Tracing operational conditions for the Ecologically Sustainable Economic Development: the Pareto optimality and the preservation of the biological crucial levels

The operational designing of Environmentally Sustainable Economic Development (ESED) emerges as an urgent and demanding task. Even though ESED has paved the way for thought-provoking and constructive scientific dialogue, appeal for designing an operational ESED is still lagging behind the needs of contemporary societies, leaving much to be desired. With this in mind, the present paper will aim at delineating principles for the operational application of ESED. First, the preservation of crucial properties of environmental functions and ecosystems, emerges as a prime condition of ESED. The second condition concerns the provision of the economic process with sufficient natural inputs; in this context, the paper intends to trace certain operational tenets governing the use of natural resources. Finally, the appropriate institutional settings for the operational design of ESED are traced. Readers should send their comments on this paper to BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue     

我国桐油发展战略与对策

桐油是我国的特产资源，其价值之高，用途之广，早已引起许多国家的重视；其化学结构之特殊，化学性质之活泼，引起许多化学工作者的兴趣，而致力于桐油化学科学的研究。我国种植油桐历史修久，远在公元前六世纪有文记载。新中国成立后，党 和政府非常重视，周总理曾亲自主持全国油桐工作会议，油桐得到了空前发展。     

热电联产的效益与总量控制

介绍了热电联产的基本类型和一般规划原则,分析了热电联产规划为社会、经济及环境带来的效益,论证了热电联产是城市能源、环境协调发展的必由之路。通过SO2总量排放的分析,导出热电联产与分散供热能源利用方式所产生SO2排放总量的比较方法和计算模式。     

Adapting participatory processes to fine-tune conservation approaches in multiactor decision settings

Conservation decisions are typically made in complex, dynamic, and uncertain settings, where multiple actors raise diverse and potentially conflicting claims, champion different and sometimes contradictory values, and enjoy varying degrees of freedom and power to act and influence collective decisions. Therefore, effective conservation actions require conservation scientists and practitioners to take into account the complexity of multiactor settings. We devised a framework to help conservation biologists and practitioners in this task. Institutional economic theories, which are insufficiently cited in the conservation literature, contain useful insights for conservation. Among these theories, the economies of worth can significantly contribute to conservation because it can be used to classify the types of values peoples or groups refer to when they interact during the elaboration and implementation of conservation projects. Refining this approach, we designed a framework to help conservation professionals grasp the relevant differences among settings in which decisions related to conservation actions are to be made, so that they can adapt their approaches to the features of the settings they encounter. This framework distinguishes 6 types of agreements and disagreements that can occur between actors involved in a conservation project (harmony, stricto sensu arrangement, deliberated arrangement, unilateral and reciprocal compromise, and locked-in), depending on whether they disagree on values or on their applications and on whether they can converge toward common values by working together. We identified key questions that conservationists should answer to adapt their strategy to the disagreements they encounter and identified relevant participatory processes to complete the adaptation.     

施工承包企业安全成本及其核算的研究

依据施工承包企业安全管理的目标、特点和程序,提出安全成本的概念和构成以及保证性安全成本对损失性安全成本的直接影响.同时,借助施工安全成本与安全度的关系、提高安全技术工作的经济合理性、加速构建施工承包企业安全成本核算制度,优化施工承包企业的安全管理工作,并为提高企业经济效益及社会经济运行的安全度奠定基础.     

Economic and Ecological Outcomes of Flexible Biodiversity Offset Systems

The commonly expressed goal of biodiversity offsets is to achieve no net loss of specific biological features affected by development. However, strict equivalency requirements may complicate trading of offset credits, increase costs due to restricted offset placement options, and force offset activities to focus on features that may not represent regional conservation priorities. Using the oil sands industry of Alberta, Canada, as a case study, we evaluated the economic and ecological performance of alternative offset systems targeting either ecologically equivalent areas (vegetation types) or regional conservation priorities (caribou and the Dry Mixedwood natural subregion). Exchanging dissimilar biodiversity elements requires assessment via a generalized metric; we used an empirically derived index of biodiversity intactness to link offsets with losses incurred by development. We considered 2 offset activities: land protection, with costs estimated as the net present value of profits of petroleum and timber resources to be paid as compensation to resource tenure holders, and restoration of anthropogenic footprint, with costs estimated from existing restoration projects. We used the spatial optimization tool MARXAN to develop hypothetical offset networks that met either the equivalent‐vegetation or conservation‐priority targets. Networks that required offsetting equivalent vegetation cost 2–17 times more than priority‐focused networks. This finding calls into question the prudence of equivalency‐based systems, particularly in relatively undeveloped jurisdictions, where conservation focuses on limiting and directing future losses. Priority‐focused offsets may offer benefits to industry and environmental stakeholders by allowing for lower‐cost conservation of valued ecological features and may invite discussion on what land‐use trade‐offs are acceptable when trading biodiversity via offsets. Resultados Económicos y Ecológicos de Sistemas de Compensación de Biodiversidad Flexible Habib et al.     

生态补偿过程动态演化机制及其稳定策略研究

生态补偿是通过调节相关方的利益关系,实现可持续利用生态系统服务的一种手段或制度安排。论文从微观维度对生态补偿问题进行研究,将生态补偿利益群体分为实施群和受益群,建立非对称演化博弈模型,分析各群体利益关系的复制动态、演化稳定策略和演化博弈系统的稳定性。结果表明:在"举报惩罚"制度存在的情况下,两群体间的演化博弈存在唯一的稳定均衡策略(保护、补偿),即实施群选择"保护"策略,受益群选择"补偿"策略,其中实施群决策主导系统稳定性;利益群体各决策选择的比重是稳定均衡策略的重要影响因素,增加实施群和受益群选择"保护"和"补偿"策略的比重,可加快稳定均衡策略的有效形成。     

Can irrational behaviour maximise fitness?

Behavioural models for both humans and other animals often assume economic rationality on the part of decision makers. Economic rationality supposes that outcomes can be assigned objective values within a stable valuation framework and that choices are made to maximise a decision maker’s expected payoff. Yet, both human and animal behaviour is often not economically rational. Here, we compare economically rational making strategies with a strategy (trade-off contrasts) that has been proposed to account for decision-making behaviour in humans that departs of axiomatic rationality. We model the fitness of these strategies in a simple environment where choices are made on repeated occasions, there is stochastic fluctuation in the choices available at any given time, and uncertainty about what choices will be available in the future. Our results show that, for at least some of the model parameter space, non-rational decision strategies achieve higher fitness than economically rational strategies. The differences were comparable in magnitude to selection differentials observed in nature.     

跨区资源调配工程的区域利益关系探讨——以西电东送南通道为例

目前,我国跨区资源调配工程双方的区域利益关系尚未完全理顺,区域利益矛盾存在并有进一步激化的可能。西电东送南通道双方在价格水平与增长趋势、送电曲线和生态补偿等方面存在较大分歧,当前的资源交易与区域利益分配模式存在不合理的因素。西电东送的特殊性需要由市场和政府共同承担协调区域利益关系的任务,市场化是西电东送的必然取向,但政府应在体现西电东送综合效益、潜在效益和隐性效益及促进区域协调发展等方面发挥作用。     

Natural resource economics: Relevance in planning and management

This article provides an overview of natural resource economics. It begins with a summary of historical and current views on resource scarcity. It then discusses economic models for optimal management of non-renewable and renewable resources at the micro and macro levels and evaluates their usefulness in planning, management and policy making.