Incentivizing Monitoring and Compliance in Trophy Hunting

Conservation scientists are increasingly focusing on the drivers of human behavior and on the implications of various sources of uncertainty for management decision making. Trophy hunting has been suggested as a conservation tool because it gives economic value to wildlife, but recent examples show that overharvesting is a substantial problem and that data limitations are rife. We use a case study of trophy hunting of an endangered antelope, the mountain nyala (Tragelaphus buxtoni), to explore how uncertainties generated by population monitoring and poaching interact with decision making by 2 key stakeholders: the safari companies and the government. We built a management strategy evaluation model that encompasses the population dynamics of mountain nyala, a monitoring model, and a company decision making model. We investigated scenarios of investment into antipoaching and monitoring by governments and safari companies. Harvest strategy was robust to the uncertainty in the population estimates obtained from monitoring, but poaching had a much stronger effect on quota and sustainability. Hence, reducing poaching is in the interests of companies wishing to increase the profitability of their enterprises, for example by engaging community members as game scouts. There is a threshold level of uncertainty in the population estimates beyond which the year‐to‐year variation in the trophy quota prevented planning by the safari companies. This suggests a role for government in ensuring that a baseline level of population monitoring is carried out such that this level is not exceeded. Our results illustrate the importance of considering the incentives of multiple stakeholders when designing frameworks for resource use and when designing management frameworks to address the particular sources of uncertainty that affect system sustainability most heavily. Incentivando el Monitoreo y el Cumplimiento en la Caza de Trofeos     

Effects of Human Population Density and Proximity to Markets on Coral Reef Fishes Vulnerable to Extinction by Fishing

Coral reef fisheries are crucial to the livelihoods of tens of millions of people; yet, widespread habitat degradation and unsustainable fishing are causing severe depletion of stocks of reef fish. Understanding how social and economic factors, such as human population density, access to external markets, and modernization interact with fishing and habitat degradation to affect fish stocks is vital to sustainable management of coral reef fisheries. We used fish survey data, national social and economic data, and path analyses to assess whether these factors explain variation in biomass of coral reef fishes among 25 sites in Solomon Islands. We categorized fishes into 3 groups on the basis of life‐history characteristics associated with vulnerability to extinction by fishing (high, medium, and low vulnerability). The biomass of fish with low vulnerability was positively related to habitat condition. The biomass of fishes with high vulnerability was negatively related to fishing conducted with efficient gear. Use of efficient gear, in turn, was strongly and positively related to both population density and market proximity. This result suggests local population pressure and external markets have additive negative effects on vulnerable reef fish. Biomass of the fish of medium vulnerability was not explained by fishing intensity or habitat condition, which suggests these species may be relatively resilient to both habitat degradation and fishing. Efectos de la Densidad de Poblaciones Humanas y la Proximidad del Mercado sobre Peces de Arrecifes de Coral Vulnerables a la Extinción     

Scale Mismatches,Conservation Planning,and the Value of Social‐Network Analyses

Many of the challenges conservation professionals face can be framed as scale mismatches. The problem of scale mismatch occurs when the planning for and implementation of conservation actions is at a scale that does not reflect the scale of the conservation problem. The challenges in conservation planning related to scale mismatch include ecosystem or ecological process transcendence of governance boundaries; limited availability of fine‐resolution data; lack of operational capacity for implementation; lack of understanding of social‐ecological system components; threats to ecological diversity that operate at diverse spatial and temporal scales; mismatch between funding and the long‐term nature of ecological processes; rate of action implementation that does not reflect the rate of change of the ecological system; lack of appropriate indicators for monitoring activities; and occurrence of ecological change at scales smaller or larger than the scale of implementation or monitoring. Not recognizing and accounting for these challenges when planning for conservation can result in actions that do not address the multiscale nature of conservation problems and that do not achieve conservation objectives. Social networks link organizations and individuals across space and time and determine the scale of conservation actions; thus, an understanding of the social networks associated with conservation planning will help determine the potential for implementing conservation actions at the required scales. Social‐network analyses can be used to explore whether these networks constrain or enable key social processes and how multiple scales of action are linked. Results of network analyses can be used to mitigate scale mismatches in assessing, planning, implementing, and monitoring conservation projects. Discordancia de Escalas, Planificación de la Conservación y el Valor del Análisis de Redes Sociales     

关于建立我国资源节约型经济体系的认识

从可持续发展角度看,我国资源节约型经济体系机制应在坚持集约经济和适应消费的基础上,强调社会生产与消费两者间的平衡和协调发展,欲达此目的,加快市场经济体系的完善和国家宏观指导是保障这一体系机制正常运转的根本条件。     

Management provoked conflict in fisheries

Fishery management concepts incorporate a number of value judgements about what social goals are right for a fishery. These value judgements result in optimizing some goals over others. Since the public, fishermen, and consumers weight goals differently than managers, frustration and conflict result. The correspondence between social goals specified by the public and those inherent in management concepts needs to be evaluated.     

THE IMPORTANCE OF PERCEPTIONS IN THE DETERMINATION OF INDIAN WATER RIGHTS1

ABSTRACT The American Indian occupies a unique place in the federal system of government There are indications that this relationship will continue and that Indian reservations are at the threshold of economic development. As this occurs, the nature and extent of Indian water rights becomes more important to Indian and non-Indian alike. The determination of these rights is a matter of more than judicial decisions. To a large degree the determination of these rights will rest in the non-judicial arena and will be influenced by the perceptions of those rights held by Indians and water allocation officials, both state and federal. If the perceptions of these political actors are not congruent, then political conflict will occur as the rights become more important. To depend solely upon the judicial system to resolve these conflicts entails risks and costs to both Indians and to allocating officials. Indians are taking seriously the federal policy of Indian self-determination, and water allocation officials run decided risks in failure to realize this. An alternative suggested is to include Indians as consulting parties when decisions are being made that affect Indian interests.     

SOCIO-ECONOMIC ACCOUNTING APPLIED TO WATER RESOURCE PLANNING1

ABSTRACT The growing social consciousness and concern with human well-being has resulted in numerous water resource use and control programs, the results of which must be measured not in the customary monetary terms, but rather in terms of social and human welfare. Interdisciplinary research offers the greatest promise of yielding fruitful results in establishing planning methodology that would result in a maximum utilization of funds available for water resource programs. Working with the various social science disciplines, accountants have begun research in social measurement thus opening the door to a new field of accountancy known as socio-economic accounting. The development of social accounting systems will improve water resource management by projecting heretofore unmeasureable social values into the management decision making process.     

SOCIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF WATER DEVELOPMENT1

Decisions to develop water resources systems so far have been primarily taken on the basis of engineering and economic feasibilities. Very rarely, if ever, sociological feasibility has been considered, except in a very broad sense. Planning is for the people, and it should improve the quality of life. Hence, it is argued that water resources decisions ought to be primarily social ones, and that the success or failure of any resource development should not only be judged by its techno-economic excellence but also by its impact on people. Water resources planning process is discussed, and the difficulties associated with the evaluation of sociological feasibility of projects are enumerated. The social consequences of water development projects are traced through planning, construction, operation and management impacts. Finally, it is suggested that the foremost factor in the success of any water management program is the public understanding and acceptance of that program.     

综合整治府南河走可持续发展之路

府南河工程带动成都市城市基础设施建设,产生了巨大 在的社会效益,促进了环境保护及城市生态的良性循环,造就了成都市建设现代化商贸中心的前提条件,为成都市的可持续发展奠定了基础。     

Finding a Balance Over Precaution

Three interpretations of theprecautionary principle are identified, namely``soft,' ``hard,' and outright rejection. The ECCommunication of February 2000 is largely aresponse to the latter, to provide alegitimation in trade-related WTO disputes.This context leads to an over stress onscientific closure. This is critiqued asidealistic in respect of resolving long termuncertainties inherent in the GM food issue.While offering some useful guidelines in riskmanagement, the EC report seriously fails totake into account the ethical and societaldimension of risk. These are crucial both indetermining when precautionary principle isinvoked and the action to be taken. The EC viewleans too much to a scientific rationalist riskperspective. However, the ``Green'interpretation of the precautionary principleas a reversal of the burden of proof is alsocriticized as inconsistent both with the natureof technology and with the nature of reality asseen in a Christian perspective. Biblicalinsights on risk reveal a balance ofintervention and conservation in a world whererisk is inherent. The notion of risk as asocial contract reveals that ethical andsocietal issues have a crucial role to play inapplying the precautionary principle.