potential invertebrate prey in farmland trees and shrubs was investigated. The management of this vegetation by farmers, and their motivation for that management, was explored using participatory techniques. Whitethroats were associated with Guiera senegalensis, the shrub species which supports most caterpillars and spiders. Farmers reported declines in trees and shrubs since the 1950s, loss of fallow areas, declines in soil fertility and crop yields, and increases in the use of fire for clearing fields. Trees are valued by people for their cultural and medicinal uses and some species used by Whitethroats and other birds have potential for restoring soil fertility, although this was not recognised by farmers. More sustainable use of savanna farmland could have both agronomic and wider conservation benefits, and the provision of information that accommodates farmers' cultural and economic incentives could benefit both farmers and wildlife.     

Effects of threat management interactions on conservation priorities

Decisions need to be made about which biodiversity management actions are undertaken to mitigate threats and about where these actions are implemented. However, management actions can interact; that is, the cost, benefit, and feasibility of one action can change when another action is undertaken. There is little guidance on how to explicitly and efficiently prioritize management for multiple threats, including deciding where to act. Integrated management could focus on one management action to abate a dominant threat or on a strategy comprising multiple actions to abate multiple threats. Furthermore management could be undertaken at sites that are in close proximity to reduce costs. We used cost‐effectiveness analysis to prioritize investments in fire management, controlling invasive predators, and reducing grazing pressure in a bio‐diverse region of southeastern Queensland, Australia. We compared outcomes of 5 management approaches based on different assumptions about interactions and quantified how investment needed, benefits expected, and the locations prioritized for implementation differed when interactions were taken into account. Managing for interactions altered decisions about where to invest and in which actions to invest and had the potential to deliver increased investment efficiency. Differences in high priority locations and actions were greatest between the approaches when we made different assumptions about how management actions deliver benefits through threat abatement: either all threats must be managed to conserve species or only one management action may be required. Threatened species management that does not consider interactions between actions may result in misplaced investments or misguided expectations of the effort required to mitigate threats to species.     

Social signals and sustainability: ambiguity about motivations can affect status perceptions of efficiency and curtailment behaviors

Perceived status can affect the diffusion of pro-environmental behaviors and sustainable consumption. However, the status of different forms of sustainable consumption has not been adequately explored. Previous studies suggest that curtailment behaviors are associated with low or neutral status, while efficiency behaviors are associated with high status. However, these studies have generally examined a small number of behaviors. Drawing from costly signaling theory, we developed a mixed methods study to explore whether and why pro-environmental behaviors are perceived to be associated with high or low status, the perceived motivation for those behaviors, and the relationship between motivation and status. We conducted structured, interactive interviews with 71 participants to explore perceptions of 19 behaviors. Using quantitative and qualitative analyses, we find that efficiency is rated higher status than curtailment largely due to monetary considerations. Efficiency is also perceived to be motivated by environmental concern to a greater degree than curtailment. Understanding the motivation for behaviors clarifies the social signal because it provides insights into whether one is incurring personal costs. Importantly, it is often unclear whether low-cost curtailment behaviors are adopted by choice rather than financial need. Ambiguity about the intentionality of behaviors results in such behaviors being perceived as lower status. Those who argue that curtailment will be necessary for long-term sustainability must address status perceptions because social stigmas could hinder their adoption. Overcoming such stigmas may require, indicating that curtailment behaviors are voluntary, but it may be more effective to use social or economic mechanisms to increase efficiency behaviors.     

Barriers and opportunities for adapting to climate change on the North Coast of São Paulo,Brazil

Regional Environmental Change - This paper examines barriers and opportunities for climate change adaptation in an urban coastal setting where adaptation is in its infancy. It draws on a diagnostic...     

Using a social–ecological framework to inform the implementation of conservation plans

One of the key determinants of success in biodiversity conservation is how well conservation planning decisions account for the social system in which actions are to be implemented. Understanding elements of how the social and ecological systems interact can help identify opportunities for implementation. Utilizing data from a large‐scale conservation initiative in southwestern of Australia, we explored how a social–ecological system framework can be applied to identify how social and ecological factors interact to influence the opportunities for conservation. Using data from semistructured interviews, an online survey, and publicly available data, we developed a conceptual model of the social–ecological system associated with the conservation of the Fitz‐Stirling region. We used this model to identify the relevant variables (remnants of vegetation, stakeholder presence, collaboration between stakeholders, and their scale of management) that affect the implementation of conservation actions in the region. We combined measures for these variables to ascertain how areas associated with different levels of ecological importance coincided with areas associated with different levels of stakeholder presence, stakeholder collaboration, and scales of management. We identified areas that could benefit from different implementation strategies, from those suitable for immediate conservation action to areas requiring implementation over the long term to increase on‐the‐ground capacity and identify mechanisms to incentivize implementation. The application of a social–ecological framework can help conservation planners and practitioners facilitate the integration of ecological and social data to inform the translation of priorities for action into implementation strategies that account for the complexities of conservation problems in a focused way.     

The invasive grass Agropyron cristatum doubles belowground productivity but not soil carbon

Root dynamics are among the largest knowledge gaps in determining how terrestrial carbon (C) cycles will respond to environmental change. Increases in productivity accompanying plant invasions and introductions could increase ecosystem C storage, but belowground changes are unknown, even though roots may account for 50-90% of production in temperate ecosystems. We examined whether the introduction of a widespread invasive grass with relatively high shoot production also increased belowground productivity and soil C storage, using a multiyear rhizotron study in 50-year-old stands dominated either by the invasive C3 grass Agropyron cristatum or by largely C4 native grasses. Relative to native vegetation, stands dominated by the invader had doubled root productivity. Soil carbon isotope values showed that the invader had made detectable contributions to soil C. Soil C content, however, was not significantly different between invader-dominated stands (0.42 mg C/g soil) and native vegetation (0.45 mg C/g soil). The discrepancy between enhanced production and lack of soil C changes was attributable to differences in root traits between invader-dominated stands and native vegetation. Relative to native vegetation, roots beneath the invader had 59% more young white tissue, with 80% higher mortality and 19% lower C:N ratios (all P < 0.05). Such patterns have previously been reported for aboveground tissues of invaders, and we show that they are also found belowground. If these root traits occur in other invasive species, then the global phenomenon of increased productivity following biological invasion may not increase soil C storage.     

Transport of NO<Subscript>X</Subscript> Emissions from Sugarcane Fertilisation into the Great Barrier Reef Lagoon

The Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area contains highly sensitive ecosystems that are threatened by the effects of anthropogenic activity including eutrophication. The nearby sugarcane plantations of tropical north Queensland are fertilised annually and there has been ongoing concern about the magnitude of the loss of applied nitrogen to the environment. Previous studies have considered the potential of rainwater run-off to deposit reactive nitrogen species into rivers and ultimately into the Great Barrier Reef Lagoon, but have neglected the possibility of transport via the atmosphere. This paper reports the results of a modelling study commissioned by Australia’s National Heritage Trust aimed at assessing whether or not atmospheric deposition of reactive nitrogen from Queensland’s sugarcane plantations posed a potential threat to the Great Barrier Reef Lagoon. Atmospheric dispersion modelling was undertaken using The Air Pollution Model, developed by Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. Despite the predominance of onshore southeasterly winds, the dispersion model results indicate that 9% of the time during the sugarcane fertilization season (in the modeled years 2001–2006) the meteorological conditions resulted in emissions from the coastal regions of north Queensland being transported out over the ocean around the Great Barrier Reef. The results suggest that there may be a greater efficiency for transport out over the reef during October than for November and December. For the 2 months that exhibited the greatest potential for transport of coastal pollution to the Great Barrier Reef, the modeled deposition of nitrogen oxides (NO_X) into the Great Barrier Reef lagoon was less than 1% of the total emissions from the sugarcane plantations, but was not zero. Our model has a simple chemical scheme that does not cover the full chemistry of all reactive nitrogen compounds and so the results are only indicative of the potential levels of deposition. Nevertheless, our study shows that small amounts of NO_X that originate from sugarcane fertilization may be transported and dry deposited into the Great Barrier Reef lagoon. Other pathways not included in the modeling scheme may provide a more efficient transport mechanism. Whilst modern practices for the application of fertilizer to sugarcane plantations have drastically reduced emissions, the potential efficiency of transport of pollutants via the atmosphere may be of concern for other more highly polluting agricultural industries.