Disarming the population bomb

This paper argues for a renewed international focus on managed population reduction as a key enabler of sustainable development. The paper presents development data that demonstrate why population reduction should be elevated to share top priority with poverty alleviation, as the two over-arching goals of international development strategy. The critical analysis put forth in this paper argues that the current ‘unsustainable’ approach to sustainable development stems from (1) ‘empty world’ economic growth theory applied to a ‘full world’, which is (2) supported and driven by socioeconomic incentives to expand population, (3) justified through flawed interpretation of demographic transition theory, (4) bolstered by the exaggerated efficacy of environmental economic theory applied in a resource-constrained world, (5) insulated from challenge by limitations of scientific knowledge and (6) perpetuated by herd behavior. This paper concludes that failure to reduce global population will inhibit attainment of poverty alleviation and worsen environmental degradation.     

A sustainable development metric based on youth

Nearly two decades ago, the World Bank declared achieving sustained and equitable development to be the greatest challenge facing the human race. In this article, an index of youth investment (IYI) is proposed to highlight children and the intergenerational dimension of sustainable development. The index incorporates quality-adjusted measures for child health and education. Comparisons with two complementary indicators of sustainable development, the human development index (HDI) and the adjusted net saving rate (AS), are made. A cross-section of 34 nations for 2006 is used as an illustration. A discussion of policies for promoting sustainable development through investing in children concludes the article.     

A Revealed Preference Approach to Estimating Supply Curves for Ecosystem Services: Use of Auctions to Set Payments for Soil Erosion Control in Indonesia

Abstract:  To supply ecosystem services, private landholders incur costs. Knowledge of these costs is critical for the design of conservation-payment programs. Estimating these costs accurately is difficult because the minimum acceptable payment to a potential supplier is private information. We describe how an auction of payment contracts can be designed to elicit this information during the design phase of a conservation-payment program. With an estimate of the ecosystem-service supply curve from a pilot auction, conservation planners can explore the financial, ecological, and socioeconomic consequences of alternative scaled-up programs. We demonstrate the potential of our approach in Indonesia, where soil erosion on coffee farms generates downstream ecological and economic costs. Bid data from a small-scale, uniform-price auction for soil-conservation contracts allowed estimates of the costs of a scaled-up program, the gain from integrating biophysical and economic data to target contracts, and the trade-offs between poverty alleviation and supply of ecosystem services. Our study illustrates an auction-based approach to revealing private information about the costs of supplying ecosystem services. Such information can improve the design of programs devised to protect and enhance ecosystem services.     

Incorporating basic needs to reconcile poverty and ecosystem services

Conservation managers frequently face the challenge of protecting and sustaining biodiversity without producing detrimental outcomes for (often poor) human populations that depend on ecosystem services for their well-being. However, mutually beneficial solutions are often elusive and can mask trade-offs and negative outcomes for people. To deal with such trade-offs, ecological and social thresholds need to be identified to determine the acceptable solution space for conservation. Although human well-being as a concept has recently gained prominence, conservationists still lack tools to evaluate how their actions affect it in a given context. We applied the theory of human needs to conservation by building on an extensive historical application of need approaches in international development. In an innovative participatory method that included focus groups and household surveys, we evaluated how human needs are met based on locally relevant thresholds. We then established connections between human needs and ecosystem services through key-informant focus groups. We applied our method in coastal East Africa to identify households that would not be able to meet their basic needs and to uncover the role of ecosystem services in meeting these. This enabled us to identify how benefits derived from the environment were contributing to meeting basic needs and to consider potential repercussions that could arise through changes to ecosystem service provision. We suggest our approach can help conservationists and planners balance poverty alleviation and biodiversity protection and ensure conservation measures do not, at the very least, cause serious harm to individuals. We further argue it can be used as a basis for monitoring the impacts of conservation on multidimensional poverty.     

基于DEA与ESDA的中国国家级贫困县发展效率的测度与时空演化研究

本研究从发展效率角度出发,以592个国家级贫困县为研究对象,构建了投入-产出指标体系,采用数据包络分析法,测度了2002和2012年中国国家级贫困县的发展效率,并基于GIS空间分析法对发展效率的空间差异格局进行了深入分析。研究发现:第一、国家级贫困县覆盖的面积在扩大,西南地区的贵州省和西北地区的甘肃省成为目前国家扶贫开发的重点和难点地区。第二、特色资源的利用和开发是国家级贫困县实现经济发展的关键。贫困地区往往具有得天独厚的矿产资源、自然景观资源等,利用好上述资源可以促使贫困地区真正实现经济的成长发展。2002年DEA有效的贫困县主要是自然资源、人力资源和旅游资源相对丰富的地区,这些地区通过相关资源的开发已经实现了自身经济的"内生式增长",而且这些地区基本都已经退出了国家级贫困县的范畴。贵州和甘肃等各类资源非常匮乏的地区成为DEA效率最低的国家级贫困县集中区。这两个省份地理位置闭塞,自然条件恶劣,资源禀赋贫乏,缺乏可以支撑经济内生发展的支撑。第三、DEA有效和DEA效率偏低的贫困县都表现出一定的空间相关性。根据贫困县的空间临接性,采取集中连片的扶贫开发政策符合贫困县的实际情况。第四、2002-2012年间,国家级贫困县县域经济的热、冷点格局发生了很大变化。国家级贫困县的经济发展态势出现了很大的改变。     

专业化、多样化与产业结构减贫效应的动态异质表现研究

新一轮扶贫攻坚阶段,贫困地区实现可持续减贫的关键不在于现有经济增长模式下如何提高转移支付的精度和效率,而在于真正改变贫困地区的经济发展理念,从盯住经济总量增长转向用减贫目标统领经济发展。产业结构与贫困减缓的关系影响着贫困地区产业发展的政策制定,但既往研究对何种产业结构更有助于贫困减缓没有形成共识。本文基于产业专业化和多样化视角,分析了专业化、多样化影响贫困减缓的理论机制,并利用2004—2014年中国省级面板数据,对专业化、相关多样化、不相关多样化与FGT贫困指数的关系进行了门限回归和稳健性检验。检验结果确认了产业结构减贫效应的动态异质表现:专业化的减贫效应在产品生命周期的初始和发展阶段趋于增强,并且经济密度更小、距离技术前沿更远的地区,专业化的减贫效果更显著;多样化的减贫绩效低于专业化,且相关多样化的减贫效应高于不相关多样化。细分产业来看,第三产业相关多样化比其他多样化结构更具减贫效果。贫困地区在减贫的产业结构选择上,首要目标是改善专业化程度,其次是在多样化的既定前提下,谋求相关多样化,尤其是第三产业的相关多样化。专业化和相关多样化对不同贫困群体的影响也存在差别,既往产业结构更有利于贫困线附近群体的贫困减缓,而对深度贫困群体的溢出不足。因此,在塑造合宜减贫产业结构,改善低技能劳动力需求的同时,还应辅以改善深度贫困人口劳动力供给的政策,改善其自我发展能力和经济机会,从而增强从益贫产业结构中获益的能力。     

防震减灾与社区建设

本文从建设安全社区,打造平安城市,构建和谐社会的角度,分析阐述了防震减灾工作在构建和谐社会中的基础作用。     

When Agendas Collide: Human Welfare and Biological Conservation

Abstract:  Conservation should benefit ecosystems, nonhuman organisms, and current and future human beings. Nevertheless, tension among these goals engenders potential ethical conflicts: conservationists' true motivations may differ from the justifications they offer for their activities, and conservation projects have the potential to disempower and oppress people. We reviewed the promise and deficiencies of integrating social, economic, and biological concerns into conservation, focusing on research in ecosystem services and efforts in community-based conservation. Despite much progress, neither paradigm provides a silver bullet for conservation's most pressing problems, and both require additional thought and modification to become maximally effective. We conclude that the following strategies are needed to make conservation more effective in our human-dominated world. (1) Conservation research needs to integrate with social scholarship in a more sophisticated manner. (2) Conservation must be informed by a detailed understanding of the spatial, temporal, and social distributions of costs and benefits of conservation efforts. Strategies should reflect this understanding, particularly by equitably distributing conservation's costs. (3) We must better acknowledge the social concerns that accompany biodiversity conservation; accordingly, sometimes we must argue for conservation for biodiversity's sake, not for its direct human benefits.     

皖西地区贫困空间分异的影响机制

区域性贫困是当前中国社会经济和区域发展不平衡的核心表现。以大别山连片特困区的皖西地区为例,以乡镇贫困发生率为贫困空间分异指标,以地理环境、经济环境、社会环境的20个因素为自变量,综合运用相关分析、空间回归、地理加权回归等方法,探究各因素对贫困空间分异的影响。结果表明：平均坡度、人均规模以上工业总产值、二三产业收入占纯收入比例、医疗卫生机构床位数是导致皖西地区贫困空间分异的核心因素,且其影响具有较强的空间异质性;地理机制、经济机制、社会机制是皖西地区贫困空间分异的主要机制,其中,地理环境是基础影响,经济环境的影响较强,社会环境影响广且大多与地理环境相关。研究结果对贫困干预的地理瞄准具有较强的借鉴意义。     

Community energy initiatives to alleviate fuel poverty: the material politics of Energy Cafés

Community action has an increasingly prominent role in the debates surrounding transitions to sustainability. Initiatives such as community energy projects, community gardens, local food networks and car sharing clubs provide new spaces for sustainable consumption, and combinations of technological and social innovations. These initiatives, which are often driven by social good rather than by pure monetary motives, have been conceptualised as grassroots innovations. Previous research in grassroots innovations has largely focused on conceptualising such initiatives and analysing their potential for replication and diffusion; there has been less research in the politics involved in these initiatives. We examine grassroots innovations as forms of political engagement that is different from the 1970s’ alternative technology movements. Through an analysis of community-run Energy Cafés in the United Kingdom, we argue that while present-day grassroots innovations appear less explicitly political than their predecessors, they can still represent a form of political participation. Through the analytical lens of material politics, we investigate how Energy Cafés engage in diverse – explicit and implicit, more or less conscious – forms of political engagement. In particular, their work to “demystify” clients’ energy bills can unravel into various forms of advocacy and engagement with energy technologies and practices in the home. Some Energy Café practices also make space for a needs-driven approach that acknowledges the embeddedness of energy in the household and wider society.