Towards an ecological network for the Carpathians

The Carpathian Biodiversity Information System (CBIS) and the proposal for an ecological network for the eastern part of the Carpathians are the two main outcomes of the project funded by the BBI Matra program of the Dutch government. This brochure presents information on how the CBIS was designed, and how the data stored can be retrieved and used. It also clarifies how the CBIS data were used to design the ecological network and, last but not least, it offers recommendations for the use of the proposed ecological network in supporting sustainable developmentin the Carpathians. Due to funding restrictions, the project focused on three east Carpathian countries: Romania, Serbia and Ukraine, which together host the largest area of the Carpathians (Fig. 2). Geographically, the Eastern Carpathians also include parts of the Carpathians located in Poland and Slovakia. Data collection in the Western Carpathians (Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary) will be completed by 2010 and is funded by a parallel project

Triple Wins from Foreign Direct Investment: Potential for Commonwealth countries to maximise economic and community benefits from inward investments case studies of Belize and Botswana

The findings of the case study on Botswana indicate that mining companies in Botswana have adopted the philosophy of CSR and are prepared to link social and environmental initiates to their core business. Particularly impressive is the comprehensive approach taken by the diamond mining company Setswana to develop and decentralise its strategy on Corporate Social Investment. In so doing, the company demonstrated preparedness to go beyond business as usual' approach of merely creating jobs and provide Foreign Direct Investment (FDI)

Building knowledge for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander remote tourism: lessons from comparable tourism initiatives around the world

This report aims to build knowledge about what issues Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people may need to consider in remote tourism by reviewing, compiling and drawing insights from comparable tourism initiatives around the world.The report is based on information from a range of sources that highlight remote tourism issues at many different levels of strategy and development , from the micro level of ensuring engagement with local service providers, to the broad level of collaboration strategies with diverse interest groups. The examples identify a wealth of remote tourism roles available to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, demonstrating that remote tourism is complicated and people should examine which roles are appropriate and achievable.The report covers the main remote area landscape settings: remote arid and semi-arid areas (deserts), remote rainforests, remote high altitude mountainous areas, and remote cold and warm water islands. Each section discusses a collection of cases and other tourism initiatives by people s indigenous to the respective remote landscape settings. Many cases illustrate the desires of people around the world to preserve natural and cultural qualities while sharing remote areas through tourism. Summaries from each case identify issues that progressively build further insight into the challenges and strategies people from around the world have applied to remote tourism.A limitation of the report is that the review provides a snapshot of remote tourism activity throughout the world; it has not been able to say which of these activities are sustainable. Nevertheless, this approach uncovers the gravity of challenges faced by Indigenous peoples around the world involved in remote tourism, with the common dependence on external sources particularly noted. While presenting the strategies used in the various international contexts to contend with the challenges, the report suggests that local knowledge and insight cannot be underestimated as a major factor in developing successful Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tourism businesses

Municipal transitions: The social, energy, and spatial dynamics of sociotechnical change in South Tyrol, Italy

With the aim of proposing recommendations on how to use social and territorial specificities as levers for wider achievement of climate and energy targets at local level, this research analyses territories as sociotechnical systems. Defining the territory as a sociotechnical system allows us to underline the interrelations between space, energy and society. Groups of municipalities in a region can be identified with respect to their potential production of renewable energy by means of well-known data-mining approaches. Similar municipalities linking together can share ideas and promote collaborations, supporting clever social planning in the transition towards a new energy system. The methodology is applied to the South Tyrol case study (Italy). Results show eight different spatially-based sociotechnical systems within the coherent cultural and institutional context of South Tyrol. In particular, this paper observes eight different systems in terms of (1) different renewable energy source preferences in semi-urban and rural contexts; (2) different links with other local planning, management, and policy needs; (3) different socio-demographic specificities of individuals and families; (4) presence of different kinds of stakeholders or of (5) different socio-spatial organizations based on land cover. Each energy system has its own specificities and potentialities, including social and spatial dimensions, that can address a more balanced, inclusive, equal, and accelerated energy transition at the local and translocal scale

Introduction to location-based mobile learning

[About the book] The report follows on from a 2-day workshop funded by the STELLAR Network of Excellence as part of their 2009 Alpine Rendez-Vous workshop series and is edited by Elizabeth Brown with a foreword from Mike Sharples. Contributors have provided examples of innovative and exciting research projects and practical applications for mobile learning in a location-sensitive setting, including the sharing of good practice and the key findings that have resulted from this work. There is also a debate about whether location-based and contextual learning results in shallower learning strategies and a section detailing the future challenges for location-based learning

Augmenting the field experience: a student-led comparison of techniques and technologies

In this study we report on our experiences of creating and running a student fieldtrip exercise which allowed students to compare a range of approaches to the design of technologies for augmenting landscape scenes. The main study site is around Keswick in the English Lake District, Cumbria, UK, an attractive upland environment popular with tourists and walkers. The aim of the exercise for the students was to assess the effectiveness of various forms of geographic information in augmenting real landscape scenes, as mediated through a range of techniques and technologies. These techniques were: computer-generated acetate overlays showing annotated wireframe views from certain key points; a custom-designed application running on a PDA; a mediascape running on the mScape software on a GPS-enabled mobile phone; Google Earth on a tablet PC; and a head-mounted in-field Virtual Reality system. Each group of students had all five techniques available to them, and were tasked with comparing them in the context of creating a visitor guide to the area centred on the field centre. Here we summarise their findings and reflect upon some of the broader research questions emerging from the project