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.     

Evolution of the Stewardship Idea in American Country Life

Theological and secular concepts ofstewardship evolved markedly in the 20thcentury. During this period of evolution, theAmerican Country Life Association through itschurch, academic, farm organization, andgovernmental affiliations, served as a bridgingand bonding agent in developing the stewardshipidea. As in any evolutionary process, thestewardship concept was subjected to a broadarray of influences and characterized bynotable highlights such as the Lynn Smithcritique of the Judaeo-Christian ethic, theman-in-nature statement of Douglas John Hall,and the environmental concerns of ecologistsand philosophers of the post-Rachel Carson era.Some gains have been made in understanding theplace of humans in nature, but the stewardshipidea continues as work in process.     

西部管道通过国家级自然保护区的环保对策研究 ──以通过甘肃省安西极旱荒漠国家自然保护区为例

西部管道工程需要通过安西极旱荒漠国家级自然保护区的试验区,该保护区有中亚荒漠最具代表性的植被类型,为保护试验区的植被,建设单位从源头保护开始做起,在施工组织设计、施工期环境管理和生态恢复上采取了一系列措施,确保了管道施工对区域环境的影响控制在预测的范围内,实现了生产和环境保护双赢。     

双重外部性约束下中国资源型企业绩效研究

中国资源型产业的可持续发展受到代际外部性与环境外部性的双重制约,却长期存在过度进入导致的过度开采,加剧了资源型企业的产能过剩与配置扭曲,但与此相关的"结构-行为-绩效"关系研究尚未将外部性纳入考量。本文引入双重外部性,构建了"SCP-2E"模型,并基于80家资源开采上市公司2011-2014年的面板数据,首先运用使用者成本法和条件估值法分别估算了代际外部性和环境外部性,然后将它们作为企业行为的因变量和影响绩效的自变量分别纳入资源型企业的SCP-2E模型中,同时考虑双重外部性下市场结构、所有权性质等因素对绩效的影响。结果发现,中国资源型产业有着明显的周期性特征,而2011年以来资源型企业的兼并重组只是单纯扩大了企业规模,而没有切实提高企业效率;进一步结合企业规模和所有权性质的相关性来看,大型企业多以国有企业为主,由此说明企业规模扩大、绩效却显著降低的原因在很大程度是由于国有企业的低效率造成的;另外,目前企业绩效的提高,主要还是依赖于地区经济增长的拉动,但在用电量增速较快的地区,也伴随着较大的环境外部性损失,暂时没有受到资源枯竭的约束。基于以上结论,本文认为,监管部门应加强资源开采权的审查,提高资源型企业的进入门槛和技术标准,适当鼓励企业在不增加生产投资和规模的前提下,通过技术进步和劳动效率的提高提升绩效,而国有企业改革力度重点应放在解决大型国企的低效率问题上。政府应该权衡经济增长与代际和环境负外部性,在保证能源、资源安全的前提下,鼓励和扩大可耗竭资源的进口,逐步建立国家和企业的战略资源储备制度。     

中国自然保护区可持续管理模式探讨——伦敦自然保护区管理模式借鉴

近年来,世界各地自然保护区迅速发展,如何有效持续地管理这些自然保护区成为一个重要的问题。文章分析了我国自然保护区现有管理模式的特点与存在的问题,简要介绍了伦敦自然保护区的管理模式现状,根据我国的实际情况,笔者认为中国的自然保护区应采用强制式和完全参与合作式相结合的管理模式,并提出了几点管理模式的改革建议。     

Ecosystem services in coupled social–ecological systems: Closing the cycle of service provision and societal feedback

Both the ‘cascade model’ of ecosystem service provision and the Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response framework individually contribute to the understanding of human–nature interactions in social–ecological systems (SES). Yet, as several points of criticism show, they are limited analytical tools when it comes to reproducing complex cause–effect relationships in such systems. However, in this paper, we point out that by merging the two models, they can mutually enhance their comprehensiveness and overcome their individual conceptual deficits. Therefore we closed a cycle of ecosystem service provision and societal feedback by rethinking and reassembling the core elements of both models. That way, we established a causal sequence apt to describe the causes of change to SES, their effects and their consequences. Finally, to illustrate its functioning we exemplified and discussed our approach based on a case study conducted in the Alpujarra de la Sierra in southern Spain.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13280-015-0651-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

自然保护区的建立与持续发展的关系

自然保护区的建立已被世界公认是一种保护自然资源最有效的方法之一。但是长期以来,人们把对维持生物种类的持续发展以及生态系统的完整性都归功于较为传统的封闭式保护。事实证明这已导致保护与持续发展长期处于矛盾状态而得不到解决。自从联合国教科文组织人与生物圈计划提出“生物圈保护区”的概念以来,打破了长期以来对自然保护区的封闭式管理。强调通过保护自然资源而发展和利用资源,并使这些资源能够持续发展。注重把自然保护与科学研究,环境监测、示范、环境教育与当地人民的参与结合起来。     

WEBGIS及其在环境管理上的应用

WebGIS是当前地理信息系统发展的一个重要方向,本文介绍了采用了Java技术和XML技术的新的WebGIS体系结构,并结合ArcIMS的定制开发,结合通化市污染物总量控制给出了吉林省环境保护行业的WebGIS应用系统开发实例.     

Virtual Garden Computer Program for use in Exploring the Elements of Biodiversity People Want in Cities

Urban ecology is emerging as an integrative science that explores the interactions of people and biodiversity in cities. Interdisciplinary research requires the creation of new tools that allow the investigation of relations between people and biodiversity. It has been established that access to green spaces or nature benefits city dwellers, but the role of species diversity in providing psychological benefits remains poorly studied. We developed a user‐friendly 3‐dimensional computer program (Virtual Garden [ www.tinyurl.com/3DVirtualGarden ]) that allows people to design their own public or private green spaces with 95 biotic and abiotic features. Virtual Garden allows researchers to explore what elements of biodiversity people would like to have in their nearby green spaces while accounting for other functions that people value in urban green spaces. In 2011, 732 participants used our Virtual Garden program to design their ideal small public garden. On average gardens contained 5 different animals, 8 flowers, and 5 woody plant species. Although the mathematical distribution of flower and woody plant richness (i.e., number of species per garden) appeared to be similar to what would be expected by random selection of features, 30% of participants did not place any animal species in their gardens. Among those who placed animals in their gardens, 94% selected colorful species (e.g., ladybug [Coccinella septempunctata], Great Tit [Parus major], and goldfish), 53% selected herptiles or large mammals, and 67% selected non‐native species. Older participants with a higher level of education and participants with a greater concern for nature designed gardens with relatively higher species richness and more native species. If cities are to be planned for the mutual benefit of people and biodiversity and to provide people meaningful experiences with urban nature, it is important to investigate people's relations with biodiversity further. Virtual Garden offers a standardized tool with which to explore these relations in different environments, cultures, and countries. It can also be used by stakeholders (e.g., city planners) to consider people's opinions of local design. Programa de Computadora de Jardín Virtual para Uso en la Exploración de los Elementos de Biodiversidad que la Gente Desea en las Ciudades     

Understanding conservationists’ perspectives on the new‐conservation debate

A vibrant debate about the future direction of biodiversity conservation centers on the merits of the so‐called new conservation. Proponents of the new conservation advocate a series of positions on key conservation ideas, such as the importance of human‐dominated landscapes and conservation's engagement with capitalism. These have been fiercely contested in a debate dominated by a few high‐profile individuals, and so far there has been no empirical exploration of existing perspectives on these issues among a wider community of conservationists. We used Q methodology to examine empirically perspectives on the new conservation held by attendees at the 2015 International Congress for Conservation Biology (ICCB). Although we identified a consensus on several key issues, 3 distinct positions emerged: in favor of conservation to benefit people but opposed to links with capitalism and corporations, in favor of biocentric approaches but with less emphasis on wilderness protection than prominent opponents of new conservation, and in favor of the published new conservation perspective but with less emphasis on increasing human well‐being as a goal of conservation. Our results revealed differences between the debate on the new conservation in the literature and views held within a wider, but still limited, conservation community and demonstrated the existence of at least one viewpoint (in favor of conservation to benefit people but opposed to links with capitalism and corporations) that is almost absent from the published debate. We hope the fuller understanding we present of the variety of views that exist but have not yet been heard, will improve the quality and tone of debates on the subject.