Deliberation and ecological democracy: from citizen to global system

ABSTRACT

Ecological democracy confronts a challenge of not only reconciling democracy and ecology, but doing so where human activities and their environmental consequences are increasingly global. Deliberative scholars dealing with these issues emphasise reflexive governance, involving the contestation of discourses, as part of the solution, mostly aimed at high-level institutions and intergovernmental cooperation. However, even at this level democracy demands responsiveness to the citizen. To this end, the paper explores citizen-level deliberation to inform possibilities for ecological democracy writ large, via a growing literature on deliberative governance and polycentrism. Different system levels are connected via ecologically reflexive capacity and the discursive conditions under which it is enhanced, including in small-scale minipublics. This understanding informs mechanisms for ‘scaling up’ deliberative quality to the wider public sphere via regulating the manipulation of public discourse. Minipublic deliberation, properly harnessed, can serve to decontaminate public debate of anti-reflexive strategic arguments and reshape public discourse. Such anti-reflexive strategies seek to shape the public will, specifically by de-emphasising ecology via intuitive arguments that short-cut public reasoning. Acting as discursive regulatory trustees, minipublics can improve reflexivity in the wider system via a nested polycentric approach that discursively connects citizens’ deliberation to the global system both horizontally and vertically.     

Within-plant allocation of a chemical defense in Secale cereale. Is concentration the appropriate currency of allocation?

Summary. The among-leaves allocation of DIBOA, a hydroxamic acid associated with plant resistance, in the shoot of rye (Secale cereale) was evaluated over the vegetative development of the plant. The appropriateness of using the concentration of secondary metabolites, DIBOA in this case, as the parameter to evaluate defense allocation in plants is discussed. Both biological and statistical arguments are put forward to suggest that allocation of chemical defenses should refer to absolute content and not to concentration. Results showed that leaf age was significantly linked to leaf concentration of DIBOA, young leaves having higher concentrations. In contrast, leaf content of DIBOA, our proposed currency of allocation, was not significantly higher in younger leaves. Furthermore, a regression analysis showed that the DIBOA content of leaves was better explained by the leaf relative biomass (proportion of shoot biomass) than by leaf biomass itself. It is suggested that, rather than leaf age, leaf relative biomass is the major factor determining DIBOA allocation in rye shoots. It is proposed that studies addressing within-plant defense allocation should use chemical defense content as the currency, emphasizing the major factors driving this process and its underlying mechanisms. Likewise, it is proposed that studies aiming at characterizing optimal patterns of plant defense should use chemical defense concentration as the currency, and be accompanied by evaluations of the actual resistance against herbivores of the plant parts analyzed, together with the effect on plant fitness. Received 19 February 1999; accepted 28 April 1999.     

Adaptation policy and community discourse: risk,vulnerability, and just transformation

How can public engagement assist in the development of just processes and outcomes in adaptation discourse and policymaking? A concern with justice is at the center of thinking about adaptation that is not only resilient, but also public, engaging, and transformative. Theoretically, the intersection of adaptation, transformation, and environmental and climate justice is examined, before exploring the specific concerns and normative foundations for adaptation policy articulated by local governments, environmental groups, and local residents engaged in adaptation planning in Australia. Despite a discursive disconnect between governmental focus on a risk or resilience-based approach and a community concern with the vulnerability of basic needs and capabilities of everyday life, deliberative engagement in adaptation planning can both address issues of justice and represent a transformative practice.     

Ecotoxicity of imidacloprid to soil invertebrates in two tropical soils with contrasting texture

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Imidacloprid is one of the most commercialized insecticides in agriculture in the world, with a broad spectrum of action. However, little is known...     

Sea-level rise in Indonesia: on adaptation priorities in the agricultural sector

Adaptation to climate-change impacts requires understanding of where impacts are to be expected and what their magnitude may be. Adaptation funds are only a limited resource for helping affected parties in coping with climate-change impacts. The application of suitable methods helps to determine the recipients of adaptation aid. A quantification of impacts based on different impact analyses can aid in taking on various perspectives on the same problem in order to identify the appropriate perspective for the given decision-making context or for identifying impact patterns. Once executed, this prioritizes adaptation needs and finding a suitable allocation rule, given the policy makers perception of the decision-making context. The study introduces a set of methods of spatially explicit, sub-national (province level), and country-wide impact analyses regarding inundation impacts on agricultural areas for four important food crops in Indonesia. These methods are applied to a 1 and 2 m sea-level rise scenario and include a novel approach for impact analyses, data envelopment analysis, which is not widely used in environmental studies as of yet. Based on the given case study, the paper demonstrates the applicability of these methods and identifies impact patterns.     

Patterns of chemical defences in plants: an analysis of the vascular flora of Chile

Summary. The plant apparency hypothesis predicts that apparent plants invest in broadly effective defences such as tannins while unapparent plants invest in specific toxins such as alkaloids. The stress hypothesis states that plants invest in cheaper defences if they have evolved in habitats that impose abiotic limitations to plant fitness. We tested these hypotheses by determining the concentrations of alkaloids and tannins in a representative sample of the vascular plants of continental Chile (with exclusion of Pteridophyta, Cactaceae, and Poaceae) consisting of 396 species. In a subsample of 166 species which contained both alkaloids and tannins, we constructed the A/T index (A/T = [alkaloids]/ [tannins]). We discarded the presumed effect of phylogeny (as estimated by taxonomy) on the variation observed in the data because no correlation of A/T with taxonomic relationships among species either at family or genus levels was found in a nested ANOVA with genera nested in families. Concentration of alkaloids was negatively correlated with that of tannins. We compared the value of A/T among species differing in life form (herbs, shrubs or trees), herb longevity (annual or perennial), leaf-shedding manner of woody plants (deciduous or evergreen), latitudinal range, and level of water stress typical in their natural habitat. Unapparent plants (herbs, annual) exhibited higher mean A/T index than apparent plants (shrubs and trees, perennial). A/T did not correlate with latitudinal range. Mean A/T values decreased from deserts to deciduous forests. The comparisons were not always significant due to the inevitable unbalance of the data set which lowers the power of the statistical tests employed. The results suggest that chemical defences are indeed distributed in a non-random manner among plants, and that to a large extent the predictions derived from the apparency and stress hypotheses are sustained.     

Application of the Weibull distribution to describe the vertical distribution of cesium-137 on a slope under permanent pasture in Luxembourg

The application of solutions of the Advection-Dispersion-Equation (ADE) for soil profiles is sometimes questionable. An alternative method, based on the Weibull distribution, has been developed, which can approximate the vertical distribution of radiocesium (137Cs) and allows extrapolation to account for the complete inventory. The structure of the equation allows simple parameters describing the soil depth profile to be derived. Reliable estimates of the total 137Cs inventory can help to explain the lateral distribution. This equation was used to analyse the 137Cs-activities of Chernobyl fall-out measured on a slope under permanent pasture in Luxembourg.     

Pre-pupation behaviour of the aphid parasitoid <Emphasis Type="Italic">Aphidius ervi</Emphasis> (Haliday) and its consequences for pre-imaginal learning

Olfactory learning may occur at different stages of insect ontogeny. In parasitoid wasps, it has been mostly shown at adult emergence, whilst it remains controversial at pre-imaginal stages. We followed larval growth of the parasitoid wasp, Aphidius ervi Haliday, inside the host aphid, Acyrthosiphom pisum Harris, and characterised in detail the behaviour of third instar larvae. We found that just before cocoon spinning begins, the third instar larva bites a hole through the ventral side of the mummified aphid exoskeleton. We then evaluated whether this period of exposure to the external environment represented a sensitive stage for olfactory learning. In our first experiment, the third instar larvae were allowed to spin their cocoon on the host plant (Vicia faba L.) surface or on a plastic plate covering the portion of the host plant exposed to the ventral opening. Recently emerged adults of the first group showed a preference for plant volatiles in a glass Y-olfactometer, whereas no preference was found in adults of the second group. In a second experiment, during the period in which the aphid carcass remains open or is being sealed by cocoon spinning, third instar larvae were exposed for 24 h to either vanilla odours or water vapours as control. In this experiment, half of the parasitoid larvae were later excised from the mummy to avoid further exposure to vanilla. Adult parasitoids exposed to vanilla during the larval ventral opening of the mummy showed a significant preference for vanilla odours in the olfactometer, regardless of excision from the mummy. The larval behaviour described and the results of the manipulations performed are discussed as evidences for the acquisition of olfactory memory during the larval stage and its persistence through metamorphosis.     

Analysis of chemical contamination within a canal in a Mexican border colonia

This study examines urban pollution within Derechos Humanos, a colonia popular in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico. General water quality indicators (coliform bacteria, total dissolved solids, ecologically relevant cations and anions), heavy metals (copper, lead, nickel, zinc, iron and cadmium), and volatile organic compounds (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, styrene, and dichlorobenzene and xylene isomers) were quantified within a wastewater canal running adjacent to the community. Water samples were collected at multiple sites along the banks of the canal and evidence of anthropogenic emissions existed at each sampling location. Sample site 2, approximately 10 m upstream of the colonia, contained both the widest range of hazardous pollutants and the greatest number exceeding US Environmental Protection Agency surface water standards. At each sampling location, high concentrations of total coliform (> 10(4) colonies/100 mL sample), lead (ranging from 0.05 to 0.40 mg/L), nickel (levels from 0.21 to 1.45 mg/L), and benzene (up to 9.80 mg/L) were noted.