Understanding Dispute Resolution Processes for American and Australian Public Wildlands: Towards a Conceptual Framework for Managers

/ The last 20 years have seen the successful application of environmental dispute resolution processes, where people voluntarily negotiate toward mutually acceptable solutions, to many environmental disputes. The effects of contextual influences, such as the number of parties and presence of deadlines, on outcomes are known and frequently described. Less well documented and understood are the interaction processes themselves. This paper draws on two case studies to develop a conceptual framework describing these processes. Disputes associated with management planning for the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex in the United States and Fitzgerald River National Park in Australia provided the cases. The conceptual framework derived had eight sequential stages: (1) joint definition of problems, (2) uncertainty about what to do, (3) agreement on group procedures, (4) realization of interdependence, (5) enthusiasm about collective possibilities, (6) commitment to working together, (7) consolidation of the group, and (8) implementation of a resolution. The framework provides new insights for managers of public wildlands, especially the need for varying but ongoing managerial involvement in dispute resolution processes. High levels of involvement and influence are essential at the beginning in problem definition and group procedure design and at the end in implementing resolutions. Conversely, agency members must be willing to exert less influence, while still being involved and committed to collective purposes, during the middle stages. Also apparent from the conceptual framework is the importance of developing shared understandings and of allowing sufficient time for understanding to develop, if successful resolution is to be achieved. KEY WORDS: Environmental dispute resolution; Conceptual framework; Public wildlands; Shared understandings; Australia     

Sex or Food? Appetetive Learning of Sex Odors in a Male Moth

Moths learn to associate a flower odor with a food reward after a few learning trials. Can a hungry, male moth learn to associate a sex attractant with food instead of with sex? We provided a hungry male with odors of single female sex pheromone components, of the full sex pheromone blend or of a flower odor component as cues in an appetitive learning assay. The male learned the single pheromone components just as well as the flower odor. Learning was, however, severely impaired when the full sex pheromone blend was used as conditioning stimulus. The "hard-wiring" between pheromone odor and sex thus seems to be restricted to those circumstances when the male moth experiences the full blend.     

Methane emission from lakes

A physico-chemical model to describe methane and carbon dioxide emission from lakes was developed. The model describes the emission by diffusion, bubbles and plants. The intensity of the fluxes can be calculated either for total or particular emission in dependence on gas bubbles composition. It was found, that diffusional (Q) and bubble (J) fluxes depend on the methane molar ratio (X) in bubbles as follows: [formula: see text]. The model allows to estimate the role of the methane oxidation by atmospheric oxygen in the total methane flux. It was shown, that the methane oxidation does not influence much methane fluxes to the atmosphere for most of the experimentally observed situations.     

Temporal and spatial biomonitoring of heavy metals in Hong Kong coastal waters using Tetraclita squamosa

The barnacle Tetraclita squamosa (Crustacea: Cirripedia) was collected from 11 sites in the coastal waters of Hong Kong during three consecutive seasons, i.e. summer 1996, winter 1996-1997 and summer 1997. Barnacle soft tissues were analysed for cadmium, copper, manganese, iron and zinc using inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrophotometry. Analysis of covariance allowed inter-seasonal (temporal) and inter-site (spatial) comparisons of soft tissue metal concentrations to be made, from which bioavailabilities to T. squamosa have been inferred. Inter-seasonal variation was not greater than intra-seasonal and, therefore, seasonal variation in soft tissue metal concentrations can be considered relatively unimportant. Data were, however, characterised by high temporal variability. Spatial variation in metal bioavailabilities were consistent with earlier studies: cadmium soft tissue concentrations were elevated in barnacles collected from low salinity western waters, while copper and zinc concentrations were elevated in the urban-fringed central waters, in particular at one site, i.e. Aberdeen. In general, metal concentrations were much lower in barnacles collected from eastern water sites.     

Effect of manganese on the concentration of amino acids in different regions of the rat brain

The present study was designed to determine if chronic exposure of weanlings and adult rats to Mn produces significant alterations in amino acid concentrations in different regions of the rat brain. Weanling (30 day old) and adult (90 day old) male rats were exposed to 10 and 20 mg Mn/kg body weight per day, by gavage, for 30 days. Forty-eight hours after the last dose, animals were sacrificed by decapitation and brains were dissected into different regions to determine the concentration of amino acids by HPLC/EC. A dose dependent decrease in body weight gain was found in the adult, but not in the weanling rats. Significant increases occurred in concentrations of aspartate, glutamate, glutamine, taurine and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) in the cerebellum of the adult rats dosed with 20 mg/kg per day, Mn. A significant decrease in the concentration of glutamine was observed in caudate nucleus and hippocampus of weanling rats dosed with 10 mg/kg, Mn. These data suggest that chronic Mn exposure can produce a decrease in body weight gain in adult rats and alterations in amino acids in different regions of weanling and adult rat brains.     

Depolarising the 'Broadened' and 'Back-to-basics' Relief Models

Prompted by the calls in recent years to link relief practice to peace-building, development, or both, several conferences and papers have recently mounted a strong critique, seeing these 'broadenings' of relief as 'eroding' or 'corrupting' core humanitarian principles and playing into neo-isolationist agendas to slash humanitarianism. This paper argues that whereas these critiques have important goals in mind when they encourage a concentration on the basics of relief, there has been a loss of subtlety in the ensuing debate. Considering each element of the debate in turn, the paper argues that there is more common ground between 'new' and 'old', 'broadened' and 'basics' relief than at first appears. In concluding, it is argued that further research on key questions, and an openness to hear all perspectives will get us further than entrenched positions and rallying cries.     

Planning for cooler cities: a plan quality evaluation for Urban Heat Island consideration

ABSTRACT

City strategic plans and enabling policies provide a framework for and inform future development across multiple scales. An exemplar city strategic plan will be one based on evidence, enabled by complementary policy outcomes, and built on the knowledge of the existing landscape. This study evaluated the plan quality of eighteen metropolitan strategic plans for city members in the 100 Resilient Cities initiative. A protocol was developed containing thirty-two indicators to assess plans capacity to act as a strategic planning tool to develop, analyse and implement strategies for the Urban Heat Island (UHI) and climate change mitigation and adaptation. The evaluation indicated that strategies addressing the UHI are rarely included in metropolitan plans. Strategic plans showed a lack of evidence-base to inform the potential actions. Urban warming is often linked to extreme weather events anticipated under climate change, not the UHI as a systemic and increasing phenomenon. We recommend that the pathway to addressing UHI mitigation and adaptation may lie in its nexus to aspects of climate change that concurrently can serve to support liveable and resilient cities.     

Holarctic Collared Lemmings: Traces of Their Spread as Related to the History of the Arctic Biota

Among recent lemmings (D. torquatus from the Yamal Peninsula and D. groenlandicus from Somerset, Bathurst, Melville, and Devon islands), there are populations with archaic sets of morphotypes characteristic of the end of the Late Pleistocene. In some parts of the species range, lemming morphotypes follow the pattern characteristic of the Holocene stage of their evolution. Lemmings with the best developed tooth system live in the Bering Sea sector of the Arctic (Wrangel Island, Chukotka and Alaska). The correspondence of the boundaries of the groups distinguished by odontological traits to the phylogeographic data on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and chromosomal groups is discussed.     

Phenogenetic Analysis of Pygmy Wood Mouse (Apodemus uralensis Pall.) Populations in the Zone of the Eastern Ural Radioactive Trace (EURT)

Monitoring of A. uralensis populations in Kamenskii raion, Sverdlovsk oblast, in 1992–2002 and in Kaslinskii raion, Chelyabinsk oblast, in 2000–2001 revealed an increase in the proportion and diversity of minor morphogenetic aberrations and abnormalities in the structure of the cranium along the axis of the Eastern Ural Radioactive Trace (EURT). The samples from the southern and northern parts of the EURT (contaminated with ⁹⁰Sr to 500 and 4 Ci/km², respectively) were characterized by directed deviations from the control with respect to the frequencies of phenes of nonmetric cranial traits and an increase in the level of their fluctuating asymmetry in young females, which is indicative of epigenetic rearrangements in populations living in a radioactive environment.