Do Open-Cycle Hatcheries Relying on Tourism Conserve Sea Turtles? Sri Lankan Developments and Economic–Ecological Considerations

By combining economic analysis of markets with ecological parameters, this article considers the role that tourism-based sea turtle hatcheries (of an open-cycle type) can play in conserving populations of sea turtles. Background is provided on the nature and development of such hatcheries in Sri Lanka. The modeling facilitates the assessment of the impacts of turtle hatcheries on the conservation of sea turtles and enables the economic and ecological consequences of tourism, based on such hatcheries, to be better appreciated. The results demonstrate that sea turtle hatcheries serving tourists can make a positive contribution to sea turtle conservation, but that their conservation effectiveness depends on the way they are managed. Possible negative effects are also identified. Economic market models are combined with turtle population survival relationships to predict the conservation impact of turtle hatcheries and their consequence for the total economic value obtained from sea turtle populations.     

Potentials for Combating Desertification in Hunshandak Sandland Through Nature Reserve

Desertification directly threatens more than 250 million people and one third of the earths land surface. Although it is well known that desertification could be reversed in most cases if the intensity of land use were reduced, there have been no studies on how to achieve this reversed desertification on a large scale. We conducted a case study in Hunshandak Sandland of North China, exploring how creation of a nature reserve might aid restoration of a degraded ecosystem. Experimental data indicated that desertified regions, if designated as a nature reserve, could be restored with conservation of biodiversity. The buffer zones in moderately desertified lands could serve as a base for forage production and/or ecotourism industry. The construction of ecologically designed towns (ecotowns) in transition zones could accommodate migrants moved from core zones so as to develop stock production, related industry, and ecotourism, enabling both economic and environmental development. Up to now, 5778 local inhabitants in the core zones of Zhenglan Banner (county) in the Hunshandak Sandland have been moved out of the severely degraded areas with the financial assistance of the central government. Those people have been moved into three eco-towns of the Banner with an objective of greatly enhancing the economic and social status while restoring the degraded sandlands.     

论自然保护区旅游活动的生态影响

自然保护区逐渐打破传统的消极保护模式，寻求保护与发展的协调，开展起旅游活动，但由此带来的生态影响不容忽视。本文从建立自然保护区的主要目的出发，就旅游活动对生物多样性及生态景观的影响进行分析，认为在自然保护区开展旅游活动，要对旅游活动强度与游客量进行合理控制，按照生态旅游的方法进行合理规划与管理，使保护区获得可持续发展。     

安全文化建设在首钢大石河铁矿运用的体会

首钢大石河铁矿坚持“以人为本” ,大力加强“安全文化”建设 ,为职工的生命安全营造了绿色屏障     

大丰风电场建设对盐城自然保护区的生态影响分析

研究了大丰风电场一期、二期工程对盐城沿海湿地珍禽国家级自然保护区的生态影响.结果表明,在自然保护区实验区内建风电场会改变自然保护区生态结构和功能,使生物量减少,鸟类栖息地丧失,物种多样性下降,景观破碎化.提出了对策措施,以降低由于风电场的建设对自然保护区造成的生态影响.     

The 2014 Walrus Haul Out: A Case Study of Selective Exposure to Environmental News Coverage

In this article we examine in real time the political selective exposure process involved when the public confronted the “walrus haul out” of October 2014, a news event attributed by some climate change researchers to the effects of the climate change-driven reduction of Arctic sea ice. Analyzing data assessing the amount of major TV and cable news network coverage of the haul out, and evaluating public opinion data collected from a rolling cross-sectional survey of US adults take at the time, we show that coverage of this event was not equitably distributed across news media news sources, that exposure to news source is related to the respondents’ ideological dispositions, and that exposure to coverage of the walrus haul out is related to ideology, the selectivity of political news habits, and climate change knowledge. We conclude with a discussion of the apparent inevitability of selective exposure to media coverage of climate change-related events and the implications for effective climate change communication.     

Wistful wilderness: communication about ‘new’ nature in the Netherlands

Based on in-depth interviews, this article presents findings of a study centred on public communication regarding Tiengemeten, a Dutch island previously occupied by farmers. An answer is sought to the question of how visitors to Tiengemeten evaluate, according to their own experiences, the discourse of people involved in Tiengemeten from a policy and communication perspective. This study showed that visitors’ experiences do not always match the emotions appealed to in public communication materials. It is also suggested that people involved from a policy and communication perspective should refrain from using ‘heavily value-laden’ phraseology. For reasons of trust, this article suggests aligning public communication with genuine experiences of visitors. This is also necessary for avoiding scepticism of visitors as policy makers and communication professionals run a risk that public communication regarding nature becomes counterproductive.     

唐家河保护区主要植被类型景观格局的梯度分析

在遥感图像基础上,利用GIS技术从景观指数方面定量分析了唐家河自然保护区主要植被类型在东西、南北和西北至东南3个方向上的梯度变化。结果表明：次生落叶阔叶林、常绿落叶阔叶混交林、针阔叶混交林与针叶林的梯度变化明显,并且在各方向上具有不同的变化特征。其中,常绿落叶阔叶混交林从西北至东南方向的梯度变化最为复杂, 斑块数量与面积分别呈“升-降-升-降”与“升-降-升”的波动变化趋势,而边界密度与平均最近距离呈先升后降的变化趋势,两端破碎度高但连接性好,中部相反。针叶林从北至南的梯度变化最为简单,斑块面积减少,破碎度与复杂度降低,南北两端分布较多,中部较少。唐家河自然保护区植被景观格局在不同方向上的梯度变化研究为地震后该地区的植被保护与管理提供重要指导意义。     

Environmental history: A piece in the puzzle for establishing plans for environmental management

Establishment of plans for environmental planning and management requires that a number of natural and societal factors must be taken into consideration. Insights into the inherent dynamics of nature as well as the role that past human activities have played for establishing the current condition of the landscape and the natural environment in general are essential. Many natural and man-made changes occur over time scales of decades or centuries, and these are difficult to comprehend without a historical perspective. Such a perspective can be obtained using palaeoecological studies, i.e. by geochemical and biological analyses of lake sediment and peat deposits. To illustrate the long-term dynamics of nature and particularly the role of man, we present here five case studies from Sweden concerning pollution, lake acidification, lake eutrophication, biodiversity, and landscape dynamics and conservation – topics of broad interests – and discuss benefits of including a longer time perspective in environmental management.     

Transaction Costs Economics of Irreplaceability: <Emphasis Type="Italic">ex ante</Emphasis> and <Emphasis Type="Italic">ex post</Emphasis> Evaluation of Conservation Networks’ Vulnerability to Environmental Shocks

The theoretical concept, “asset specificity,” is applied to real data in the context of Danish nature conservation network planning in order to produce illustrative examples of an economic measure of the network’s vulnerability to exogenous shocks to the species composition. Three different measures of asset specificity are quantified from the shadow value of eliminating a key species from the individual grid cells. This represents a novel approach and a different interpretation of the term, as it is conventionally used as a qualitative indicator in the transaction cost economics literature. Apart from supplementing existing cost measures with an indicator of risk associated with investments in protected areas, this study demonstrates how the estimation and interpretation of various asset specificity measures for geographical areas may qualify policy makers’ choice of policy instrument in conservation planning. This differs from the more intuitive approach of basing policy instrument choice solely on the rarity of the species in a given area.