Environmental health, development and economic empowerment of rural women in Nigeria

Sustainable development is a process that has social, cultural, economic and ecological dimensions. The necessity of improving the quality of life of rural women in terms of socio-economic aspects in developing countries like Nigeria is the aim of this study. The study was carried out in four villages of Tonkere district (Okeake, Abagboro, Elefon and Akiri), situated on expansive university land at Ile-Ife and typical of rural settings in Nigeria. Data were generated from group meetings, local government and individual interviews and surveys. In rural Nigeria, women’s essential contributions to overall environmental health, development and economy are negatively influenced by domestic tasks such as gathering of fuel woods and biomass for cooking. In reality, wood burning, kerosene stoves, and open fireplaces emit significant quantities of known health-damaging pollutants. The significant emissions of health-damaging pollutants per unit activity, combined with daily use in close proximity to rural human populations mean household biomass fuel use exposes total population to important pollutants resulting in ill-health and premature dead. Application of solar energy collectors and hosts of solar devices is an alternative energy sources in rural areas that could best improve women’s health, socially and economically, and positively add to ecological dimensions. Readers should send their comments on this paper to: BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue.     

Ethics, Science, and Antimicrobial Resistance

The issue of regularly feeding low levels of antibiotics to farm animals in order to increase productivity is often portrayed as a dilemma. On the one hand, such antibiotic use is depicted as a necessary condition for producing cheap and plentiful food, such that were such use to stop, food prices would rise significantly and our ability to feed people in developing nations would decrease. On the other hand, such antibiotic use seems to breed antibiotic resistance into pathogens affecting human health. Resolving this dilemma, it is alleged, will require great amounts of research into risk/benefit assessment. Contrary to this claim, we will argue that society has all the data it needs to make a reasonable ethical decision, which would be curtailing such use. Such curtailment will not harm consumers significantly, will not harm developing nations' evolving agriculture, and could produce hitherto unnoticed benefits, namely restoring the possibility of a more husbandry-based, sustainable agriculture to replace the high-tech agriculture that has hurt animals, the environment, small farms, and sustainability.     

Urban-rural nitrogen emission from household food consumption in China: spatial pattern and dynamics analysis

The nitrogen emission from household food consumption (NEHFC) has played a vital role in sustainability development. Recent changes in household dietary have significantly accelerated reactive nitrogen emissions in China. However, the spatial patterns and dynamics of these flows between urban and rural areas remain unclear. Based on material flow and spatial-temporal analysis, our study investigated the patterns of Chinese urban-rural NEHFC during 1993–2015. Increasingly apparent regional disparities were found in both the spatial patterns of urban-rural NEHFC during the study period. Notably, the spatial autocorrelation of urban NEHFC demonstrated a ‘U’ type, compared with a recent decreasing Moran’s I index of rural NEHFC. Moreover, the regional spatial-temporal variation of per capita urban NEHFC exhibited ‘South (High)-North (Low)-Middle (Fast)’ trend. By contrast, the hotspot of per capita rural NEHFC mainly concentrated in South-eastern China with a distinct regional changing of ‘Middle-east (Fast) & west (Slow).’ The Social-Economic and Regional-Development Index were far more critical than the Natural-Geographic Index to the spatial-temporal variation of per capita urban NEHFC, whereas the rural NEHFC was driven by the combined actions of all the three indexes. Our study highlighted the necessity of ‘Location-Suitable’ and ‘Urban-rural recycling’ nitrogen management strategies for reducing the risk of NEHFC in China.     

The G-Index: a sustainability reporting assessment tool

The subject of sustainability reports, especially those related to GRI, has become an interesting topic to academics and practitioners. This paper seeks to propose an easy-to-use sustainability reporting assessment tool that is suitable to the GRI G4 guidelines. Our idea is to provide a tool that can be applied by an organization, based in GRI indicators, in a quick and easy way. The tool, called G-Index, represents the organizational sustainability performance. The index is a sum of four factors, and a questionnaire about the GRI elements raised the data to elaborate a Mudge diagram, which was used to define the weight values. Finally, the method for the evaluation tool was established, and a case study with the automotive sector was performed. The results showed us the G-Index represents a good option to assess the organization’s disclosure practices in sustainability reports based on the GRI framework. The report analysis presented some important facts, it is more common the disclosure of the Management Approach then the application of External Assurance. Furthermore, even the General Standard Disclosures of the GRI guidelines being mandatory, some companies do not fully disclose them, as shown in the GS factor, that makes up, the G-Index.     

Partners under pressure: humanitarian action for the Syria crisis

Partnerships between organisations in humanitarian crisis situations generally are challenging, but at the apex are those established as part of remote management in a context of extreme insecurity. To date, little systematic research has been conducted on arrangements between local organisations that have access to crisis‐affected populations and international organisations that hold the purse strings. This paper presents the findings of nine months of qualitative research conducted with five Syrian local organisations and their international partners engaging in humanitarian action across the Turkey–Syria border, and presents insights into the components of successful partnerships. It redefines capacity along organisational and operational lines, and unpacks how monitoring and evaluation and donor requirements create tension and, at times, place local organisations at risk. The paper highlights the centrality of trust in successful partnerships, and describes the personalisation of the conflict by local organisations. Based on a historical case study of civil society in northern Iraq, it closes with some suggestions for long‐term sustainability.     

全球主要国家环境可持续性综合评估——基于碳、水、土地的足迹-边界整合分析

随着地球生态系统的交互性、复杂性与整体性特征日益显现,综合分析和比较各类人为环境影响及其最大安全阈值,对于从整体上判断人类活动的可持续性、揭示承载力的超载程度具有重要意义.基于环境足迹和行星边界两项新概念,运用极差法和目标距离法对全球30 个主要国家的碳、水和土地赤字数据进行了标准化与权重化处理,得到一个复合的国家环境可持续性压力指数,并结合3 项环境赤字的实际分布状况,将所有国家划分为4 类:环境强可持续性(3 国)、环境弱可持续性(8 国)、环境弱不可持续性(9 国)、环境强不可持续性(10 国).总体上,环境可持续性压力呈现南美洲国家低、亚洲和非洲国家居中、欧美发达国家高的地域格局,亚洲是4 类国家并存的唯一大洲.全球的碳、水和土地足迹-边界比分别为3.0、0.6、0.7,表明就全球尺度而言,温室气体排放已处于严重超载状态,水资源消费和土地利用尚处于盈余状态,这与现有文献结果相吻合,从而在一定程度上验证了本研究结论的可靠性.     

Community participation in the management of forest reserves in the Northern Region of Ghana

The 1994 forest and wildlife policy of Ghana provides the basis for community participation in forest management through participatory forest management. Even though forest reserves in the Northern Region are said to be managed collaboratively, fringe communities are supposedly involved only in maintenance activities of the reserve boundaries and seedling planting in plantation programmes. The forest reserves are said to be threatened by illegal activities from the fringe communities. This study therefore examined the nature of community participation in the management of forest reserves.

It is a mixed method research in which structured interview schedule, in-depth interview and focus group discussion guides were used for data collection. Respondents comprised community members, forestry staff and NGOs. Communities’ participation was found to be passive and tokenistic and limited to boundary cleaning and providing labour on plantations. There is no formal collaboration between communities and Forest Services Division. Prospects to communities’ participation lie in the continuous flow of benefits and their active involvement in management decisions. Active involvement of communities in all decision-making processes, capacity building of communities and forestry staff, incentive schemes and awareness creation are recommended for promoting community participation in managing forest reserves in Northern Region.     

Hybrid process-criterion benchmarking methodology framework to support sustainability performance assessment and reporting

The conception, design, and implementation of sustainable development strategies in an organization aims at meeting and balancing economic, social, and environmental needs of internal and external stakeholders. While the principles and fundamentals of sustainability assist during the conception and design phases, the implementation process of management strategies – impacted directly or indirectly by internal and external factors – may identify areas of competitive advantages or challenges that would impede the projects and organizations’ performance targets. An organization is not an isolated entity and its performance is often compared against others in the market arena; therefore, assessment tools, benchmarking processes, and reporting strategies become essential for the understanding of the efforts made towards the implementation of plan, policies, and programs at the organization and project levels. A framework for a hybrid process-criterion benchmarking methodology is proposed in this paper. The framework integrates the Rank Xerox benchmarking process and the Wa-Pa-Su project sustainability rating system assessment methodology. The proposed hybrid process-criterion benchmarking methodology encourages the diversification in the development and implementation of sustainable and environmental rating systems in industry contexts (e.g., oil and gas, mining, heavy industrial, and energy) and aims for the improvement of existing sustainability performance assessment and reporting practices. It also assists the quantitative assessment process of advances and/or setbacks in sustainability performance and the implementation of continuous performance improvement programs.     

EU vision of sustainable agriculture,land use,forestry and management of natural resources – level of the Slovak state administration convergence to the EU requirements

The EU vision of sustainable agriculture, land use, forestry and management of natural resources contributes to the balanced exploitation of the environment, taking into account rural development strategy. Whilst the EU directs activities through legislative tools, national systems of public administration are responsible for the implementation of the respective laws. Despite there not being acquis communautaire in public administration, non-formal cooperation has nevertheless emerged and systems of national public administration have to meet EU criteria and ensure the effective implementation of legislation. The paper presents an analysis of how Slovak state administration has converged with EU requirements in the field of sustainable agriculture, land use, forestry and natural resources. Administrative convergence is considered through the internal convergence represented by capacities without legal subjectivity, and through external convergence represented by legal and administrative subjectivity. Both approaches are observed at the central level within specialized public authorities. Local state administration is characterized by the creation of internal administrative capacities with the challenging delimitation of which competences are affected by the process of administrative convergence.     

Spatial impacts of climate factors on regional agricultural and forestry biomass resources in north-eastern province of China

The dynamics of agricultural and forestry biomass are highly sensitive to climate change, particularly in high latitude regions. Heilongjiang Province was selected as research area in North-east China. We explored the trend of regional climate warming and distribution feature of biomass resources, and then analyzed on the spatial relationship between climate factors and biomass resources. Net primary productivity (NPP) is one of the key indicators of vegetation productivity, and was simulated as base data to calculate the distribution of agricultural and forestry biomass. The results show that temperatures rose by up to 0.37°C/10a from 1961 to 2013. Spatially, the variation of agricultural biomass per unit area changed from -1.93 to 5.85 t·km^–2·a^–1 during 2000–2013. More than 85% of farmland areas showed a positive relationship between agricultural biomass and precipitation. The results suggest that precipitation exerts an overwhelming climate influence on agricultural biomass. The mean density of forestry biomass varied from 10 to 30 t·km^–2. Temperature had a significant negative effect on forestry biomass in Lesser Khingan and northern Changbai Mountain, because increased temperature leads to decreased Rubisco activity and increased respiration in these areas. Precipitation had a significant positive relationship with forestry biomass in south-western Changbai Mountain, because this area had a warmer climate and stress from insufficient precipitation may induce xylem cavitation. Understanding the effects of climate factors on regional biomass resources is of great significance in improving environmental management and promoting sustainable development of further biomass resource use.

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