Farming and Landscape Management: How French Farmers are Coping with the Ecologization of Their Activities

In Europe, an increasing share of public subsidies for food production is being transferred towards the production of goods and environmental services. Today, farmers hesitate between the quest for technical and economic performance, which has been the paradigm of their professional activities since the 1960s, on one hand, and taking account of the environmental concerns that have been imposed since the middle of the 80s, on the other. Is it possible for farmers to continue to work according to the paradigm of the producer of agri-food goods, and how do they react to the ecologization of their activities? In this paper, we will see the difficulties and sources of tension induced by landscape maintenance in the daily professional practice of the farmers. We will see that the professional identity of the farmers is profoundly brought into question by these changes (substitution of strictly “agricultural issues” by more general concerns such as “rural issues,” substitution of the farmer by the “ecologized” peasant...). The topic of landscape reveals social strains between farmers. It also raises the question of the legitimacy of farmers to define the sense of their activities by themselves. Finally we will see that environmental orientations do not systematically open up new prospects for all farmers; they sometimes contribute to increase the inequalities between farmers (financial support proportional to land property, marginalization of farmers who are less socially integrated...).     

Use of inert C&D materials for seawall foundation: A field-scale pilot test

The generation rate of construction and demolition (C&D) materials in Hong Kong has well exceeded the demand rate. An innovative solution has been developed by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government to use the inert portion of C&D materials, denoted as public fill, for seawall foundation construction. A field-scale pilot test has been conducted to evaluate the constructability and engineering performance of the foundation so as to establish the viability of the solution. Details of the pilot test and results of the performance evaluation are presented in this paper. More importantly, the viability of an innovation solution to achieve effective allocation of sand fill resources, and conservation and recycling of inert C&D materials has been established.     

构建新型危险化学品安全管理体制

随着我国经济的快速发展,危险化学品事故频频发生。现行危险化学品安全管理体制存在漏洞是其主要原因。笔者认为现行危险化学品安全管理体制主要存在5个方面不足:管理体制与市场经济体制不符;行业管理未能实现;中介作用没有发挥;工会维权力量薄弱;公众参与严重不足等。为此,建议建立政府、市场和民众相互协调的危险化学品安全管理体制,即“政府监管、市场调节和社会监督”。其中,政府监管包括政府管理和国家监督,市场调节包括企业责任和中介服务,社会监督包括员工维权和公众参与。     

安全稳定是构建和谐校园的基础

安全是人类社会共同关心的主题,没有安全就没有稳定,没有安全就没有改革,没有安全也就没有发展,没有安全,和谐社会的实施也会夭折,所以校园的安全稳定在今天显得尤为重要."安全第一"的思想不单是各行各业的基本要求,更是学校办学的基本需要.安全稳定是构建和谐校园社会的基础.没有稳定,和谐校园就会失去安定祥和,失去赖以生存的校园基础.安全稳定在校园的地位需要提高,现状需要分析,内容需要丰富,方式方法需要改进.     

分形理论在地区社会经济发展影响度研究中的应用

将分形理论用于地区社会经济发展影响度研究中,用数量化方法分析了人口规模、地区间距离、城市特征半径等因素对城市经济联系强度的影响,并将这一方法应用于阿克苏地区生态环境规划研究中.     

On Sustainable Development of Social Forestry in Bangladesh: Experiences from Sal (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Shorea Robusta</Emphasis>) Forests

Sustainability in forestry is a complex amalgam of trade-offs among its various dimensions and there is no easy route to achieve sustainable development. It is important that policy process and implementation strategy of these policies should be based on sound information about these trade-offs. There is a growing consensus amongst key forest decision-makers in Bangladesh that traditional forestry is needed to make the transition to more sustainable forestry, which is likely to involve local people in forest management. As a result, the government has initiated a social forestry program from 1981 with the assistance of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) loan and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) grant and operated mainly in Sal forest areas. The most important objective of this program is to protect, manage, and develop forests in a sustainable way by involving local communities. Although several studies have focused on the management issues of social forestry, none of these studies has evaluated the indicators of sustainable social forestry. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the criteria of sustainable development of social forestry in Bangladesh. The study is based on primary cross-sectional data collected using the multistage stratified sampling technique. In total, 581 social forestry farmers were selected randomly and interviewed using a pre-tested questionnaire. The study evaluated some important components of sustainable development and identified the following conditions of social forestry in Bangladesh:(i) almost all the components of sustainable development of social forestry, although not at the aspiration level, were at good condition;(ii) participants were interested and committed to work with Forest Department in developing social forestry;(iii) they had been utilizing both hard and soft technology in practicing social forestry, although there exists ample scope of development;(iv) income of participants after involving in social forestry had increased, although not at satisfactory level; and(v) process of producing social and material goods had been under progress.However, there exist plenty of scopes for sustainable social forestry development through improving the sustainable development components more carefully.Readers should send their comments on this paper to: BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue.     

Making humanitarian relief networks more effective: operational coordination, trust and sense making

Effective coordination of humanitarian assistance activities remains elusive. This paper briefly addresses some of the reasons for what is widely perceived as a coordination dilemma in humanitarian affairs and argues for a new conceptualisation of the issue. Rather than continue to request that more authority be vested in a single organisation to secure coordination through top-down control, it contends that it may be timely to consider whether relief agencies involved in an emergency should be reconceived as social networks and efforts made to achieve changes in their organizational cultures that encourage operational coordination across institutional lines. Since such labours imply the need to trust, this article explores what forms of trust might be employed to promote improved coordination among relief institutions and how those relationships could themselves be conceptualised. Finally, while acknowledging that coordination is not costless, it suggests that its effective pursuit may be advantageous even in scenarios where aid organisations balk at cooperating to secure it.     

How Is Household Vulnerability Gendered? Female‐headed Households in the Collectives of Suleimaniyah,Iraqi Kurdistan

This research tries to reach an understanding of the well-being of female-headed household members through a comparison to male-headed household members in the collectives of the Suleimaniyah governorate in Iraqi Kurdistan. Research was undertaken in five collectives in Suleimaniyah during the summer of 1998. The research contributes to the current gender and development debates which are concerned with improving the understanding of the specific gendered forms of disadvantage faced by female-headed households rather than assuming the universal poverty of this group. An understanding of well-being is approached through a broad conceptualisation of vulnerability in preference to a narrow poverty definition. That the findings of this research are complex attests to the multi-dimensional and mutually constitutive gendered experiences of vulnerability. The definitive conclusion to emerge from this research is a refuting of the rhetoric-fuelled stereotype that households headed by women are at a disadvantage in all the dimensions of vulnerability in comparison to households headed by men. The research also establishes the methodological necessity of examining intra-household distributive mechanisms that determine individuals' well-being.     

Harmonizing water management and social needs: a necessary condition for sustainable development. The case of Israel's coastal aquifer

This study focuses on the problem of most efficiently fulfilling the water requirements of society for sustainable water resources management. The goal is to coordinate effectively the social needs of the resident population with operational water resources management planning.The proposed approach consists of a pyramidal hierarchy of water resource management needs, similar to that suggested by psychologist Abraham Maslow for human social needs. The two pyramidal hierarchies can be simultaneously employed to delineate guidelines to synchronize planning for sustainable water resources development with the concerns and expectations of the resident population. In both hierarchies, higher level needs remain irrelevant and difficult to attain until lower level needs of the resident population have been fulfilled.Management planning measures employed with regard to Israel's coastal aquifer have been used to illustrate this approach. Observation of Israel's experience indicates markedly reduced effectiveness where such measures have failed to be properly synchronised with societal needs. Conversely, where hydrological management measures were successfully synchronized with societal concerns, increased efficiency towards attaining sustainable groundwater management was evident.     

ENHANCING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN DEFINING WATER RESOURCE POLICY1

ABSTRACT: Federal regulations require agencies administering water resource projects to inform and educate citizens so that they will understand and participate effectively in local programs. Government officials and public involvement specialists have proposed positive outcomes which should derive from agency educational efforts. Eleven interdependent educational goals are identified in this study such that achievement of each goal improves the likelihood of achieving others. Evaluations indicate that educational programs are inadequate and goals are not attained fully. The incorporation of mechanisms employed by professional educators is a potential remedy. Educational and social psychology contain an abundance of effective educational devices and methodologies appropriate for use in informal adult educational programs. An individualized educational program is recommended to meet the needs of a heterogeneous adult audience.