A Comparison of Public Lands and Farmlands for Grassland Bird Conservation     

Mary Ann Cunningham 《The Professional geographer》2005,57(1):51-65

Midwestern states have invested extensively in grasslands for wildlife conservation, yet these public lands make up a minority of grassland habitat. How effective are public grasslands, relative to private lands, for conserving native songbird populations? I compare private and public lands in southern Minnesota using bird survey data from Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) fields and public lands and assessing fragmentation in a GIS. Bird abundance and diversity were greater on CRP lands. Vegetation composition, field isolation, and field size appear to explain differences in bird counts. Land cover data show that grassland habitat on public lands is scarce and widely scattered. The CRP provides more, and here better, habitat for grassland birds. Funding partly explains this disparity. Trends in farm set‐aside program rules and distribution, which can be vary greatly over time, will strongly influence the success or failure of biodiversity conservation in this region.  相似文献   

Designing effective and equitable zero-deforestation supply chain policies     

《Global Environmental Change》2021

In response to the clearing of tropical forests for agricultural expansion, agri-food companies have adopted promises to eliminate deforestation from their supply chains in the form of ‘zero-deforestation commitments’ (ZDCs). While there is growing evidence about the environmental effectiveness of these commitments (i.e., whether they meet their conservation goals), there is little information on how they influence producers’ opportunity to access sustainable markets and related livelihood outcomes, or how design and implementation choices influence tradeoffs or potential synergies between effectiveness and equity in access. This paper explores these research gaps and makes three main contributions by: i) defining and justifying the importance of analyzing access equity and its relation to effectiveness when implementing forest-focused supply chain policies such as ZDCs, ii) identifying seven policy design principles that are likely to maximize synergies between effectiveness and access equity, and iii) assessing effectiveness-access equity tensions and synergies across common ZDC implementation mechanisms amongst the five largest firms in each of the leading agricultural forest-risk commodity sectors: palm oil, soybeans, beef cattle, and cocoa. To enhance forest conservation while avoiding harm to the most vulnerable farmers in the tropics, it is necessary to combine stringent rules with widespread capacity building, greater involvement of affected actors in the co-production of implementation mechanisms, and support for alternative rural development paths.  相似文献   

Severity of killer whale behavioral responses to ship noise: A dose–response study     

《Marine pollution bulletin》2014,80(1-2):254-260

Critical habitats of at-risk populations of northeast Pacific “resident” killer whales can be heavily trafficked by large ships, with transits occurring on average once every hour in busy shipping lanes. We modeled behavioral responses of killer whales to ship transits during 35 “natural experiments” as a dose–response function of estimated received noise levels in both broadband and audiogram-weighted terms. Interpreting effects is contingent on a subjective and seemingly arbitrary decision about severity threshold indicating a response. Subtle responses were observed around broadband received levels of 130 dB re 1 μPa (rms); more severe responses are hypothesized to occur at received levels beyond 150 dB re 1 μPa, where our study lacked data. Avoidance responses are expected to carry minor energetic costs in terms of increased energy expenditure, but future research must assess the potential for reduced prey acquisition, and potential population consequences, under these noise levels.  相似文献   

Revised runoff curve number for runoff prediction in the Loess Plateau of China     

Wenhai Shi  Ni Wang  Miaomiao Wang  Donghao Li 《水文研究》2021,35(10):e14390

The soil conservation service (now Natural Resources Conservation Service) Curve Number (SCS-CN), one of the most commonly used methods for surface runoff prediction. The runoff calculated by this method was very sensitive to CN values. In this study, CN values were calculated by both arithmetic mean (CN_C) and least square fit method (CN_F) using observed rainfall-runoff data from 43 sites in the Loess Plateau region, which are considerably different from the CN₂ values obtained from the USDA-SCS handbook table (CN_T). The results showed that using CN_C instead of CN_T for each watershed produce little improvement, while replacing CN_T with CN_F improves the performance of the original SCS-CN method, but still performs poorly in most study sites. This is mainly due to the SCS-CN method using a constant CN value and discounting of the temporal variation in rainfall-runoff process. Therefore, three factors—soil moisture, rainfall depth and intensity—affecting the surface runoff variability are considered to reflect the variation of CN in each watershed, and a new CN value was developed. The reliability of the proposed method was tested with data from 38 watersheds, and then applied to the remaining five typical watersheds using the optimized parameters. The results indicated that the proposed method, which boosted the model efficiencies to 81.83% and 74.23% during calibration and validation cases, respectively, performed better than the original SCS-CN and the Shi and Wang (2020b) method, a modified SCS-CN method based on tabulated CN value. Thus, the proposed method incorporating the influence of the temporal variability of soil moisture, rainfall depth, and intensity factors suggests an accurate runoff prediction for general applications under different hydrological and climatic conditions on the Loess Plateau region.  相似文献   

War,by Conservation     

《Geoforum》2016

In this paper I argue that there has been a critical shift towards war by conservation in which conservation, security and counter insurgency (COIN) are becoming more closely integrated. In this new phase concerns about global security constitute important underlying drivers, while biodiversity conservation is of secondary importance. This is a significant break from earlier phases of fortress conservation and war for biodiversity. In order to develop a better understanding of these shifts, this paper analyzes the existing conceptual approaches, notably environmental security which seeks to understand how resources cause or shape conflict, and political ecology approaches that focus on the struggles over access to and control over resources. However, this paper indicates the limitations of these existing debates for understanding recent shifts, which require a fresh approach. I chart the rise of the narrative I call poachers-as-terrorists, which relies on the invocation of the idea that ivory is the white gold of Jihad, a phrase which is closely associated with an Elephant Action League (EAL) report in 2012 which claimed Al Shabaab used ivory to fund its operations. This narrative is being extended and deepened by a powerful alliance of states, conservation NGOs, Private Military Companies and international organizations, such that it is shaping policies, especially in areas of US geo-strategic interest in Sub-Saharan Africa. As a result conservation is becoming a core element of a global security project, with significant implications for conceptual debates and for conservation practice on the ground.  相似文献   

矿床保存变化研究的热年代学技术方法   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  

袁万明 《岩石学报》2016,32(8):2571-2578

成矿后矿床的保存与变化是矿床地质研究的重要组成部分,但研究程度不高,至今仍属于薄弱环节。矿床的保存与其隆升剥露密切相关,深入细致研究恢复矿区矿床的隆升和剥露历史,是揭示矿床保存变化的一种重要途径。本文重点论述研究矿床保存变化的技术方法,通过综合应用裂变径迹、(U-Th)/He、~(40)Ar-~(39)Ar年代学以及La-ICP-MS、锆石U-Pb定年等多种技术手段,研究成矿期次、构造活动期次以及二者间的联系,定量计算不同矿区、不同矿体、不同部位、不同时间的冷却隆升速率、隆升幅度、剥蚀速率和剥蚀量,探讨矿床保存深度与剥蚀量间的关系,总结不同时代、不同矿区矿床保存-变化过程,建立新的矿床地质-保存环境模型,完善矿床预测的综合示踪标志,最终预测不同矿区、不同地段隐伏矿床可能的产出深度,给出矿床可能已经被剥蚀殆尽的区段或地段,为深部找矿和区域成矿潜力评价提供依据。本文可为地质工作者的相关应用提供借鉴和手段。  相似文献   

From stormy seas to the doldrums: The challenges of navigating towards an ecologically coherent marine protected area network through England's Marine Conservation Zone process     

《Marine Policy》2016

There is an on-going process to establish Marine Conservation Zones (MCZs) in England, to form part of a coherent and representative network of marine protected areas under national and EU legislation. From 2009 to 2011, the MCZ process included strong participatory elements. Four regional multi-sector stakeholder groups developed MCZ recommendations collaboratively, in line with ecological guidance provided by the Government's nature conservation advisers. This guidance was based on Government policy principles, including that MCZs should be designated based on ‘best available evidence’. This paper analyses the multi-dimensional conflicts that emerged within the stakeholder group in south-west England, which were magnified by uncertainty about future MCZ management. In September 2011, after working through these conflicts through trade-offs and negotiations, the stakeholder groups jointly recommended 127 MCZs to Government. The process subsequently shifted to a top-down approach, with further stakeholder engagement limited to bilateral consultation. There was a concurrent shift in policy, from a broad-scale network-level focus towards single-feature conservation. A lengthy series of evidence reviews concluded that the existing evidence at the time was insufficient to progress with the designation of most sites, marking a clear departure from the policy principle of proceeding with the designation of a representative network based on ‘best available evidence’, and effectively undermining the work carried out by stakeholder groups. Though MCZ designation was originally timetabled for 2012, in November 2013 just 27 of the recommended 127 MCZs were designated in a first tranche. At the time, no clear timetable was in place for subsequent tranches.  相似文献   

广东海丰自然保护区湿地现状及保护对策     

曾向武  周平  高常军 《湿地科学与管理》2016,(1):34-37

广东海丰湿地是中国华南亚热带滨海湿地的典型代表,也是南中国海生态系统的重要组成部分,为多种珍稀、濒危鸟类和候鸟提供重要栖息地和迁徙中转站,具有重要的保护价值。在野外湿地资源调查的基础上,阐述了海丰自然保护区湿地类型与特点、湿地动植物资源、湿地利用现状等生态特征,分析了湿地面临的主要威胁,提出湿地生态系统保护与管理的主要对策和措施。  相似文献   

用化石天长计算地球年龄的方法及意义——如何理解地球年龄          下载免费PDF全文

吴海威 《地质科学》2018,(2):774-780

天长（一天时长）是地球自转速度的直接反映。古生代-中生代化石记录的天长数据表明,古生代-中生代期间的天长随时间呈线性增加。根据角动量守恒定律,这意味着同时段地球自转速度呈线性衰减。如果把这个趋势应用于地球历史的全过程,计算结果为4.519～4.495 Ga,与目前公认的地球绝对年龄4.54 Ga一致。这意味着,从这个时间点起,地球有一种自转速度衰减的总趋势。地球自转速度衰减年龄等值于地球年龄说明：1）所测量的陨石样本生成的时间（表征地球年龄）与地球受月球吸引形成自转减速的时间几乎相同。这意味着地-月体系形成之前的地球比该陨石表征的地球年龄更为古老。2）地球、月球、自转速度衰减时长,三者的年龄呈现等值状态,因而此结果与月球起源于大碰撞的假说可以匹配。  相似文献   

The British Palaeogene Volcanic Province - Ailsa Craig Geological Conservation Review site     

C.G. Smith  R.M.L. Wignall 《Proceedings of the Geologists' Association. Geologists' Association》2021,132(1):16-23

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