Local vulnerability as an advantage: mangrove forest management in Pará state,north Brazil,under conditions of illegality

When ecosystems are threatened or scientific knowledge of the effects of human action is uncertain, legislative prohibition is often adopted. This paper examines how the criminalization of mangrove tree use affects ecosystem management outcomes. We explore the biological, economic and social sustainability effects of the legal ban on mangrove use on the coast of Bragança, Pará, north Brazil. There are two main categories of mangrove users in this area: firstly, local subsistence users who also derive some financial incomes from mangrove sale. Their mangrove use is intertwined with household livelihood strategies and they display self-initiated planning and action towards sustainable management; secondly, more mobile, purely commercial users who are responsible for most commercial mangrove exploitation and who employ regionally sequential, predatory resource exploitation strategies. These users are typically based at some distance from the exploited areas and share neither local livelihood strategies nor sustainability agendas. The current outright ban on any utilization of mangrove flora seems to undermine biological sustainability, is economically inefficient and generates normative insecurity, conflict and social polarization. The ineffectiveness of the outright legal prohibition of mangrove tree use in terms of sustainable coastal management leads us to investigate alternative management options. We suggest that the legalization of local mangrove utilization and the strengthening of local users rights and responsibilities to control outsiders in a co-management framework, as proposed in the Brazilian extractive reserves (RESEX) approach, is most likely to advance ecologically, economically and socially sustainable mangrove management. It is demonstrated that a legal recognition of local entitlements to mangrove trees would reduce social vulnerability and therefore move forest management outcomes into more desirable directions.

Identifying Determinants of Nations' Wetland Management Programs Using Structural Equation Modeling: An Exploratory Analysis

Integrated management and policy models suggest that solutions to environmental issues may be linked to the socioeconomic and political characteristics of a nation. In this study, we empirically explore these suggestions by applying them to the wetland management activities of nations. Structural equation modeling was used to evaluate a model of national wetland management effort and one of national wetland protection. Using five predictor variables of social capital, economic capital, environmental and political characteristics, and land-use pressure, the multivariate models were able to explain 60% of the variation in nations' wetland protection efforts based on data from 90 nations, as defined by level of participation in the international wetland convention. Social capital had the largest direct effect on wetland protection efforts, suggesting that increased social development may eventually lead to better wetland protection. In contrast, increasing economic development had a negative linear relationship with wetland protection efforts, suggesting the need for explicit wetland protection programs as nations continue to focus on economic development. Government, environmental characteristics, and land-use pressure also had a positive direct effect on wetland protection, and mediated the effect of social capital on wetland protection. Explicit wetland protection policies, combined with a focus on social development, would lead to better wetland protection at the national level.     

Use Impairments and Ecosystem Impacts of the New York Bight

The New York Bight is perhaps one of the most used and abused coastal areas in the world as a consequence of urbanization and the disposal of the waste of some 20 million people who reside by its shores and surrounding bays and estuaries. A variety of sources, including those associated with sewage wastes, industrial wastes, contaminated dredged material, urban runoff, and atmospheric fallout contaminate these coastal waters. Many of the stresses of excess population and industrialization as measured by pollutant loadings and ecosystem impacts can be crudely quantified in terms of use impairments-use impairments that have measurable social and economic relevance. Five broad categories of impairment attributed to pollution in the Bight that are causing significant losses of ecological, economic, or social values are: beach closures, unsafe seafoods, hazards to commercial and recreational navigation, loss of commercial and recreational fisheries, and declines in birds, mammals and turtles. These impairments are generally caused by floatable wastes, nutrients, toxicants, pathogens and habitat loss. Measures of such impairments are not standard, nor in many cases totally quantifiable. We have examined specific subsets of these impairments in terms of their spatial and temporal changes and as a first approximation determined the economic and social significance of these changes. the cost of these impaired uses of the Bight are measured in terms of billions of dollars annually for New York and New Jersey.     

State interventions and natural resource management: A study on social interfaces in a riverine fisheries setting in Kerala, India

This article attempts to analyse the social interface between formal institutions and local fishing communities along the Pamba‐Achankovil River Basin in Kerala, India. It examines primarily the nature of the relationship between state agencies and traditional fishing communities in the context of (i) enforcing certain formal regulations of resource use and (ii) implementing resource enhancement programmes. The article also analyses the nature of social interfaces that emerge when local level formal organizations, such as cooperatives and gram panchayats, take up resource management or community welfare schemes on behalf of the traditional fisherfolk in the study region. Social interfaces can be understood in terms of social processes, such as cooperation, accommodation and conflicts between various actors involved in fisheries management. The article is based on ethnographic fieldwork. Interview guides and focus group discussions were the primary tools of data collection. The findings show that the relationships between formal institutions and traditional riverine fishing communities lack mutual trust. Conflicts between fishing communities and state agencies emerge when the formal institutions threaten or contradict those elements of local culture that sustain livelihood needs. Conflicts and discontent with a particular formal institution can also lead to the modification or violation of coexisting institutional arrangements.     

大连市农村居民环境意识调查分析

研究农村居民的环境意识对于确立环境管理的理论及把握农民的环境意识状况具有重要的意义。本文采用了问卷和访谈的方法调查了大连市农村居民的环境意识,并运用spas软件对调查数据进行了统计分析,得出大连市农村居民的环境意识水平高于2006年国家环保总局调查的全国公众环境意识的平均水平,但这一水平仍有待提高。最后,文章提出增强大连市农村居民的环境意识可以通过提高人们的文化水平、增加环境保护知识的宣传等途径来实现。     

Marginalization by collaboration: Environmental justice as a third party in and beyond CALFED

Governance and planning of ecosystem and water management within the California Bay-Delta, a critical component of California's water economy, have been characterized by a range of innovations in collaboration and conflict resolution. Despite legal mandates to incorporate environmental justice, the California Bay-Delta Authority's (CBDA) policy-development process and the subsequent Delta Vision process have systematically marginalized the role of environmental justice in California's water policy. We suggest that environmental justice in Bay-Delta planning can be understood as a “third party” with a tenuous seat at the CALFED water management table. As such environmental justice is a useful lens through which to assess the state's broader commitments and capacities relative to equity as a planning principal and outcome. We interpret the fate of environmental justice within Bay-Delta planning as indicative of the inherent tensions between systems based on increasing market dominance and state legitimation and the values of environmental justice based on distributive, procedural, and cognitive justice. We construct a model of marginalization and environmental injustice in collaborative planning to illustrate these tensions. We draw upon experiences of members of the Environmental Justice Sub-Committee of CBDA's Bay Delta Public Advisory Committee, as well as interviews with other key environmental justice interests, and a comprehensive review of internal and public CBDA documents relating to the environmental justice program including budgets and program plans, and ethnographic field work. We conclude that by learning from the mistakes of Bay-Delta planning, a positive model of collaborative, environmental justice-based planning for water and ecosystem management is possible.     

From the ground up: holistic management and grassroots rural adaptation to bovine spongiform encephalopathy across western Canada

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) has been documented in 28 countries and adversely affected farmers and rural communities around the world. Our study examines the impacts of and adaptive responses of producers to BSE in western Canada. Moreover, it explores the role that holistic management (HM), and its combined focus on environmental, social, and economic sustainability, might play in mitigating the effects of BSE. One survey was sent to 835 HM producers and another to 9,740 producers across Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. The disease, and concomitant climate change and low commodity prices, had devastating impacts on both groups. Yet, HM producers were much more optimistic about their ability to adapt to BSE and the future of agriculture than their non-HM counterparts. Social networks, namely HM clubs and the larger HM community, enabled these producers to mitigate the impacts of BSE. Agronomic responses, especially those associated with rotational grazing and increases in on-farm biodiversity were also important. That HM has been such an effective adaptive response to BSE indicates the importance of this and other grassroots responses to rural crises, whether they be associated with zoonotic diseases or indeed environmental change as a whole.     

How floral odours are learned inside the bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) nest

Recruitment in social insects often involves not only inducing nestmates to leave the nest, but also communicating crucial information about finding profitable food sources. Although bumblebees transmit chemosensory information (floral scent), the transmission mechanism is unknown as mouth-to-mouth fluid transfer (as in honeybees) does not occur. Because recruiting bumblebees release a pheromone in the nest that triggers foraging in previously inactive workers, we tested whether this pheromone helps workers learn currently rewarding floral odours, as found in food social learning in rats. We exposed colonies to artificial recruitment pheromone, paired with anise scent. The pheromone did not facilitate learning of floral scent. However, we found that releasing floral scent in the air of the colony was sufficient to trigger learning and that learning performance was improved when the chemosensory cue was provided in the nectar in honeypots; probably because it guarantees a tighter link between scent and reward, and possibly because gustatory cues are involved in addition to olfaction. Scent learning was maximal when anise-scented nectar was brought into the nest by demonstrator foragers, suggesting that previously unidentified cues provided by successful foragers play an important role in nestmates learning new floral odours.     

Perspectives on social capacity building for natural hazards: outlining an emerging field of research and practice in Europe

Social capacity building for natural hazards is a topic increasingly gaining relevance not only for so-called developing countries but also for European welfare states which are continuously challenged by the social, economic and ecological impacts of natural hazards. Following an outline of recent governance changes with regard to natural hazards, we develop a heuristic model of social capacity building by taking into account a wide range of existing expertise from different fields of research. Particular attention is paid to social vulnerability and its assessment, as well as to risk communication and risk education as specific strategies of social capacity building. We propose to distinguish between interventionist and participatory approaches, thus enabling for a better understanding of existing practices of social capacity building as well as their particular strengths and weaknesses. By way of conclusion, we encourage more research on social capacity building for natural hazards in the European context which at present is highly diverse and, at least in parts, only poorly investigated.     

The relationship between mining and socio-economic well being in Australia’s regions

This paper examines the relationship between quality of life indicators and the gross value of minerals production from Australian regions. We used quality of life indicators, aggregated for 71 local government areas containing mining activities, of household income, housing affordability, access to communication services, educational attainment, life expectancy, and unemployment. We find no evidence of systematic negative associations between quality of life and the gross value of minerals production. Instead, mining activity has a positive impact on incomes, housing affordability, communication access, education and employment across regional and remote Australia. Whilst we do not establish causality between mining activity and quality of life, our analysis prompts a rethink of the resource curse as it applies within a single country. We did not find evidence of a resource curse, at the local government level, in Australia’s mining regions. Nevertheless, we note observations by many other researchers of negative social impacts on specific demographic sectors, localities, families of fly-in fly-out mining operations, and individuals. This contrast may be a scale issue, with the regional benefits of mineral wealth masking highly localised inequalities and disadvantage. We suggest that there is a need to better understand these impacts and, more importantly, the types of policy mechanisms government and industry can adopt to mitigate or avoid them.