Voice as Entry to Agriculturalists’ Conservationist Identity: A Cultural Inventory of the Yellowstone River

We explored the communicative construction of a conservationist identity among primary producers by excavating voices of agriculturalists operating along the Yellowstone River (Montana, USA). We used a cultural inventory approach to discover and then listen to informants’ voices as they constructed their conservation identity. Those who self-identified as conservationists talked about their ecological and social responsibilities, and described challenges they faced in protecting individual resources and system processes of the watershed. For these agriculturalists, conservation and production are inextricably linked, and enable them to provide a sustainable resource base for future generations. Insight from these voices enhances understanding of what sustainability could mean to those who self-identify as both conservationists and primary producers.     

The adoption of green business practices among small US Midwestern manufacturing enterprises

Manufacturers around the world green their businesses for a variety of reasons, including competitiveness, social responsibility, and external stakeholder pressure. However, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are thought to lag behind larger ones in the adoption of green business practices. This paper explores the motivations for US Midwestern SMEs adopting a variety of green business practices, using a survey of 59 SMEs in the tool and die manufacturing industry. The majority of firms appear to be internally motivated to implement green practices – driven primarily by cost and competitiveness concerns, more than by social responsibility concerns. External coercive pressure from government or customers does not appear to be a significant motivation for these SMEs. However, informal pressure through government incentives and support programs, as well as mimetic pressure through peer learning via industry associations, appear to be more effective in helping these SMEs to further ‘go green.’     

A meta-ethnography to synthesise household cultural research for climate change response

Cultural change is critical to climate change responses, but the in-depth qualitative research that investigates culture is necessarily conducted at scales difficult to integrate with policy. A focus of climate change mitigation and adaptation is affluent developed world households. Adapting methods used elsewhere in social science, we report and assess a meta-ethnography of household sustainability research, scaling up findings from 12 studies encompassing 276 Australian households. Seven themes are dominant: family concerns are central to household practice; adaptiveness is contingent but more pervasive than often assumed; households make sense of climate change not through abstract arguments, but through physical resources and materials; boundaries of the home space are dynamic and subjective; daily time is an important currency; paradoxes abound among everyday practice; and privacy and a sense of autonomy are prioritised. Insights from the method include new light on familiar themes when seen through an environmental lens, thickening and triangulation of existing research, and a stronger basis for international comparisons. Some findings have straightforward application to policy, others identify potential areas of risk and resistance, others still are more conceptual. We conclude the method has considerable potential and is worth developing further, providing a critical perspective is maintained.     

Sustainability,education and local government: insights from the Australian state of Victoria

Local government (LG) is increasingly playing a role in tackling environmental issues and promoting sustainability. An important element of this LG focus is sustainability education and engagement, yet only few details on the nature of these activities are evident. Similarly there is little understanding of the professional competencies required by LG staff to deliver the relevant sustainability education and engagement activities. A web-based survey of LG sustainability officers in the State of Victoria (Australia) provides insight into the focus of these officers’ work and the competencies they rely on. The findings seek to guide the training and employment of LG sustainability staff and the effective delivery of sustainability education and engagement activities. Broadly, the sustainability officers surveyed are closely involved with activities within their LG organisation, but are engaging less so with specific education institutions, organisational sectors and the community in general. In keeping with this, the major sustainability education and engagement focuses are collaboration with peers and stakeholders, rather than community-wide initiatives. For undertaking sustainability education and engagement activities, systems-thinking, anticipatory competence and normative competence were highlighted as important; however, strategic competence and interpersonal competence were considered most important.     

Assessment of mammal reproduction for hunting sustainability through community‐based sampling of species in the wild

Wildlife subsistence hunting is a major source of protein for tropical rural populations and a prominent conservation issue. The intrinsic rate of natural increase. (r_max) of populations is a key reproductive parameter in the most used assessments of hunting sustainability. However, researchers face severe difficulties in obtaining reproductive data in the wild, so these assessments often rely on classic reproductive rates calculated mostly from studies of captive animals conducted 30 years ago. The result is a flaw in almost 50% of studies, which hampers management decision making. We conducted a 15‐year study in the Amazon in which we used reproductive data from the genitalia of 950 hunted female mammals. Genitalia were collected by local hunters. We examined tissue from these samples to estimate birthrates for wild populations of the 10 most hunted mammals. We compared our estimates with classic measures and considered the utility of the use of r_max in sustainability assessments. For woolly monkey (Lagothrix poeppigii) and tapir (Tapirus terrestris), wild birthrates were similar to those from captive populations, whereas birthrates for other ungulates and lowland‐paca (Cuniculus paca) were significantly lower than previous estimates. Conversely, for capuchin monkeys (Sapajus macrocephalus), agoutis (Dasyprocta sp.), and coatis (Nasua nasua), our calculated reproductive rates greatly exceeded often‐used values. Researchers could keep applying classic measures compatible with our estimates, but for other species previous estimates of r_max may not be appropriate. We suggest that data from local studies be used to set hunting quotas. Our maximum rates of population growth in the wild correlated with body weight, which suggests that our method is consistent and reliable. Integration of this method into community‐based wildlife management and the training of local hunters to record pregnancies in hunted animals could efficiently generate useful information of life histories of wild species and thus improve management of natural resources.     

中国玻璃物质流分析和未来需求预测研究

使用物质流分析方法和情景分析法探讨了1949~2050年玻璃的物质流动和初级资源可持续性.结果表明,废日用玻璃和废玻璃纤维是资源损失的关键节点;在不同需求增长率下,初级资源需求会在2030~2050年某个时期超过当前资源储量.2045年前,期望将废平板玻璃回收利用率提高到70%、废日用玻璃回收利用率提高到60%,使玻璃硅质资源可以满足低增长需求.为了达到循环目标,政府应持续推进垃圾分类,鼓励企业从设计端延长玻璃产品寿命,提高回收利用技术,建立完善的回收再利用体系.     

Natural food resources bank in the form of forestry and grassland: Scenarios to ensure sustainable food security

An evaluation was conducted to establish the feasibility of a Natural Food Resources Bank (NFRB), in the form of forestry or grassland, to achieve both continuous food production and an accumulation of primary nutrients in living perennial plants. The development of an NFRB protects our living environment from deterioration (especially soil erosion) by increasing the surface coverage of the world's land, even in mountainous areas. Additionally a functioning NFRB enhances food sustainably and security, representing a tangible and renewable food resource production system. Research has identified the prospects of cultivating the NFRB in the form of forestry and also grassland. The review investigated the distinct differences of an NFRB from a range of approaches and discusses the environmental advantage and feasibility of cultivating NFRB. The ability of the NFRB to realize sustainable food resources production for ensuring food security is evaluated in terms of environmental and economical feasibility. A NFRB can attenuate climatic change by increasing CO₂ absorption and fixation. It is worth considering the replacement of the annual food production system by the NFRB (especially in steeplands) in environmental law, and replacing the policy of maintaining annual food reserves by the NFRB in food security policy.     

The effect of intergroup comparison on willingness to perform sustainable behavior

The present research examines the effects of intergroup comparison on willingness to perform sustainable behavior. In Experiment 1, university students compared current students with past or future students, and then completed measures of willingness to perform sustainable behavior. Participants who compared to past students reported more willingness to perform sustainable behavior than those who compared to future students. In Experiment 2, university students again compared current students with past or future students and completed measures of sustainable beliefs and willingness to perform sustainable behavior. Participants who compared to past students reported more willingness to perform sustainable behavior than those who compared to future students. This effect was mediated by strengthened sustainable beliefs. The results show that intergroup comparison can be strategically employed to promote motivation to perform sustainable behavior.     

Water Supply and Stormwater Management Benefits of Residential Rainwater Harvesting in U.S. Cities

This article presents an analysis of the projected performance of urban residential rainwater harvesting systems in the United States (U.S.). The objectives are to quantify for 23 cities in seven climatic regions (1) water supply provided from rainwater harvested at a residential parcel and (2) stormwater runoff reduction from a residential drainage catchment. Water‐saving efficiency is determined using a water‐balance approach applied at a daily time step for a range of rainwater cistern sizes. The results show that performance is a function of cistern size and climatic pattern. A single rain barrel (190 l [50 gal]) installed at a residential parcel is able to provide approximately 50% water‐saving efficiency for the nonpotable indoor water demand scenario in cities of the East Coast, Southeast, Midwest, and Pacific Northwest, but <30% water‐saving efficiency in cities of the Mountain West, Southwest, and most of California. Stormwater management benefits are quantified using the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Storm Water Management Model. The results indicate that rainwater harvesting can reduce stormwater runoff volume up to 20% in semiarid regions, and less in regions receiving greater rainfall amounts for a long‐term simulation. Overall, the results suggest that U.S. cities and individual residents can benefit from implementing rainwater harvesting as a stormwater control measure and as an alternative source of water.     

Imagined citizens and participation: Local Agenda 21 in two communities in Sweden and Austria

Abstract

Local Agenda 21 (LA21), which has its roots in the UN Conference on Environment and Development held in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, aims at fostering processes of sustainable development on a local level. In this article, we compare the LA21 processes of two cities, Helsingborg in Sweden and Vienna in Austria, to seek insight into the varying implementation approaches of common international political commitments. Our focus of analysis is on the social organisation of the two processes, the way local residents are integrated into LA21 work, and especially the political images of citizens—which we call ‘imagined citizens’—that different actor groups hold. The results of the study illustrate two almost diametrically opposed organisational forms of local sustainability governance, the Swedish process relying on a more expert-led, technocratic model of implementation and the Austrian process strongly building on deliberative forms of citizen participation.