Food justice youth development: using Photovoice to study urban school food systems*

How do youth learn through participation in efforts to study and change the school food system? Through our participatory youth action research (YPAR) project, we move beyond the “youth as consumer” frame to a food justice youth development (FJYD) approach. We track how a group of youth learned about food and the public policy process through their efforts to transform their own school food systems by conducting a participatory evaluation of farm-to-school efforts in collaboration with university and community partners. We used the Photovoice research method, placing cameras in the hands of young people so that they themselves could document and discuss their concerns and perspectives. The research was designed to gain insight about youths’ knowledge of food, health, and community food systems. Drawing upon the youth group’s insights, we build a framework for building critical consciousness through FJYD.     

An interdisciplinary review of current and future approaches to improving human–predator relations

In a world of shrinking habitats and increasing competition for natural resources, potentially dangerous predators bring the challenges of coexisting with wildlife sharply into focus. Through interdisciplinary collaboration among authors trained in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences, we reviewed current approaches to mitigating adverse human–predator encounters and devised a vision for future approaches to understanding and mitigating such encounters. Limitations to current approaches to mitigation include too much focus on negative impacts; oversimplified equating of levels of damage with levels of conflict; and unsuccessful technical fixes resulting from failure to engage locals, address hidden costs, or understand cultural (nonscientific) explanations of the causality of attacks. An emerging interdisciplinary literature suggests that to better frame and successfully mitigate negative human–predator relations conservation professionals need to consider dispensing with conflict as the dominant framework for thinking about human–predator encounters; work out what conflicts are really about (they may be human–human conflicts); unravel the historical contexts of particular conflicts; and explore different cultural ways of thinking about animals. The idea of cosmopolitan natures may help conservation professionals think more clearly about human–predator relations in both local and global context. These new perspectives for future research practice include a recommendation for focused interdisciplinary research and the use of new approaches, including human‐animal geography, multispecies ethnography, and approaches from the environmental humanities notably environmental history. Managers should think carefully about how they engage with local cultural beliefs about wildlife, work with all parties to agree on what constitutes good evidence, develop processes and methods to mitigate conflicts, and decide how to monitor and evaluate these. Demand for immediate solutions that benefit both conservation and development favors dispute resolution and technical fixes, which obscures important underlying drivers of conflicts. If these drivers are not considered, well‐intentioned efforts focused on human–wildlife conflicts will fail.     

Arts as a vehicle for community building and post‐disaster development

Use of the arts in international aid is common in an ad hoc form, but it has not been systematically theorised or evaluated. The arts have the potential to be a culturally contextualised and sustainable intervention for adults and children in the aftermath of war or disaster. On the micro level, the arts are a method to enable the retrieval and reprocessing of traumatic memories that are often encoded in images rather than in words. On a macro level, they can help to reconstruct a group narrative of a disaster as well as mobilise people back into control of their lives. This paper researches a long‐term project using arts in Sri Lanka following the civil war and tsunami. A central finding is the need to understand arts within their cultural context, and their usefulness in strengthening the voices and problem‐solving capacities of the victims of the disaster.     

A Guide to Understanding Social Science Research for Natural Scientists

Natural scientists are increasingly interested in social research because they recognize that conservation problems are commonly social problems. Interpreting social research, however, requires at least a basic understanding of the philosophical principles and theoretical assumptions of the discipline, which are embedded in the design of social research. Natural scientists who engage in social science but are unfamiliar with these principles and assumptions can misinterpret their results. We developed a guide to assist natural scientists in understanding the philosophical basis of social science to support the meaningful interpretation of social research outcomes. The 3 fundamental elements of research are ontology, what exists in the human world that researchers can acquire knowledge about; epistemology, how knowledge is created; and philosophical perspective, the philosophical orientation of the researcher that guides her or his action. Many elements of the guide also apply to the natural sciences. Natural scientists can use the guide to assist them in interpreting social science research to determine how the ontological position of the researcher can influence the nature of the research; how the epistemological position can be used to support the legitimacy of different types of knowledge; and how philosophical perspective can shape the researcher's choice of methods and affect interpretation, communication, and application of results. The use of this guide can also support and promote the effective integration of the natural and social sciences to generate more insightful and relevant conservation research outcomes. Una Guía para Entender la Investigación de Ciencias Sociales para las Ciencias Naturales Katie Moon     

When and how to use Q methodology to understand perspectives in conservation research

Understanding human perspectives is critical in a range of conservation contexts, for example, in overcoming conflicts or developing projects that are acceptable to relevant stakeholders. The Q methodology is a unique semiquantitative technique used to explore human perspectives. It has been applied for decades in other disciplines and recently gained traction in conservation. This paper helps researchers assess when Q is useful for a given conservation question and what its use involves. To do so, we explained the steps necessary to conduct a Q study, from the research design to the interpretation of results. We provided recommendations to minimize biases in conducting a Q study, which can affect mostly when designing the study and collecting the data. We conducted a structured literature review of 52 studies to examine in what empirical conservation contexts Q has been used. Most studies were subnational or national cases, but some also address multinational or global questions. We found that Q has been applied to 4 broad types of conservation goals: addressing conflict, devising management alternatives, understanding policy acceptability, and critically reflecting on the values that implicitly influence research and practice. Through these applications, researchers found hidden views, understood opinions in depth and discovered points of consensus that facilitated unlocking difficult disagreements. The Q methodology has a clear procedure but is also flexible, allowing researchers explore long‐term views, or views about items other than statements, such as landscape images. We also found some inconsistencies in applying and, mainly, in reporting Q studies, whereby it was not possible to fully understand how the research was conducted or why some atypical research decisions had been taken in some studies. Accordingly, we suggest a reporting checklist.     

The role of digital data entry in participatory environmental monitoring

Many argue that monitoring conducted exclusively by scientists is insufficient to address ongoing environmental challenges. One solution entails the use of mobile digital devices in participatory monitoring (PM) programs. But how digital data entry affects programs with varying levels of stakeholder participation, from nonscientists collecting field data to nonscientists administering every step of a monitoring program, remains unclear. We reviewed the successes, in terms of management interventions and sustainability, of 107 monitoring programs described in the literature (hereafter programs) and compared these with case studies from our PM experiences in Australia, Canada, Ethiopia, Ghana, Greenland, and Vietnam (hereafter cases). Our literature review showed that participatory programs were less likely to use digital devices, and 2 of our 3 more participatory cases were also slow to adopt digital data entry. Programs that were participatory and used digital devices were more likely to report management actions, which was consistent with cases in Ethiopia, Greenland, and Australia. Programs engaging volunteers were more frequently reported as ongoing, but those involving digital data entry were less often sustained when data collectors were volunteers. For the Vietnamese and Canadian cases, sustainability was undermined by a mismatch in stakeholder objectives. In the Ghanaian case, complex field protocols diminished monitoring sustainability. Innovative technologies attract interest, but the foundation of effective participatory adaptive monitoring depends more on collaboratively defined questions, objectives, conceptual models, and monitoring approaches. When this foundation is built through effective partnerships, digital data entry can enable the collection of more data of higher quality. Without this foundation, or when implemented ineffectively or unnecessarily, digital data entry can be an additional expense that distracts from core monitoring objectives and undermines project sustainability. The appropriate role of digital data entry in PM likely depends more on the context in which it is used and less on the technology itself.     

碳排放影响因子与碳足迹文献综述:基于研究方法视角

从研究方法的角度出发,对近年来国内外碳排放影响因子及碳足迹的相关研究进行文献综述。根据碳排放影响因子的研究方法—情景分析法、因素分解法中的指数分解法以及其他计量模型,介绍了国内外关于碳排放影响因子的研究现状,最后对方法进行归类和对比。根据碳足迹研究方法—投入产出法、生命周期评价法、IPCC法以及其他模型,分析了国内外关于碳足迹的研究进展。最后通过总结,对碳排放和碳足迹的未来研究方向进行了展望。     

绿色会计视角下能源企业的成本核算优化研究

针对绿色会计视角下能源企业的成本核算优化,介绍了绿色会计视角下能源企业的成本核算,由于能源企业的发展,对环境产生了巨大危害,也导致能源企业由于本身成本过高,这才提出绿色会计,这样才能优化能源企业的成本,可以保证能源企业的可持续发展;同时,也保障了能源企业生态的稳定建设.基于绿色会计视角,探讨了能源企业的绿色成本优化研究,主要包括能源企业坚持绿色会计,确定绿色成本原则,能源企业绿色成本优化条件和能源企业加强绿色会计实践.     

水环境中抗生素污染的研究进展

中国是抗生素使用大国,但由于现有的污水处理技术不能有效的降解水环境中的抗生素,导致环境中抗生素含量不断增高,各种抗性基因不断产生,抗生素的有效利用率不断降低,对疾病的治愈率也越来越低,而新的抗生素的研发速度又远远慢于细菌的传播速度,因此抗生素污染的扩大严重威胁着人类健康.综述了抗生素的来源与危害,国内外抗生素的污染现状以及相应的政策措施,并对人类健康进行展望.     

发展乡村旅游对乡村生态环境影响研究

针对发展乡村旅游对乡村生态环境的影响,介绍了乡村旅游的发展现状,探讨了乡村旅游发展对乡村环境的影响,主要包括乡村旅游带来的环境问题分析和环境问题的原因分析,乡村旅游作为旅游行业一支新生力量,异军突起,在中国已形成很大的发展趋势.发展乡村旅游可以提高农民收入、合理利用乡村资源,提出对策建议,主要是充分发挥政府职能,建立健全乡村环境保护体系,制定合理的乡村旅游发展规划,加强乡村旅游的环境管理,为乡村旅游发展提出了对策建议.