西部地区旅游业发展水平评价及发展对策

在2004—2007年旅游统计数据的基础上,运用主成分分析法对西部地区旅游业发展水平进行了综合评价。结果表明,尽管西部地区旅游资源优势明显,但旅游业发展的整体水平还较低,旅游资源优势尚未充分转化为经济优势,且各地区旅游业发展水平差异较大。基于上述分析,结合西部地区实际情况和旅游业的未来发展趋势,提出加快西部地区旅游业发展的对策和建议。     

Potential for childhood lead poisoning in the inner cities of Australia due to exposure to lead in soil dust

This article presents evidence demonstrating that the historical use of leaded gasoline and lead (Pb) in exterior paints in Australia has contaminated urban soils in the older inner suburbs of large cities such as Sydney and Melbourne. While significant attention has been focused on Pb poisoning in mining and smelting towns in Australia, relatively little research has focused on exposure to Pb originating from inner-city soil dust and its potential for childhood Pb exposures. Due to a lack of systematic blood lead (PbB) screening and geochemical soil Pb mapping in the inner cities of Australia, the risks from environmental Pb exposure remain unconstrained within urban population centres.     

Management of traditional hunting of dugongs [Dugong dugon (Müller, 1776)] in the northern Great Barrier Reef,Australia

Some of the largest concentrations of dugongs (Dugong dugon) occur in the coastal waters of eastern Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, Designation of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park has prompted the development of a program for management of dugong hunting by the aboriginal communities of the region. Assessment of the population by aerial surveys combined with monitoring of the aboriginal hunters' harvest suggest that the take is well below the sustainable yield. However, the reproductive rate of dugongs is so low that it will be a decade before the status of the population can be established. Therefore, a conservative management policy for dugongs is recommended while acknowledging the rights of traditional hunters. Greater participation of the aboriginal communities in the management program is sought to overcome initial misunderstandings and hostility.     

Systematizing the production of environmental plans: an Australian example

Environmental planning legislation in New South Wales now requires local government authorities to draw up statutory plans that take into account, among other concerns, both the biophysical and the social environmental issues within their jurisdictions. The SIRO-PLAN method of plan production provides a systematic mechanism for fulfilling this requirement. This article describes the application of the method by planning researchers over 18 months to the production of a Local Environmental Plan for a rural local government in New South Wales. The policy formulation, the purposive data collection, and the deliberate adjustment of plans in order to recognize interest group requirements were all found to be valuable features of the method, while the translation of the ultimately chosen land-use plan into the explicit regulatory controls available to the local government authority was found to require further refinement. The capacity of SIRO-PLAN to quantify the resolution of competing environmental concerns in the final plan, although of value to planning researchers, proved too arcane for traditionally trained planners.     

西部大开发中的新疆生态环境建设

新疆地处祖国西北边陲，其国土面积、资源储备和战略地位都在西部开发中居于重要地位。长期以来，由于人们对自然资源的不合理利用，加之经济发展滞后，使得该地区的生态环境遭到严重破坏，土地沙漠化、水土流失、森林、草场严重退化。正确认识和评价新疆的生态环境现状及其承载力，制定遏制生态环境恶化的有效方法，促进生态系统的良性循环，实现人与自然的和谐统一，是西部大开发中实现新疆经济、社会可持续发展的基础。     

Mobilising social energy against environmental challenge: understanding the groundwater recharge movement in western India

This paper explores a large-scale and growing popular movement to augment groundwater recharge in the Saurashtra region of western India, an area that has been facing acute water scarcity and other associated problems. As a social phenomenon, the movement is at an early stage of its development. However, it is interesting to study it for many reasons. First, even a decade after it began, it is still growing in scale and following. Second, it is entirely spontaneous and internally driven, necessitating no public resources or support. Third, early indications are that its social and ecological impacts are beneficial and highly significant. Fourth, the movement was catalysed and spearheaded by spiritual and religious institutions, which made ingenious use of non-economic messages and motivators in forging a new natural resource ethic based on a broad, collective rationality among movement members. It appears, however, that beyond a threshold, the movement acquired a logic and energy of its own which might fuel its future sustainability and growth. Finally, the movement has important lessons to offer because mobilising social energy on such a scale and intensity can perhaps be one of most effective responses to many of the environmental challenges the world faces today.     

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     

Impacts after four years of experimental trampling on alpine/sub-alpine environments in western Tasmania

Experimental trials were undertaken over four years to assess the impact of recreational trampling in undisturbed alpine and sub-alpine vegetation communities in the Western Arthur Range, western Tasmania. Data on 'pad' formation due to human trampling were collected using vegetation cover assessments, biomass estimates and detailed cross-sectional surface profiles. In sub-alpine buttongrass and alpine herbfield, prolonged and sustained damage may occur after 100 passes by walkers. The environmental threshold of the flat alpine herbfield site was breached after 200 passes. Plant morphology was one determinant of resistance and resilience, with upright woody shrubs and tall tussock graminoids most vulnerable to sustained trampling damage. Cushions are susceptible to trampling impacts at 500 passes. Loss of vegetation cover peaks 6-12 months after trampling. Our results show that pads formed with as few as 30-100 passes per annum and tracks form at between 100 and 500 passes per annum. Two years after the cessation of trampling, there is some small recovery in vegetation cover after 30 and 100 passes per annum applied for three years, but no evidence of recovery at the 500 pass treatments. The low trampling threshold and slow recovery rates in western Tasmania suggest that concentrating walkers on a minimal number of sites may be the best management option for these untracked alpine and sub-alpine environments.     

Testing hypotheses about management to enhance habitat for feeding birds in a freshwater wetland

The level of water was manipulated in a freshwater wetland, with the aim of enhancing abundances of benthic animals and, ultimately, improving habitat for feeding birds (Japanese Snipe, Gallinago hardwickii). We tested whether these actions had the predicted and desired effects on benthic animals, by contrasting changes in two managed locations to one control location which was left unmanipulated. The number of taxa and abundances of chironomids decreased strongly and significantly in the manipulated locations, while the abundance of oligochaetes appeared to vary in a seasonal manner. Temporal variability of the structure and composition of assemblages was also increased in manipulated locations. Such effects have previously been suggested to indicate stress in benthic assemblages. Therefore, in contrast to what was predicted, managerial actions made benthic fauna less abundant and thus, less suitable as habitat for feeding birds. Several general lessons can be learned from these results. (1) Effects of managerial actions like these are difficult to predict a priori and can only be reliably evaluated with an experimental framework. (2) Because abundances of animals vary naturally, evaluations of managerial actions must include appropriate spatial replication. (3) Sampling at hierarchical temporal scales is important, because abundances of animals may vary in an unpredictable manner at short temporal scales and because changes in temporal variability may be a symptom of stress. (4) Combined use of uni- and multivariate techniques provides a comprehensive set of tools to assess the effects of restoration and creation of new habitats. Finally, these results emphasise the need for clear predictions about desired outcomes and specific experimental plans about how to test whether the desired results were achieved, before managerial actions are taken. Although this is often very difficult to achieve in real situations, it is necessary for practices of management to evolve on the basis of sound empirical experience.     

Integrated Resource Management: Moving from Rhetoric to Practice in Australian Agriculture

/ Implementing the concept of sustainability through integrated approaches to natural resource management poses enormous challenges for both the rural communities and government agencies concerned. This paper reviews the underlying rhetoric of sustainable agricultural systems and the integrated resource management paradigm and identifies some of the challenges being experienced in translating this rhetoric into practice. A relatively recently implemented community-based integrated catchment management (ICM) process in a rural community in northeast Australia is examined in terms of some of the lessons learned that may be relevant to other similar integrated resource management (IRM) processes. It reveals a pragmatic, opportunistic, and evolving implementation process based on adaptive learning rather than a more traditional "rational" planning approach. Some essential characteristics of a community-based IRM process are identified, including fostering communication; providing a structure that fosters cooperation and facilities coordination among community, industry, and government agencies; the integration of IRM principles into local government planning schemes; and an emergent strategic approach to IRM program implementation. We conclude by identifying some essential characteristics of an IRM process that can assist a community to adapt to, and manage change for, sustainable resource use.