Progress and challenges in consolidating the management of Amazonian protected areas and indigenous territories

Effective management refers to the ability of a protected area or indigenous territory to meet its objectives, particularly as they relate to the protection of biodiversity and forest cover. Effective management is achieved through a process of consolidation, which among other things requires legally protecting sites, integrating sites into land‐use planning, developing and implementing management and resource‐use plans, and securing long‐term funding to pay for recurrent costs. Effectively managing all protected areas and indigenous territories in the Amazon may be needed to avoid a deforestation tipping point beyond which regional climatic feedbacks and global climate change interact to catalyze irreversible drying and savannization of large areas. At present, protected areas and indigenous territories cover 45.5% (3.55 million km²) of the Amazon, most of the 60–70% forest cover required to maintain hydrologic and climatic function. Three independent evaluations of a long‐term large‐scale philanthropic initiative in the Amazon yielded insights into the challenges and advances toward achieving effective management of protected areas and indigenous territories. Over the life of the initiative, management of sites has improved considerably, particularly with respect to management planning and capacity building, but few sites are effectively managed and many lack sufficient long‐term financing, adequate governance, support of nongovernmental organizations, and the means to withstand economic pressures. The time and money required to complete consolidation is still poorly understood, but it is clear that philanthropic funding is critical so long as essential funding needs are not met by governments and other sources, which could be on the order of decades. Despite challenges, it is encouraging that legal protection has expanded greatly and management of sites is improving steadily. Management of protected areas in other developing countries could be informed by improvements that have occurred in Amazonian countries.     

Understanding implications of consumer behavior for wildlife farming and sustainable wildlife trade

Unsustainable wildlife trade affects biodiversity and the livelihoods of communities dependent upon those resources. Wildlife farming has been proposed to promote sustainable trade, but characterizing markets and understanding consumer behavior remain neglected but essential steps in the design and evaluation of such operations. We used sea turtle trade in the Cayman Islands, where turtles have been farm raised for human consumption for almost 50 years, as a case study to explore consumer preferences toward wild‐sourced (illegal) and farmed (legal) products and potential conservation implications. Combining methods innovatively (including indirect questioning and choice experiments), we conducted a nationwide trade assessment through in‐person interviews from September to December 2014. Households were randomly selected using disproportionate stratified sampling, and responses were weighted based on district population size. We approached 597 individuals, of which 37 (6.2%) refused to participate. Although 30% of households had consumed turtle in the previous 12 months, the purchase and consumption of wild products was rare (e.g., 64–742 resident households consumed wild turtle meat [i.e., 0.3–3.5% of households] but represented a large threat to wild turtles in the area due to their reduced populations). Differences among groups of consumers were marked, as identified through choice experiments, and price and source of product played important roles in their decisions. Despite the long‐term practice of farming turtles, 13.5% of consumers showed a strong preference for wild products, which demonstrates the limitations of wildlife farming as a single tool for sustainable wildlife trade. By using a combination of indirect questioning, choice experiments, and sales data to investigate demand for wildlife products, we obtained insights about consumer behavior that can be used to develop conservation‐demand‐focused initiatives. Lack of data from long‐term social–ecological assessments hinders the evaluation of and learning from wildlife farming. This information is key to understanding under which conditions different interventions (e.g., bans, wildlife farming, social marketing) are likely to succeed.     

The State of the Mammal Community of Boreal Forest Ecosystems in the Vicinity of a Nickel-Smelting Plant

The effect of industrial air pollution on natural small mammal populations has been studied in the northern taiga subzone of the boreal forest zone. The results of long-term monitoring have been used to demonstrate the possibility of predicting changes in the main population and community characteristics of the animal species studied as dependent on the degree of anthropogenic impact.     

Isotope tracing of submarine groundwater discharge offshore Ubatuba, Brazil: results of the IAEA–UNESCO SGD project

Results of groundwater and seawater analyses for radioactive (³H, ²²²Rn, ²²³Ra, ²²⁴Ra, ²²⁶Ra, and ²²⁸Ra) and stable (D and ¹⁸O) isotopes are presented together with in situ spatial mapping and time series ²²²Rn measurements in seawater, direct seepage measurements using manual and automated seepage meters, pore water investigations using different tracers and piezometric techniques, and geoelectric surveys probing the coast. This study represents first time that such a new complex arsenal of radioactive and non-radioactive tracer techniques and geophysical methods have been used for simultaneous submarine groundwater discharge (SGD) investigations. Large fluctuations of SGD fluxes were observed at sites situated only a few meters apart (from 0 cm d⁻¹ to 360 cm d⁻¹; the unit represents cm³/cm²/day), as well as during a few hours (from 0 cm d⁻¹ to 110 cm d⁻¹), strongly depending on the tidal fluctuations. The average SGD flux estimated from continuous ²²²Rn measurements is 17 ± 10 cm d⁻¹. Integrated coastal SGD flux estimated for the Ubatuba coast using radium isotopes is about 7 × 10³ m³ d⁻¹ per km of the coast. The isotopic composition (δD and δ¹⁸O) of submarine waters was characterised by significant variability and heavy isotope enrichment, indicating that the contribution of groundwater in submarine waters varied from a small percentage to 20%. However, this contribution with increasing offshore distance became negligible. Automated seepage meters and time series measurements of ²²²Rn activity concentration showed a negative correlation between the SGD rates and tidal stage. This is likely caused by sea level changes as tidal effects induce variations of hydraulic gradients. The geoelectric probing and piezometric measurements contributed to better understanding of the spatial distribution of different water masses present along the coast. The radium isotope data showed scattered distributions with offshore distance, which imply that seawater in a complex coast with many small bays and islands was influenced by local currents and groundwater/seawater mixing. This has also been confirmed by a relatively short residence time of 1–2 weeks for water within 25 km offshore, as obtained by short-lived radium isotopes. The irregular distribution of SGD seen at Ubatuba is a characteristic of fractured rock aquifers, fed by coastal groundwater and recirculated seawater with small admixtures of groundwater, which is of potential environmental concern and has implications on the management of freshwater resources in the region.     

MnFe2O4磁性纳米棒非均相Fenton催化降解水中四环素的研究

采用水热合成法成功制备出MnFe₂O₄磁性纳米棒（s-MnFe₂O₄）,并考察了商品化的Fe₃O₄、MnFe₂O₄和合成的s-MnFe₂O₄纳米棒这3种磁性纳米颗粒作为非均相Fenton催化剂降解水中四环素抗生素的性能.同时,采用X射线衍射（XRD）、透射电镜（TEM）、N₂吸附-脱附、振动样品磁强计（VSM）及X射线光电子能谱（XPS）等技术对催化剂的理化性质进行了表征.非均相Fenton催化降解四环素的结果表明,s-MnFe₂O₄具有最高的催化活性,反应180 min,四环素的去除率可以达到87.6%,TOC的去除率达到47.5%.自由基捕获试验证实了羟基自由基（·OH）是非均相Fenton氧化过程中的主要活性物种.s-MnFe₂O₄磁性纳米棒的高催化活性归因于其表面拥有较高含量的Mn³⁺和Fe²⁺物种,它们的存在能加速界面电子的转移效率,从而促进·OH的生成.合成的s-MnFe₂O₄催化剂具有良好的稳定性,循环使用6次,四环素的去除率仅从87.6%降低到80.2%,且氧化过程中活性组分的流失很少.     

基于遥感尾气监测的柴油车气态污染物排放因子计算方法研究

采用遥感尾气测试系统实测了柴油车在实际道路工况下的CO、HC和NO排放特征,修正了排放因子的计算方法,并与车载排放测试系统（PEMS）实测结果进行了验证,获得了实测车辆的CO、HC和NO排放因子.测试结果显示,在各种遥感监测的工况下柴油车尾气中均含有较高浓度的氧气,未考虑氧气影响的燃烧方程反演获得的各污染物体积浓度计算值与PEMS实测值的偏差较大,且氧气浓度越大,偏差越大.经过氧气修正的燃烧方程反演计算的尾气浓度与PEMS实测值吻合度大幅提升,适用于实际工况下遥感检测车辆尾气的反演计算.修正算法得到CO、HC和NO的排放因子离散性较小,精确度较高,可以为量化柴油车尾气排放贡献提供科学依据.