Ecological and Economic Services Provided by Birds on Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee Farms

Abstract: Coffee farms can support significant biodiversity, yet intensification of farming practices is degrading agricultural habitats and compromising ecosystem services such as biological pest control. The coffee berry borer (Hypothenemus hampei) is the world's primary coffee pest. Researchers have demonstrated that birds reduce insect abundance on coffee farms but have not documented avian control of the berry borer or quantified avian benefits to crop yield or farm income. We conducted a bird‐exclosure experiment on coffee farms in the Blue Mountains, Jamaica, to measure avian pest control of berry borers, identify potential predator species, associate predator abundance and borer reductions with vegetation complexity, and quantify resulting increases in coffee yield. Coffee plants excluded from foraging birds had significantly higher borer infestation, more borer broods, and greater berry damage than control plants. We identified 17 potential predator species (73% were wintering Neotropical migrants), and 3 primary species composed 67% of migrant detections. Average relative bird abundance and diversity and relative resident predator abundance increased with greater shade‐tree cover. Although migrant predators overall did not respond to vegetation complexity variables, the 3 primary species increased with proximity to noncoffee habitat patches. Lower infestation on control plants was correlated with higher total bird abundance, but not with predator abundance or vegetation complexity. Infestation of fruit was 1–14% lower on control plants, resulting in a greater quantity of saleable fruits that had a market value of US$44–$105/ha in 2005/2006. Landscape heterogeneity in this region may allow mobile predators to provide pest control broadly, despite localized farming intensities. These results provide the first evidence that birds control coffee berry borers and thus increase coffee yield and farm income, a potentially important conservation incentive for producers.     

Sustainability: a Dissent

Abstract:  Broadly conceived and considered in its many usages, sustainability has grave defects as a planning goal, particularly when used by conservationists: it confuses means and ends; it is vague about what is being sustained and who or what is doing the sustaining; it is uninspiring; it is little more than Pinchot-era conservation (and thus ignores the many lessons learned since then); it need not be linked to land, to the land's functioning, or to any ecological science; it need not include a moral component; it is consistent with the view of humans as all-powerful manipulators of the planet; and, in general, it is such a malleable term that its popularity provides only a facade of consensus. When sustainability is defined broadly to include the full range of economic and social aspirations, it poses the particular risk that ecological and biodiversity concerns will be cast aside in favor of more pressing human wants. Given these many defects, the conservation movement should discard the term in favor of a more alluring goal, attentive to nature and its ecological functioning. A sound goal would incorporate and distill the considerable ecological and moral wisdom accumulated since Pinchot's day while giving conservationists the rhetorical tools needed to defend the land against competing pressures. In our view, conservation would be well served by an updated variant of "land health," Aldo Leopold's ecologically grounded goal from the 1940s. Land health as an independent understanding should set the essential terms of how we live and enjoy the earth, providing the framework within which we pursue our many social and economic aims.     

战略环境评价的工作程序

介绍了战略环境评价（法规、政策、计划和规划层次）工作程序的三个环节：评价方案的制定、评价实施和评价总结。并提出了战略环境评价指标体系制定的原则、战略环境评价的具体步骤及战略环境评价报告书的基本内容。     

战略环境评价及其应用初探

概述了战略环境价的概念、产生原因、研究现状及其工作程序，结合川南矿肥工程项目对它进行了应用初探，提出了计划、规划层次ＳＥＡ的方法和指标，并对我国环评工作提出了建议。     

环境意识调查与思考

本文调查了呼和浩特教育学院师范类小学教育大专班新生的环境意识。从环境知识、环境态度、环境预期行为等方面进行了分析，为丰富学校和社会的环境教育提供了依据。     

Concurrency: a system design approach to environmental management and sustainability

The lessons of history indicate that mismanagement of natural resources and the environment often leads to potentially adverse consequences.The increasing interest in economic development,particularly in the developing countries of the world coupled with increasing population pressures and the globalization of economic activity is placing noticeable stresses on the ultimate sustainability of both human and environmental systems.Sustainable development is not a new concept.It has been an area of concern for different elements of society for some time.Yet efforts to understand the implications of sustainable development have not,until recently,been formalized.We have focused singularly on economic development and environmental quality as if they were mutually exclusive.This paper focuses on the concept of concurrency as both a conceptual framework and practicable method of understanding and implementing the ecology and economy of sustainability.     

全球环境问题与当代国际关系

环境问题使人类面临着前所未有的生存与发展的巨大挑战，也深刻影响着当代国际关系的发展和演变。该文对环境问题引起的国家安全，全球环境问题的南北分歧，以及南北矛盾的焦点等几个方面，分别进行了阐述和分析，随着环境总是的国际化和全球化，国际社会把保护环境看成是各国政府的共同义务和责任，而与此同时国际间的环境合与竞争关系也得到了进一步的发展。     

Microwave digestion method in environmental analysis

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Opportunities and constraints for Product-oriented Environmental Management Systems (P-EMS)

Product-oriented Environmental Management Systems (P-EMS) are a logical extension of current, often primarily process- of facility-oriented Environmental Management Systems. The Dutch government promotes P-EMS as part of its product-oriented environmental policies. The idea of P-EMS is to enable producers to make environmentally responsible decisions on product development and product strategies, in collaboration with suppliers and customers. This paper summarises example P-EMS projects in The Netherlands for two segments of industry, namely retail and manufacturing industry. Moreover two other initiatives will be covered that deal with the development of tools to facilitate P-EMS in two other industry sectors (food processing and building). Success factors that emerge from these initial experiences are: focus on partners that have a strong incentive to act, application of screening Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) or user-shells for LCA, and focus on improvements that can be implemented on the short term.     

加强云南环境保护宣传教育力度--积极开创"绿色社区"

从云南环境宣传教育现状出发,分析了目前在云南创建“绿色社区”的现实意义、必要性,并提出了创建的评选标准细则和评选的基本办法,为今后云南创建“绿色社区”提供参考性意见。