What’s in a name? Epistemic perspectives and Payments for Ecosystem Services policies in Nicaragua     

《Geoforum》2015

As Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) continues to gain attention as a policy tool for securing efficient and effective environmental governance, a rising tide of criticism warns of the potentially detrimental social–ecological consequences of nature commodification and ‘green neoliberalism’. These concerns are also expressed at international policy fora, where the market rhetoric has met with political resistance from countries belonging to the ‘Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America’ (ALBA). But despite this ideological opposition, some ALBA countries are increasingly integrating PES into their environmental policies. In this article we consider the reasons underlying this apparent contradiction and relate it to the notion of ‘epistemic circulation’. On the basis of a study on the evolution of PES-thinking in Nicaragua (an ALBA member) and a reassessment of the supposed ‘success’ of an influential pilot project, we shed light on the forces driving the adoption of particular PES modes and contextualise practical difficulties to endorsing more critical approaches to the tool. Instead of either ideologically rejecting PES as a neoliberal evil or embracing it uncritically as the new panacea, we argue that it is precisely through the socio-political processes surrounding environmental governance debates that the application of PES is shaped. In practice, it may either contribute to an imposed and dispossessing form of capitalism, or tend towards a more negotiated and socio-culturally embedded version of it. Only through its reconceptualisation based on political–cultural primacy rather than market-fetishism can PES achieve its true potential within a broader strategy towards improved environmental governance.  相似文献   

Urban green commons: Insights on urban common property systems   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  

Johan Colding  Stephan Barthel  Pim Bendt  Robbert Snep  Wim van der Knaap  Henrik Ernstson 《Global Environmental Change》2013,23(5):1039-1051

The aim of this paper is to shed new light on urban common property systems. We deal with urban commons in relation to urban green-space management, referring to them as urban green commons. Applying a property-rights analytic perspective, we synthesize information on urban green commons from three case-study regions in Sweden, Germany, and South Africa, and elaborate on their role for biodiversity conservation in urban settings, with a focus on business sites. Cases cover both formally established types of urban green commons and bottom-up emerged community-managed habitats. As our review demonstrates, the right to actively manage urban green space is a key characteristic of urban green commons whether ownership to land is in the private, public, the club realm domain, or constitutes a hybrid of these. We discuss the important linkages among urban common property systems, social–ecological learning, and management of ecosystem services and biodiversity. Several benefits can be associated with urban green commons, such as a reduction of costs for ecosystem management and as designs for reconnecting city-inhabitants to the biosphere. The emergence of urban green commons appears closely linked to dealing with societal crises and for reorganizing cities; hence, they play a key role in transforming cities toward more socially and ecologically benign environments. While a range of political questions circumscribe the feasibility of urban green commons, we discuss their usefulness in management of different types of urban habitats, their political justification and limitation, their potential for improved biodiversity conservation, and conditions for their emergence. We conclude by postulating some general policy advice.  相似文献   

Assessing the institutional capacity to adapt to climate change: a case study in the Cambodian health and water sectors     

Va Dany  Kathryn J. Bowen  Fiona Miller 《Climate Policy》2013,13(3):388-409

Institutional capacity is an important element for climate change adaptation (CCA) and the development of such capacity is a great challenge in a Least Developed Country like Cambodia where resources are limited. An important first step to increasing capacity is via an understanding of the level of existing capacity; future priorities can then be subsequently identified. This study aimed to assess the capacity of organizations to implement climate change activities in Cambodia in order to provide such a basis for building capacity. Four elements of capacity were investigated in this research: (1) financial resources, (2) cooperation and coordination of stakeholders, (3) availability and quality of information on vulnerability and adaptation to climate change, and (4) the level of understanding of climate change vulnerability and adaptation. The data were collected through semistructured interviews with a wide range of government and non-government informants across a number of sectors. Results of the study showed that informants perceived capacity for CCA to be very constrained, especially in terms of financial resources and cooperation, and addressing these factors was ranked as the highest climate change capacity priority. Institutional capacity constraints were considered to relate more generally to weak governance of CCA. In light of our research findings, the absence of local higher education institutions in CCA activities should be addressed. The support of such institutions would provide an important mechanism to progress both capacity development as well as partnerships and coordination between different types of organizations and relevant sectors.

Policy relevance

Capacity for CCA within Cambodian health and water sectors was perceived to be very constrained across a range of interdependent factors. Increasing funding was ranked as the highest priority for building capacity for CCA; however, governance factors such as ‘improved cooperation’ were also ranked highly. Improving stakeholders' awareness of the availability of adaptation funds and resources, and their responsiveness to funding criteria, is an important implication of our research, as is improving the mobilization of local resources and the private sector. To address the issue of weak cooperation among stakeholders, improving the coordination function of the National Climate Change Committee (NCCC) regarding stakeholder engagement and capacity building is crucial. Ensuring that CCA activities are based on sound information and knowledge from across different disciplines and, importantly, include the perspectives of vulnerable people themselves, ultimately underpins and supports the realization of the above priorities.  相似文献   

Trophic modeling of the Northern Humboldt Current Ecosystem, Part II: Elucidating ecosystem dynamics from 1995 to 2004 with a focus on the impact of ENSO   总被引：1，自引：1，他引：0  

Marc H. Taylor  Jorge Tam  Vernica Blaskovic  Pepe Espinoza  R. Michael Balln  Claudia Wosnitza-Mendo  Juan Argüelles  Erich Díaz  Sara Purca  Noemi Ochoa  Patricia Ayn  Elisa Goya  Dimitri Gutirrez  Luis Quipuzcoa  Matthias Wolff 《Progress in Oceanography》2008,79(2-4):366

The Northern Humboldt Current Ecosystem is one of the most productive in the world in terms of fish production. Its location near to the equator permits strong upwelling under relatively low winds, thus creating optimal conditions for the development of plankton communities. These communities ultimately support abundant populations of grazing fish such as the Peruvian anchoveta, Engraulis ringens. The ecosystem is also subject to strong inter-annual environmental variability associated with the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which has major effects on nutrient structure, primary production, and higher trophic levels. Here our objective is to model the contributions of several external drivers (i.e. reconstructed phytoplankton changes, fish immigration, and fishing rate) and internal control mechanisms (i.e. predator-prey) to ecosystem dynamics over an ENSO cycle. Steady-state models and time-series data from the Instituto del Mar del Perú (IMARPE) from 1995 to 2004 provide the base data for simulations conducted with the program Ecopath with Ecosim. In simulations all three external drivers contribute to ecosystem dynamics. Changes in phytoplankton quantity and composition (i.e. contribution of diatoms and dino- and silicoflagellates), as affected by upwelling intensity, were important in dynamics of the El Niño of 1997–98 and the subsequent 3 years. The expansion and immigration of mesopelagic fish populations during El Niño was important for dynamics in following years. Fishing rate changes were the most important of the three external drivers tested, helping to explain observed dynamics throughout the modeled period, and particularly during the post-El Niño period. Internal control settings show a mix of predator–prey control settings; however a “wasp-waist” control of the ecosystem by small pelagic fish is not supported.  相似文献   

SUSTAINABLE LAND USE PLANNING BASED ON ECOLOGICAL HEALTH——Case Study of Beiwenquan Town, Chongqing, China   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  

SHAOJing-an WEIChao-fu XIEDe-ti 《中国地理科学(英文版)》2005,15(2):137-144

1IN T R O D U C T IO N Since the20th century, ecosystem and even biosphere has been facedwith threat sunder theimpactsofclimate and humankind together(E RICH and ULRIKE , 2002 ; G LADE ,2003 ;O LGERTS etal.,2005 ).Land isan im- portantpartof natureecosyst…  相似文献   

CLINICALLY APPLIED MEDICAL GEOGRAPHY: ITS ROLE IN TRAVEL MEDICINE     

Jonathan D. Mayer 《The Professional geographer》1989,41(4):421-428

Medical geography frequently contributes to public health, but rarely are medical geographic concepts applied in clinical settings. This article describes the application of medical geographic concepts to an academic travel and tropical medicine clinical service at University Hospital in Seattle, and reviews the role of a medical geographer in this particular clinical setting. Applied concepts of medical geography improve the quality of patient care for overseas travellers and recent immigrants to the United States.  相似文献   

Organochlorines and dioxin-like compounds in green-lipped mussels Perna viridis from Hong Kong mariculture zones     

So MK  Zhang X  Giesy JP  Fung CN  Fong HW  Zheng J  Kramer MJ  Yoo H  Lam PK 《Marine pollution bulletin》2005,51(8-12):677-687

Concentrations of persistent organic pollutants including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), organochlorine (OC) pesticides and dioxin-like compounds were measured in green-lipped mussels, Perna viridis, collected from seven mariculture zones in Hong Kong between September and October in 2002 in order to evaluate the status, spatial distribution and potential sources of pollution in these areas. Concentrations ranged from 300 to 4400 ng/g lipid weight for total OCs and 170–1000 ng/g lipid weight for total PCBs (based on 28 congeners). Relatively smaller DDT concentrations in mussels compared with previous studies suggest reduced discharges of DDTs from nearby regions into Hong Kong waters. Detection of a mixture of HCH isomers in the mussels indicated that Hong Kong waters were predominantly contaminated by technical HCHs rather than lindane. Mussel samples from all sampling locations elicited significant dioxin-like activity in the H4IIE-luc bioassay. The greatest magnitude of dioxin-like response (39 pg TEQ/g wet wt.) was detected in mussels from Ma Wan in the western waters of Hong Kong, which is strongly influenced by the Pearl River discharge. Human health risk assessment was undertaken to evaluate potential risks associated with the consumption of the green-lipped mussels. Risk quotient (RQ) for dioxin-like compounds was greater than unity suggesting that adverse health effects may be associated with high mussel consumption.  相似文献   

Diagnostic monitoring of a changing environment: an alternative UK perspective     

Hardman-Mountford NJ  Allen JI  Frost MT  Hawkins SJ  Kendall MA  Mieszkowska N  Richardson KA  Somerfield PJ 《Marine pollution bulletin》2005,50(12):1463-1471

Adaptive management of the marine environment requires an understanding of the complex interactions within it. Establishing levels of natural variability within and between marine ecosystems is a necessary prerequisite to this process and requires a monitoring programme which takes account of the issues of time, space and scale. In this paper, we argue that an ecosystem approach to managing the marine environment should take direct account of climate change indicators at a regional level if it is to cope with the unprecedented change expected as a result of human impacts on the earth climate system. We discuss the purpose of environmental monitoring and the importance of maintaining long-term time series. Recommendations are made on the use of these data in conjunction with modern extrapolation and integration tools (e.g. ecosystem models, remote sensing) to provide a diagnostic approach to the management of marine ecosystems, based on adaptive indicators and dynamic baselines.  相似文献   

Biomonitoring of Atmospheric Heavy Metal Deposition by Mosses in the Vicinity of Industrial Sites   总被引：2，自引：0，他引：2  

Harald G. Zechmeister  Alarich Riss  Andrea Hanus-Illnar 《Journal of Atmospheric Chemistry》2004,49(1-3):461-477

At four industrial regions, heavy metal concentrations and calculated depositions were investigated by sampling and analysing mosses. In each region, a special spatial pattern of heavy metal concentrations was detected, reflecting the industrial processes. Metals most likely originating from the industrial sites showed an exponential decrease of concentrations and depositions with increasing distance from the pollution source. The exponential deposition pattern was in some cases modified by a series of natural factors, like the main direction of winds or orographic conditions. The distance at which deposition dropped to background values was up to 20 km. Beside the fact that the moss-metho is a useful tool for deposition measurement in the vicinity of stationary sources, some improvements for using this method are discussed, highlighting factors such as a proper calculation of deposition from concentrations, or the better knowledge of correlations between heavy metal concentrations in mosses and effects on human health.  相似文献   

黄河三角洲海岸带陆海相互作用概念模式     

黄海军  李凡 《地球科学进展》2004,19(5):808-816

根据陆海相互作用的观点,黄河流域、黄河干流、河口三角洲及其邻近海区的生态环境相互联系,组成了一个有机的生态系统链,可称为黄河-渤海生态系统。黄河流域的降水量、土壤植被条件使黄河干流具有水少沙多、水沙异源和水资源缺乏的特征。干流入海水、沙通量变化影响了黄河三角洲地区的侵蚀、堆积和发育过程。黄河物质入海后在河口及邻近海域形成了具有高生产力的生态环境和著名的渔场。据此绘出了黄河-渤海生态环境内各环节相互联系的概念模式图,并提出了黄河流域大面积水土保持和南水北调工程逐步展开等新环境下,本区陆海相互作用的研究方向。  相似文献