Use of Market Data to Assess Bushmeat Hunting Sustainability in Equatorial Guinea

Abstract: Finding an adequate measure of hunting sustainability for tropical forests has proved difficult. Many researchers have used urban bushmeat market surveys as indicators of hunting volumes and composition, but no analysis has been done of the reliability of market data in reflecting village offtake. We used data from urban markets and the villages that supply these markets to examine changes in the volume and composition of traded bushmeat between the village and the market (trade filters) in Equatorial Guinea. We collected data with market surveys and hunter offtake diaries. The trade filters varied depending on village remoteness and the monopoly power of traders. In a village with limited market access, species that maximized trader profits were most likely to be traded. In a village with greater market access, species for which hunters gained the greatest income per carcass were more likely to be traded. The probability of particular species being sold to market also depended on the capture method and season. Larger, more vulnerable species were more likely to be supplied from less‐accessible catchments, whereas there was no effect of forest cover or human population density on probability of being sold. This suggests that the composition of bushmeat offtake in an area may be driven more by urban demand than the geographic characteristics of that area. In one market, traders may have reached the limit of their geographical exploitation range, and hunting pressure within that range may be increasing. Our results demonstrate that it is possible to model the trade filters that bias market data, which opens the way to developing more robust market‐based sustainability indices for the bushmeat trade.     

红厚壳野生资源的开发型保护途径分析

从红厚壳的生物学特性和具有的油用、药用、材用、观赏、生态保护等多种用途角度出发,针对砍伐严重的状况,提出通过驯化栽培、开发油脂应用范围和加强海岸防护林的设置来保护红厚壳;同时建议政府和科研部门重视并探索红厚壳在中药和油脂加工方面的价值。     

浅谈秦皇岛外语语言软环境的优化策略

秦皇岛作为著名的沿海旅游城市,外语语言环境作为旅游软环境的一个重要因素直接影响着整个旅游产业的综合竞争力。鉴于此,对秦皇岛市外语语言软环境进行调查摸底。调查结果表明,旅游景区标示语及城市公示语的翻译存在不同程度的问题,旅游从业人员总体素质不高,市民的外语能力普遍偏低。以调查结果为依托,从政府导向、行业把关、全民参与三方面提出了优化秦皇岛市旅游业外语语言软环境的建议。     

湖北野生食果资源特点及其开发途径

野生食果为营养丰富的食用资源植物。在深入调查的基础上，分析了湖北野生食果资源的特点，提出了野生食果资源开发的对策以及产品深加工的途径，为野生食果资源的开发利用打下了坚实的基础。     

Detecting deterrence from patrol data

The threat posed to protected areas by the illegal killing of wildlife is countered principally by ranger patrols that aim to detect and deter potential offenders. Deterring poaching is a fundamental conservation objective, but its achievement is difficult to identify, especially when the prime source of information comes in the form of the patrols’ own records, which inevitably contain biases. The most common metric of deterrence is a plot of illegal activities detected per unit of patrol effort (CPUE) against patrol effort (CPUE-E). We devised a simple, mechanistic model of law breaking and law enforcement in which we simulated deterrence alongside exogenous changes in the frequency of offences under different temporal patterns of enforcement effort. The CPUE-E plots were not reliable indicators of deterrence. However, plots of change in CPUE over change in effort (ΔCPUE-ΔE) reliably identified deterrence, regardless of the temporal distribution of effort or any exogenous change in illegal activity levels as long as the time lag between patrol effort and subsequent behavioral change among offenders was approximately known. The ΔCPUE-ΔE plots offered a robust, simple metric for monitoring patrol effectiveness; were no more conceptually complicated than the basic CPUE-E plots; and required no specialist knowledge or software to produce. Our findings demonstrate the need to account for temporal autocorrelation in patrol data and to consider appropriate (and poaching-activity-specific) intervals for aggregation. They also reveal important gaps in understanding of deterrence in this context, especially the mechanisms by which it occurs. In practical applications, we recommend the use of ΔCPUE-ΔE plots in preference to other basic metrics and advise that deterrence should be suspected only if there is a clear negative slope. Distinct types of illegal activity should not be grouped together for analysis, especially if the signs of their occurrence have different persistence times in the environment.     

Impacts of rural to urban migration,urbanization, and generational change on consumption of wild animals in the Amazon

For the first time in history, more people live in urban areas than in rural areas. This trend is likely to continue, driven largely by rural-to-urban migration. We investigated how rural-to-urban migration, urbanization, and generational change affect the consumption of wild animals. We used chelonian (tortoises and freshwater turtles), one of the most hunted taxa in the Amazon, as a model. We surveyed 1356 households and 2776 school children across 10 urban areas of the Brazilian Amazon (6 small towns, 3 large towns, and Manaus, the largest city in the Amazon Basin) with a randomized response technique and anonymous questionnaires. Urban demand for wild meat (i.e., meat from wild animals) was alarmingly high. Approximately 1.7 million turtles and tortoises were consumed in urban areas of Amazonas during 2018. Consumption rates declined as size of the urban area increased and were greater for adults than children. Furthermore, the longer rural-to-urban migrants lived in urban areas, the lower their consumption rates. These results suggest that wild meat consumption is a rural-related tradition that decreases as urbanization increases and over time after people move to urban areas. However, it is unclear whether the observed decline will be fast enough to conserve hunted species, or whether children's consumption rate will remain the same as they become adults. Thus, conservation actions in urban areas are still needed. Current conservation efforts in the Amazon do not address urban demand for wildlife and may be insufficient to ensure the survival of traded species in the face of urbanization and human population growth. Our results suggest that conservation interventions must target the urban demand for wildlife, especially by focusing on young people and recent rural to urban migrants. Article impact statement: Amazon urbanite consumption of wildlife is high but decreases with urbanization, over time for rural to urban migrants, and between generations. Impactos de la Migración del Campo a la Ciudad, la Urbanización y del Cambio Generacional sobre el Consumo de Animales Silvestres en el Amazonas     

软质岩边坡挂网植草绿化防护技术研究

挂网植草解决了红砂岩、紫砂岩等软质岩石坡面因没有土层而不能绿化的难题。在经平整的软质岩石边坡上,铺粘10～15cm厚的泥浆层,满植规格为40×40cm狗牙根(Cynodon dactylon)、假俭草(Eremochloa ophiuroides)、结缕草(Zoysia japonica)等具有匍匐枝茎、耐瘠薄土壤、有良好的水土保持力等特性的草皮,草层上盖2.5×30m高强度的专用塑料网,用钢钉和竹签加以固定,造价为28～30元/m~2,是混凝土喷射、窗式护面墙等其它防护方法成本的1/3～1/5。在京珠、潭邵等高速上推广了近400 000 m~2,能在最短的时间内恢复植被,形成优美的景观,又能发挥较好的生态防护作用。该技术材料来源广、工艺操作易、实用性强,可广泛应用于公路、铁路、水库、堤坡等软质岩石地段的景观绿化与生态防护。     

农村经济活动对云南野生稻居群的影响

云南野生稻包括普通野生稻(O.rufipogon Griff)、疣粒野生稻(O.meyeriana Baill)和药用野生稻(O.officinalis Wall),是属于全国仅存的几处宝贵基因资源库之一。野生稻具有许多优良特性及其相应的基因,在栽培稻育种和生物技术利用等方面具有巨大的潜力。文章在对云南野生稻居群长期调查或考察的基础上,分析了云南野生稻居群濒危的现状,认为热区经济开发、游牧、木材消耗、采集草药、外来种入侵和环境污染等农村经济活动是致濒的主要因素。阐明了选择合理的保护方法、加大普法和执法力度、完善保护体制与运行机制、调整种植结构是当前云南野生稻居群保护管理与经济协调发展的四项重点措施。     

Application of nanoparticle tracking analysis for characterising the fate of engineered nanoparticles in sediment-water systems

Novel applications of nanotechnology may lead to the release of engineered nanoparticles (ENPs), which result in concerns over their potential environmental hazardous impact. It is essential for the research workers to be able to quantitatively characterise ENPs in the environment and subsequently to assist the risk assessment of the ENPs. This study hence explored the application of nanoparticle tracking system (NTA) to quantitatively describe the behaviour of the ENPs in natural sediment-water systems. The NTA allows the measurement of both particle number concentration (PNC) and particle size distribution (PSD) of the ENPs. The developed NTA method was applied to a range of gold and magnetite ENPs with a selection of surface properties. The results showed that the positively-charged ENPs interacted more strongly with the sediment than neutral and negatively-charged ENPs. It was also found that the citrate coated Au ENPs had a higher distribution percentage (53%) than 11-mercaptoundecanoic acid coated Au ENPs (20%) and citrate coated magnetite ENPs (21%). The principles of the electrostatic interactions between hard (and soft) acids and bases (HSAB) are used to explain such behaviours; the hard base coating (i.e. citrate ions) will interact more strongly with hard acid (i.e. magnetite) than soft acid (i.e. gold). The results indicate that NTA is a complementary method to existing approaches to characterise the fate and behaviour of ENPs in natural sediment.     

高层建筑地基下卧软弱夹层的稳定性探讨

对于场区内不可直接采用天然地基的高层建筑,建议优先考虑浅层换填地基处理方案,保证基础下粗颗粒垫层厚度不小于3.0m为宜。本文对高层建筑地基下卧软弱夹层稳定性的验算问题进行了探讨,当对软弱下卧层作深度修正后仍不能满足基础设计要求时,可按两个粗糙平面之间的薄层挤压问题对软弱下卧层进行稳定性分析及极限荷载计算,强度安全系数k取值为3,一般可以满足设计强度要求。该研究对地基处理有着重要的理论和实践借鉴意义。