Linking parks and people: Nepal's experience in resolving conflicts in parks and protected areas

SUMMARY

The search for innovative methods for improving relations between parks and people has led to various conservation and development projects around the world. Nepal's almost three decades of experience in park management in a variety of institutional settings offers valuable lessons in the challenges and opportunities for enlisting local support for conservation. Citing several macro and micro-level case studies from around the country, this paper provides a comparative perspective on the significance of tourism-focused conservation and community development activities in resolving conflicts between parks and local people.     

Diversity,endemism and economic potential of wild edible plants of Indian Himalaya

SUMMARY

The rich plant diversity of the Indian Himalaya is utilized by the native communities in various forms as medicine, edible/food, fodder, fuel, timber, agricultural tools, etc. Among these, wild edible plants form an important source as a supplement/substitute food in times of scarcity for native communities. Because land holdings are small and subsistence agriculture prevails, the natives gather many wild plants for food. This paper presents an inventory of wild edible plants of Indian Himalaya used by local communities. Over 675 wild plant species, representing 384 genera and 149 families, are used as food/edible and their various parts are either consumed raw, roasted, boiled, fried, cooked or in the form of oil, spice, seasoning material, jams, pickles, etc. The species were analysed for diversity in different phytogeographical provinces, altitudinal distribution, endemism, origin and potentials. West Himalaya shows the highest diversity (50.96%) of edible plants and East Himalaya the maximum number of endemics (18 taxa) and wild relatives of economic plants (39 taxa). Mass scale propagation, dissemination of information packages to local inhabitants to ensure that wild edibles remain as a resource for income generation, and strategies for conservation and management are recommended.     

NGOs come and go but business continues: lessons from co-management institutional arrangements for governance of the Arabuko-Sokoke Forest Reserve in Kenya

The objective of this paper is to examine the current institutional arrangements for governance of the Arabuko-Sokoke Forest Reserve (ASFR) and show their major contribution in the ASFR co-management business of conserving the forest and providing livelihoods to the poor forest-dependent communities. Despite the fact that funding from non-governmental organizations ended, the ASFR co-management business did not stall. The institutional arrangements for co-management were deemed to be the major component that contributed to the continuation of the ASFR co-management business. To demonstrate this hypothesis, the paper explores four main areas that shape the institutional arrangement of the ASFR co-management regime, informed by common property theories: (1) how governance arrangement structures for the ASFR are organized; (2) villagers’ perceptions and awareness of the co-management structure; (3) co-management arrangement for access, ownership and use of the various forest resources; and (4) importance of the forest resources to the households. The co-management piloting and non-piloting communities adjacent to the forest and who have been depending on the forest as a source of their livelihoods are compared in order to understand the role of the ASFR co-management institutional arrangements in the sustainability of its business.     

Communities and bushfire hazard in Australia: More questions than answers

The issue of communities and their exposure to bushfire hazard is highly topical internationally. There is a perceived trend of greater exposure to bushfire risk which is exacerbated by increased levels of building in fire-prone areas or peri-urban regions. There is a need to clarify what we understand to be peri-urban regions, and how we conceptualise and describe the communities that reside in them, in order that efficient and effective services are provided. However, more questions arise for us. For example: Where are these communities located? What do we know about the people who live there? What are the implications for bushfire mitigation? Despite being problematic, locality remains important to the understanding of communities, bushfire hazard and delivery of services.     

Soft systems thinking and social learning for adaptive management

The success of adaptive management in conservation has been questioned and the objective-based management paradigm on which it is based has been heavily criticized. Soft systems thinking and social-learning theory expose errors in the assumption that complex systems can be dispassionately managed by objective observers and highlight the fact that conservation is a social process in which objectives are contested and learning is context dependent. We used these insights to rethink adaptive management in a way that focuses on the social processes involved in management and decision making. Our approach to adaptive management is based on the following assumptions: action toward a common goal is an emergent property of complex social relationships; the introduction of new knowledge, alternative values, and new ways of understanding the world can become a stimulating force for learning, creativity, and change; learning is contextual and is fundamentally about practice; and defining the goal to be addressed is continuous and in principle never ends. We believe five key activities are crucial to defining the goal that is to be addressed in an adaptive-management context and to determining the objectives that are desirable and feasible to the participants: situate the problem in its social and ecological context; raise awareness about alternative views of a problem and encourage enquiry and deconstruction of frames of reference; undertake collaborative actions; and reflect on learning.     

What factors determine whether a community will choose the pathway to sustainable development in China?

In this paper, we divide the communities in Central China into four groups, namely ecological high-poverty communities, non-ecological high-poverty communities, sustainable communities and non-ecological low-poverty communities. We use 2000 and 2006 data for 498 counties to conduct analysis and comparison between sustainable and unsustainable communities in order to define determinants of the development pathways to sustainable communities. The comparison of the variable means between the groups of ecological high-poverty communities and non-ecological high-poverty communities in 2006 indicates that there is no significant difference in the dimensions related to economy, society and environment, with the exception of average output value per industrial enterprise.

The non-ecological low-poverty communities are more likely to have a higher proportion of secondary industry, higher total industrial output value, higher average output value per industrial enterprise and higher intensity of infrastructure construction, compared to the sustainable communities. The factors that determine whether the communities will choose the pathway to sustainable communities are found to be landscape, social conditions of secondary industry and agriculture and economic development level. Hence, the policies that aim at promoting sustainability for the unsustainable communities will have to focus on different strategies and actions for non-ecological high-poverty and non-ecological low-poverty communities.     

The effects of community-based action for sustainability on participants' lifestyles

There has been increased interest in the role of community-based action in promoting sustainable lifestyles in recent years, but relatively limited evidence on the effects of such activity on participants' behaviours. In this paper, I present an evaluation of the effects of community-based action for sustainability on participants' lifestyles. I draw on extensive qualitative research to assess how much change participants of community sustainability projects report, what kinds of participants these projects attract and how the circumstances of these projects affect the changes that participants make. The main findings are that these initiatives have different effects on different people. Those who are new to sustainability and who are actively involved in cohesive groups, which are specifically targeting their lifestyles, are more likely to report substantial changes. I present a model to explain what change occurs, for which types of participants, in what circumstances as a result of community-based action.     

农村黑臭水体沉积物细菌群落结构特征

沉积物微生物是农村黑臭水体物质循环和有机物降解等过程的主要驱动者,其群落结构组成常因外界环境的微小变化而变化.以菏泽市东明县29个农村黑臭水体为研究对象,测定农村黑臭水体上覆水和沉积物氮、磷及重金属等污染物指标,结合Illumina测序结果,分析农村黑臭水体沉积物细菌群落组成和多样性特征及其与环境因子的相关性.结果表明,该区域农村黑臭水体上覆水和沉积物中污染物分布范围均较广.与农业面源相比,以农村生活污水为主要污染来源的农村黑臭水体上覆水中氮、磷污染物浓度更高,分别是农业面源的3.1倍和1.5倍.此外,该区域农村黑臭水体沉积物中重金属含量处于较低水平,普遍低于菏泽市土壤元素背景值.该区域农村黑臭水体沉积物细菌群落的优势菌门为变形菌门、放线菌门、绿弯菌门、厚壁菌门和酸杆菌门,这5种优势菌门的序列总和占全部序列的70.3%～83.6%.γ-变形菌纲、α-变形菌纲、厌氧绳菌纲和放线菌纲是沉积物细菌群落的优势菌纲;硫杆菌属和假节杆菌属是其优势菌属.Spearman相关性分析结果表明,环境因子中DO、 COD、 TN、 TP和有机质对农村黑臭水体沉积物细菌菌属有显著影响(P<0.05),沉...     

聚己内酯与聚羟基丁酸戊酸酯的脱氮性能对比

以可生物降解聚合物聚己内酯(PCL)和聚羟基丁酸戊酸酯(PHBV)作为反硝化缓释碳源和微生物载体,利用清水释碳和批式反硝化试验选出适用于再生水反硝化深度脱氮生物滤池的可生物降解碳源滤料,通过比较与分析碳源滤料的表面形态及物质特性和附着微生物的群落特征揭示其性能优越的原因.结果表明,PHBV反硝化启动时间短,反硝化速率高,剩余有机物浓度低,相比PCL具有更稳定持续的反硝化效果.原因是其表面粗糙,且含有大量C—O和CO等亲水性基团,易于微生物附着和降解利用;其表面附着的微生物种类多样,其中发硫菌属(Thiothrix)、假单胞属(Pseudomonas)、菌胶团属(Zoogloea)、黄杆菌属(Flavobacterium)和脱氯菌属(Dechloromonas)等优势菌属均具有异养反硝化功能.因此,PHBV更适合作为再生水反硝化深度脱氮生物滤池的碳源滤料.     

Effects of soil nematodes communities on litter decomposition in urban forest of Dalian北大核心CSCD

In order to further expound the effect of soil nematodes on litter decomposition in urban forest, this study investigated the responses of soil nematodes communities to litter decomposition by litterbags technology at different mesh sizes in Dalian National Forest Park. Soil nematodes community composition, decomposition rate of litter and nutrient release were also analyzed. It found a total of 4 418 nematodes from 39 genera. Higher relative density of soil nematodes was found in the bags with 0.1 mm mesh size (1.55 individuals and 7.34 orders per g of dry litter) compared to the bags with 0.02 mm mesh size (0.21 individuals and 0.49 orders per g of dry litter). There were very few soil nematodes in the 0.02 mm litter bags. Thus we regarded that soil nematodes only affected the 0.1 mm litter bags. The mass loss rates as well as C and P release rates was higher in litter bags with 0.1 mm mesh size than in those with 0.02 mm mesh size, indicating a significant influence of soil nematodes on mass loss and nutrient release. The contribution of soil nematodes to the litter mass loss was about 24%. The effect of soil nematodes on the nutrient release rates differed among elements. The soil nematodes had a bigger influence on the release rate of N than that of other elements, whereas the influence on K release rate was the lowest. The results showed that soil nematodes communities has a significant effect on the litter decomposition and nutrient release of the forest litter in Dalian city, especially promoting the mass loss rates and N release rates.