REDD+ and forest tenure security: concerns in Nepal’s community forestry

As one of the dominant large-scale mechanisms proposed to combat climate change, biodiversity loss, and rural poverty, REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) has added further complexity to the challenging governance of rights and resources in global forests. As REDD+ is commodifying carbon, concerns emerge about how carbon ownership and its rights can be accommodated into the existing framework that governs local forest resource rights. The Nepalese government has formally entered into REDD+ policy preparations, but it lacks clear legal provisions regarding key forest tenure rights such as carbon ownership, benefit sharing, and the political participation of community forest user groups from national to local. As a result, Nepal’s policy process points toward performance-based carbon forestry in a way that may undermine and weaken existing community tenure rights and forest tenure security.

This paper discusses Nepal’s potential impacts of new REDD+ and carbon ownership arrangements on forest tenure security and community-based forest governance. In a threefold methodological approach, the paper presents three scenarios for a REDD+-oriented tenure reform within the existing framework and assesses their concerns through in-depth qualitative interviews with key stakeholders, representatives, and advocates of Nepal’s community forestry system, complemented by a review of government documents and academic literature of REDD+ lessons so far. The analysis identifies critical concerns for forest tenure security, state-community power relationships, and effective local institutions of the commons, and suggests that Nepal’s REDD+ process is taking place at a particularly consequential time for structural changes of the forest governance framework.     

Evaluation of potential responses to invasive non-native species with structured decision making

In managing invasions and colonizations of non-native species, eradication or control efforts must proceed quickly. There are 2 challenges in taking such quick action. First, managers frequently have to choose among complex and often competing environmental, social, and economic objectives. Second, the effects are highly uncertain. We applied participatory structured decision making (SDM) to develop a response plan for the recent invasion of non-native myrtle rust (Uredo rangelii) in Australia. Structured decision making breaks a complex decision process into 5 steps: identify problems (i.e., decisions to be made), formulate objectives, develop management alternatives, estimate consequences of implementing those alternatives, and select preferred alternatives by evaluating trade-offs among alternatives. To determine the preferred mid- to long-term alternatives to managing the rust, we conducted 2 participatory workshops and 18 interviews with individuals to elicit stakeholders' key concerns and convert them into 5 objectives (minimize management cost, minimize economic cost to industry, minimize effects on natural ecosystems and landscape amenities, and minimize environmental effects associated with use of fungicide) and to identify the 5 management alternatives (full eradication, partial eradication, slow spread, live with it [i.e., major effort invested in mitigation of effects], and do nothing). We also developed decision trees to graphically represent the essence of the decision by displaying the relations between uncertainties and decision points. In the short term or before local expansion of myrtle rust, the do-nothing alternative was not preferred, but an eradication alternative was only recommended if the probability of eradication exceeded about 40%. After the expansion of myrtle rust, the slow-the-spread alternative was preferred regardless of which of the short-term management alternatives was selected at an earlier stage. The participatory SDM approach effectively resulted in informed and transparent response plans that incorporated multiple objectives in decision-making processes under high uncertainty.     

建筑业的环境污染与防治对策

在对建筑业的施工噪声、建筑粉尘、建筑垃圾和固体废弃物等方面进行重点分析的基础上,结合当今全面建设小康社会的要求,就建筑业的环境污染提出了相应的防治对策,旨在提高政府、企业、广大群众对建筑业环境污染的重视和对环境保护的积极参与,促进建筑业环境污染治理。     

欧盟各国废钢铁用量和国际贸易

近年来,欧盟各国的废钢铁贸易十分活跃。根据《欧盟27国废钢铁贸易统计》2012的统计,列出欧盟各国2010年的粗钢产量、炼钢用废钢量、国际贸易量以及欧盟成员国之间的废钢铁贸易量,供行业参考。     

Comments on “turbulent velocity profile in fully-developed open channel flows”

In a recent paper published in this journal, Bonakdari et al. (Environ Fluid Mech 8:1–17, 2008) presented a new formulation of the vertical velocity profile in the central portion of steady fully developed turbulent open-channel flows which is based on an analysis of the Navier–Stokes equations. The predicted mean streamwise velocity profiles presented by the authors represent dip phenomenon (maximum velocity below the free surface). The discusser would like to point out some contradictions and an error in the main demonstration. This error appears in the right-hand side term of the main Eq. 22 (Environ Fluid Mech 8:1–17, 2008) in the parameter α. Our corrected demonstration shows that α is equal to and not to as obtained by the authors (Environ Fluid Mech 8:1–17, 2008). The values of α used by the authors are under-estimated by 1, this difference has a significant effect on velocities and therefore will involve a difference between measured and predicted velocity profiles. Finally, the assumption of at the free surface is in contradiction with predicted velocity profiles.     

Tracking Chinese newspaper coverage of elephant ivory through topic modeling

Mass media worldwide has contributed to increasing awareness of the illegal wildlife trade and its significant impact on wildlife conservation. We used mass media coverage as a proxy for macro-level public opinion to analyze the media framing of elephant ivory in 6394 Chinese newspaper articles published from 2000 to 2021 and thus determine the effects of wildlife policies on public opinion. We focused on 2 events: the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) approval of China as a trading partner in the purchase and import of ivory stockpiles from Africa in July 2008 and the Chinese government's announcement of a domestic ivory ban in December 2016. Using latent Dirichlet allocation topic modeling, we identified 8 topics about elephant ivory and grouped them into 3 frames: ivory arts and culture, ivory crimes, and elephant conservation. Over the last 2 decades, topics related to ivory crimes remained the most prevalent in news articles. Topics about ivory arts and culture showed a significant shift in media salience before and after the 2 events (from 0.44 to 0.19 and from 0.08 to 0.15, respectively, p < 0.05), whereas the other 2 frames did not change significantly. Contrary to popular belief, our results indicated that Chinese macro-level public opinion on ivory had become more negative following the CITES approval of ivory importation and less negative after the ivory ban announcement, at least for certain periods. The relationship between mass media, public opinion, and wildlife trade policies is complex and requires further examination of the sociopolitical dynamics that influence media narratives. Our results showed the value of topic modeling in monitoring and assessing media representations of wildlife issues in the era of big data. Conservationists should remain vigilant of mass media coverage and collaborate with media practitioners to produce comprehensive narratives on wildlife issues if resources permit.     

活性白土对餐饮业废油脂脱色工艺的探索

选用活性白土对餐饮业废油脂进行脱色研究,对脱色率的影响因素进行了讨论。摸索出活性白土的最佳脱色条件：活性白土用量5％;初始脱色温度60C;终止脱色温度120C;脱色时间25min。     

经济全球化对我国工业污染的影响

本文从定性描述和定量描述的角度，就外商投资和国际贸易对我国工业污染的影响进行分析。通过研究发现，从总体上看。外商投资和国际贸易对我国环境污染的影响不大，且有逐渐减缓的趋势。但就具体产业而言，外商投资确有转移污染的倾向，而且环境影响具有长期性和不确定性，所以，对外资和外贸必须进行严格的环境管理，以确保我国经济的持续、稳定发展。     

Application of Eichhornia crassipes and Pistia stratiotes for treatment of urban sewage in Israel

The effectiveness of sewage purification by aquatic plants, such as water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) and water lettuce (Pistia stratiotes), was tested on laboratory and pilot scales. Cascade and semi-continuous pilot experiments verified that the plants are capable of decreasing all tested indicators of water quality to levels that permit the use of the purified water for irrigation of tree crops. This applies to biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), total suspended solids (TSS), and turbidity. The laboratory-scale tests confirm the capacity of the plants to reach and hold reasonably low levels of BOD (5-7 mg L(-1)) and COD (40-50 mg L(-1)) and very low levels of TSS (3-5 mg L(-1)) and turbidity (1-2 NTU). In the experimental pilot setup, with circulation, COD decreased from 460 to 100 mg L(-1) after 2.5-4 days of treatment, while 6-7 days were required to this end without circulation. This doubled the active pond area and provided a two-level hydraulic loading (8 and 12 L min(-1)) with circulation that proved to be effective during the summer as well as the winter season. The outflow concentrations were 50-85 mg L(-1) of COD and 4-6 mg L(-1) of BOD. The results show that the use of this free water surface flow system (FWS) and its low maintenance system for treatment of urban and agricultural sewage is a viable option.     

ISO14000系列环境管理国际标准概述

概述了ISO14000系列环境管理国际标准的内容、分类、特点及其作用。介绍了企业实施该系列标准所应采取的步骤和措施。该系列标准由环境管理体系、环境行为评价、生命周期评估、环境管理、产品标准中的环境因素等系列组成,可指导企业表现正确的环境行为,提升企业的竞争力。