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.     

Toward harmonizing prospective effectiveness assessment for road safety: Comparing tools in standard test case simulations

Abstract

Objective: With the overall goal to harmonize prospective effectiveness assessment of active safety systems, the specific objective of this study is to identify and evaluate sources of variation in virtual precrash simulations and to suggest topics for harmonization resulting in increased comparability and thus trustworthiness of virtual simulation-based prospective effectiveness assessment.

Methods: A round-robin assessment of the effectiveness of advanced driver assistance systems was performed using an array of state-of-the-art virtual simulation tools on a set of standard test cases. The results were analyzed to examine reasons for deviations in order to identify and assess aspects that need to be harmonized and standardized. Deviations between results calculated by independent engineering teams using their own tools should be minimized if the research question is precisely formulated regarding input data, models, and postprocessing steps.

Results: Two groups of sources of variations were identified; one group (mostly related to the implementation of the system under test) can be eliminated by using a more accurately formulated research question, whereas the other group highlights further harmonization needs because it addresses specific differences in simulation tool setups. Time-to-collision calculations, vehicle dynamics, especially braking behavior, and hit-point position specification were found to be the main sources of variation.

Conclusions: The study identified variations that can arise from the use of different simulation setups in assessment of the effectiveness of active safety systems. The research presented is a first of its kind and provides significant input to the overall goal of harmonization by identifying specific items for standardization. Future activities aim at further specification of methods for prospective assessments of the effectiveness of active safety, which will enhance comparability and trustworthiness in this kind of studies and thus contribute to increased traffic safety.     

Spatial cost efficiency in waste paper handling: the case of corrugated board in Sweden

This paper analyzes the spatial cost efficiency of the Swedish legislation regarding waste disposal handling. We focus on the case of corrugated board and recognize that the different counties in Sweden possess different economic prerequisites in terms of waste paper recovery and utilization potential. We employ data for six corrugated board mills and 20 counties and a non-linear programming model to identify the least cost strategy for reaching the politically specified recycling target of a 65% recovery rate for corrugated board. That is, the total costs of recovering a minimum of 65% in each county are calculated and compared with the case when the country as a whole recovers 65% of all old corrugated board is collected but there exist no uniform target for each county. The conclusion is that from an efficiency point of view the recovery efforts should be concentrated to the highly populated and urbanized counties, and not be uniformly divided throughout the country. In the base case, the results suggest that the cost efficient county-specific recovery rates should range from 51 to 72%.     

近年来宁夏对沙尘天气的监测及对沙漠化防治对策

宁夏在全区范围内建立沙尘暴监测网络,开展对沙尘天气的应急监测。宁夏作为沙源区和沙尘过往的主要通道,2002年全区共监测沙尘天气12次,沙尘粒径多分布在大于2 1μm。为防治沙漠化,宁夏积极寻求国际间合作,采取退耕还林还草、划管封育、禁牧、把握人工降雨时机等一系列措施,加大对沙漠化的防治力度。     

南京市建筑施工环境噪声的管理与对策

针对建筑施工环境噪声扰民问题投诉居高不下，提出环境监理部门要积极宣传环保法律法规，规范举报工作，认真受理投诉，以取得市民的理解与支持；严格审批夜间建筑施工，加大监管力度，做好对夜间施工现场的核查；加强行风建设，通过内强素质，提高自身的业务水平，监督与服务并重；拓展工作思路，加强与建工、公安、市容、市政供电等部门的合作，共同解决噪声扰民问题。     

Assessing protected area effectiveness using surrounding (buffer) areas environmentally similar to the target area

Many studies are based on the assumption that an area and its surrounding (buffer) area present similar environmental conditions and can be compared. For example, in order to assess the effectiveness of a protected area, the land use/cover changes are compared inside the park with its surroundings. However, the heterogeneity in spatial variables can bias this assessment: we have shown that most of the protected areas in Mexico present significant environmental differences between their interior and their surroundings. Therefore, a comparison that aims at assessing the effectiveness of conservation strategies, must be cautioned. In this paper, a simple method which allows the generation of a buffer area that presents similar conditions with respect to a set of environmental variables is presented. The method was used in order to assess the effectiveness of the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, a protected area located in the south-eastern part of Mexico. The annual rate of deforestation inside the protected area, the standard buffer area (based upon distance from the protected area only) and the similar buffer area (taking into account distance along with some environmental variables) were 0.3, 1.3 and 0.6%, respectively. These results showed that the protected area was effective in preventing land clearing, but that the comparison with the standard buffer area gave an over-optimistic vision of its effectiveness.     

浅谈小型餐饮服务业排污申报登记

简述了小型餐饮服务业的特点，指出排污申报登记制度落实难、废水中各污染物排放量核定难及申报登记表设计欠合理是小型餐饮服务业在排污申报登记中存在的主要问题。提出，应加大宣传力度，进一步提高餐饮服务业业主以及广大公民的环保意识；制定较合理的排污量核算系数，修订申报内容；实行《排污申报登记注册证》制度，强化执法力度，以促进小型餐饮服务业全面实施排污申报登记制度。     

延平湖城区水环境石油类污染与控制

通过对延平湖城区水环境石油类污染的监测分析、评价，查找原因，并据此提出控制对策。     

对沈阳市开展中水回用工程的建议

从沈阳市水资源状况入手 ,提出了开展中水回用应采取的措施 ,并对目前开展中水回用工程所遇到问题进行了论述。