Ethical Issues Related to Food Sector Evolution in Developing Countries: About Sustainability and Equity

After a century of major technicaladvance, essentially achieved by and for theindustrialized countries, the evolution of thefood sector in southern countries should nolonger be thought of in terms of a ``headlongpursuit.'' In the present context of demographicgrowth, urbanization, poverty and disparities,environmental degradation, and globalization oftrade, new priorities have emerged, and newethical questions have been raised, mainlyrelated to sustainability and equity. Thispaper analyses these ethical concerns in thefollowing terms: can the model of food sectordevelopment initiated by the industrializedcountries be applied to the entire world on asustainable and equitable basis, given theeffects of this development with regard to theenergy consumed, the changes in dietarybehavior and related nutritional problems, thenew demands in terms of food safety, thequestions of biodiversity, ownership ofknowledge, cultural identities, gender issues,and Man's relationship to food and Nature?     

我国耕地保护的最优化分析

本文把耕地保护置于国民经济发展的框架下,运用经济学、土地资源学原理,构建了我国耕地保护的最优化分析方法。在此基础上,提出了我国耕地保护最佳规模调控指标的具体测算方法,并粗略估算了我国现状及未来半个世纪耕地保护最佳规模调控指标。     

ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT AND THE CONSERVATION OF AQUATIC BIODWERSITY AND ECOLOGICAL INTEGRITY1

ABSTRACT: Ecologically effective ecosystem management will require the development of a robust logic, rationale, and framework for addressing the inherent limitations of scientific understanding. It must incorporate a strategy for avoiding irreversible or large-scale environmental mistakes that arise from social and political forces that tend to promote fragmented, uncritical, short-sighted, inflexible, and overly optimistic assessments of resource status, management capabilities, and the consequences of decisions and policies. Aquatic resources are vulnerable to the effects of human activities catchment-wide, and many of the landscape changes humans routinely induce cause irreversible damage (e.g., some species introductions, extinctions of ecotypes and species) or give rise to cumulative, long-term, large-scale biological and cultural consequences (e.g., accelerated erosion and sedimentation, deforestation, toxic contamination of sediments). In aquatic ecosystems, biotic impoverishment and environmental disruption caused by past management and natural events profoundly constrain the ability of future management to maintain biodiversity and restore historical ecosystem functions and values. To provide for rational, adaptive progress in ecosystem management and to reduce the risk of irreversible and unanticipated consequences, managers and scientists must identify catchments and aquatic networks where ecological integrity has been least damaged by prior management, and jointly develop means to ensure their protection as reservoirs of natural biodiversity, keystones for regional restoration, management models, monitoring benchmarks, and resources for ecological research.     

日本琵琶湖流域生态系统的修复与重建

琵琶湖流域生态系统的修复与重建着眼于全流域及中长期目标的实现. 在《琵琶湖综合保全整备规划》基础上,滋贺县政府提出了流域生物生息空间网络化构筑的长期构想,在全流域划定了16个重要生物生息空间及10条重要河流作为生态回廊;从上游的森林建设、内湖重建、河流治理到湖滨带芦苇群落的保护等开展了一系列的流域修复工作,如针对湖滨带修复,制定了芦苇群落保护条例与规划,划定了琵琶湖湖岸及周边内湖的芦苇群落保护与恢复区域,面积达138 hm2,其中芦苇带栽植面积达15 hm2,收割等维护管理每年达30 hm2等. 琵琶湖修复与重建工程的开展使生物多样性逐渐提高,生态系统功能得到恢复. 与之相比,我国湖泊流域生态修复存在的问题主要体现在生态修复缺乏流域整体的长远规划以及在湿地修复、低污染尾水的生物处理、湖滨带修复等领域存在一定的理念差异.      

青藏高原不同海拔梯度厌氧氨氧化细菌丰度及其生物多样性空间分布

厌氧氨氧化作为新型微生物氮循环过程,已经成为国内外研究热点.目前对厌氧氨氧化细菌的研究主要集中在海洋生态系统中,而在陆地生态系统外源氮污染物较少的地区是否存在厌氧氨氧化过程且其在氮循环中发挥的作用,还很少有相关报道.本研究应用分子生物学技术研究了氮污染负荷较低的青藏高原地区不同海拔湿地和旱地土壤样品中厌氧氨氧化细菌的丰度及其生物多样性.结果表明,在青藏高原地区,普遍存在厌氧氨氧化细菌.使用厌氧氨氧化细菌特异性引物HSBeta396f/HSBeta742r进行定量发现,厌氧氨氧化细菌丰度随着海拔的升高而降低.垂向尺度上,海拔较低地区表层样品厌氧氨氧化细菌丰度高于底层样品,海拔较高地区则相反.通过构建厌氧氨氧化细菌系统发育分析发现,青藏高原地区厌氧氨氧化细菌的生物多样性较高,且多数可能属于新型厌氧氨氧化细菌.该区域湿地沉积物样品厌氧氨氧化细菌生物多样性明显低于旱地土壤样品.湿地沉积物样品厌氧氨氧化细菌生物多样性与海拔无明显关系,但旱地土壤样品厌氧氨氧化细菌生物多样性随着海拔的增高有上升趋势.     

哈尔滨市生物多样性保护工作研究

生物多样性是维持生态平衡、促进人与自然和谐发展的重要成分,保护生物多样性,对于人类经济和未来的发展都是极其有利的。文章是在总结哈尔滨市生物多样性保护工作的现状成效,分析存在的问题挑战,提出一些保护措施,意在提高人们生物多样性保护意识,切实改善生态环境。     

Retreat of Halophytes in the Czech Republic: Agricultural, Mining, and Urbanization Effects

As a result of expanding human pressures, the heterogeneity of aformerly diverse landscape has been reduced and the richness ofanimal and plant species has decreased. Some particular standtypes and their species are especially connected withimpoverishment caused by mans activities. Halophyte DentatedMelilot (Melilotus dentata, Fabaceae) is one of suchspecies, which is vanishing apparently as a result of intensiveagriculture, surface mining, and urbanization.The data on its distribution were compiled from herbariumspecimens, literature, and the authors own field observations.The distribution was mapped separately for four periods: up to1900, 1901–1945, 1946–1975, and after 1975.The trend in reduction of localities was documented. At the sametime, their environmental quality was changing as well.Basically, the salt marshes in their original areal extent andtheir former species richness have disappeared. Currentlocalities of M. dentata include poor fragments of the saltmarshes mentioned above and secondary stands, e.g. ruderal placesinside villages, strips along drainage ditches, paths, railwaylines, fields, etc.     

Which regional features of Danish agriculture favour the corn bunting in the contemporary farming landscape?

Corn buntings Miliaria calandra were abundant throughout arable agricultural landscapes in Europe, but have catastrophically declined since the mid 1970s with changes in farming practice and now give serious conservation cause for concern. Corn buntings declined in Denmark during 1976–1993, but (almost unique in Europe) have since increased (by up to 11% per annum) in some areas without specific conservation recovery actions. Based on breeding bird surveys in the mid 1990s, highest corn bunting densities occurred on mixed agriculture in west Denmark (Jylland); the species was rarer or absent in regions of highest arable land cover. Corn bunting density and extent of rotational and permanent grassland were correlated, but not with spring sown barley (all known to constitute important corn bunting winter habitat). The extent of spring barley rapidly declined in Denmark during the 1980s, but since 1990, most counties have since shown 2–3% annual increases in this crop, except in Nordjylland, where high densities of corn buntings have remained stable. Elsewhere in Jylland, corn buntings have increased in counties supporting highest densities during the mid 1990s, contrasting stable or declining trends in south and east Denmark where densities were originally lower. After dramatic decreases everywhere in Denmark, corn buntings retain highest breeding densities associated with mixed agriculture, especially where grassland and spring sown barley remained in greatest extent. Although purely based on land use correlation and bird surveillance, these results show an association between mixed farming and favourable conservation status of a species now red-listed throughout much of Europe. Further investigations of habitat use at small spatial scales and throughout the annual cycle are urgently required to better enlighten specific recommendations for wider applicability of guidelines for corn bunting recovery actions elsewhere.     

区域生态系统多样性评价方法

针对不同区域尺度上同一类型的生态系统，提出了６项评价原则和一套包括多样性、特有性、代表性、稀有性、稳定性、自然性、保护价值、可接近度、人类干扰。自然灾害和保护现状等指标的分层次评价指标体系。在此基础上，采用将指标数量化的方法，建立了一种操作简单、调控性强的定量评价方法。