789 research outputs found

    Managing inequality: the political ecology of a small-scale fishery, Mweru-Luapula, Zambia

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    This paper starts from the perspective on resource management approaches as based upon a body of environmental knowledge. By analysing fisheries management in Mweru-Luapula, Zambia, we argue that this body of environmental knowledge has (i) remained largely unchanged throughout the recent shift to co-management and (ii) is to a great extent based upon general paradigmatic conventions with regard to common property regimes. We therefore simultaneously studied the historical trajectories of both resource management as the political ecology of Mweru-Luapula’s fishing economy. Using a relational perspective – by looking at interaction of the local fishing economy with external developments, but also by examining socioeconomic relations between individual actors – this study exposes constraints and incentives within the local fishing economy that are not absorbed in the current co-management regime. These findings challenge both policy goals as community-based resource management itself. We therefore argue that governance of small-scale fisheries – in order to close the gap between locally based understandings, policy and legislation – should always be built upon all dimensions (social, economic, ecological, political) that define a fisheries system

    Agricultural Research and Technology Transfer by the Private Sector in the Philippines

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    Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

    Investment Size and Firm’s Value Under Profit Sharing Regulation

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    In this article we analyse the effects of different regulatory schemes (price cap and profit sharing) on a firm’s investment of endogenous size. Using a real option approach in continuous time, we show that profit sharing does not affect a firm’s start-up decision relative to a pure price cap scheme. Unless the threshold after which profit sharing intervenes is very high, however, introducing a profit sharing element delays further investments: this decreases the present value of total investment. We also evaluate the reduction in the firm’s value due to profit sharing, linking this reduction to the option value of future investments.Regulation, Investment, Profit sharing, Real options, RPI-x

    Organizational models for implementing microgrids and district energy systems in urban commercial districts

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    Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2012.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 58-61).There is a growing trend in cities toward establishing localized, shared energy infrastructure. As existing energy infrastructure ages and demand increases, cities face rising energy costs and security risks combined with mandates to decrease carbon emissions. Local energy infrastructure provides cities and neighborhoods with greater control over their energy production and consumption, including the ability to lower the cost of energy, move to low-carbon energy technologies, and improve energy reliability and security. This thesis seeks to understand how stakeholders in urban commercial districts are creating organizations to implement two types of shared local energy infrastructure: district energy and microgrids. Building district energy and microgrids is a complex undertaking, which is one reason that they proliferate in urban environments where that complexity is reduced, such as universities, hospitals, and military bases. These areas may have single property owners, single land-owners or preexisting energy infrastructure that simplifies regulatory, legal, and development complexities of building new energy systems. Commercial businesses districts are significantly more complicated; they have multiple properties that abut public right of ways and that are owned by multiple, unaffiliated customers of legacy energy utilities. Establishing such a system in a commercial district requires addressing local utility rights, public right-of-way and franchise issues, as well as creating a new organizational structure that allows for the involvement of multiple parties in developing the system. This thesis assesses the feasibility of two organizational models for implementing local energy infrastructure in commercial districts: a joint cooperative model and an independent provider model. In a joint cooperative, all properties in a district become customers of a jointly owned, operated, and managed energy system. With an independent provider, all district properties become customers of an independently owned and operated system. These models are evaluated through two cases in which they are currently being tested: a proposed district energy system in Portland, Oregon and a proposed microgrid in Stamford, Connecticut. Therein, barriers to implementation such as perception of risk and lack of familiarity with shared energy systems are also examined.by Genevieve Rose Sherman.M.C.P

    Suburban Condominium Development, Private Interests, And The Role Of Image Production In The Reorientation Of Urban Form In The Gta

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    For the better part of their modern existence, the municipalities comprising the Greater Toronto Area (“GTA”) have been characterized by low-density, auto-centric development and single-detached homes. For more than the past decade, however, the development of urban form in the GTA has shifted from a focus on horizontal sprawl to vertical growth, predicated by the introduction of protected greenbelt areas and planning policies dramatically restricting the amount of available greenfield land for development and shaping future land consumption. Coinciding with the policy push towards intensification was the emergence of a condominium boom in the City of Toronto that has permeated outwards Toronto’s neighbouring suburban municipalities. The urban forms of Mississauga, Vaughan and Markham have begun to undergo significant change guided by the notion that mid- and high-rise condominium towers are no longer solely a central-city building typology. Mid-rise and high-rise towers have been introduced as a new suburban built form typology integral to support suburban strategies of intensification. These ‘suburban’ municipalities have utilized different approaches with respect to the physical appearance of the built environment to support neoliberal urban development agendas to shift from once classical bedroom communities or towns into intensified, competitive major players in the metropolitan landscape both locally and globally. How have the policies of current land-use planning regimes, the actions of the local development industry and the perceptions of users of suburban space played a role in this shift in the built environment? Further, what do the city-building processes and image production practices employed reflect about the political, economic and social systems controlling development in the Toronto city-region? To answer these questions, this paper explores how changes in suburban form have been influenced by socially constructed imagery and values as communicated by planning policy and placemarketing strategies. It investigates why this imagery is created, how it is used by condominium developers to proliferate suburban built form, and how this imagery is received and consumed by individuals. Focusing on the commodification of housing form, this research explores the motivating factors exploited by the development industry to promote new built form typologies in the suburbs

    Toward Mitho-pimatisowin: A Framework for FNMI Engagement Through Relationality

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    Abstract Indigenous Peoples have experienced harm from colonial beliefs and practices, and one does not need to look beyond the current systems of public education to see evidence of this. This Organizational Improvement Plan (OIP) provides a challenge to the conservative, neoliberal, and Eurocentric orthodoxy that is pervasive in one northern Saskatchewan context, and advocates for a need and a framework to reorient our learning community so that First Nation, MĂ©tis and Inuit (FNMI) students and partners see relevance and feel engaged with our organization, thereby producing more positive educational outcomes. With 80% of students identifying as FNMI, and the surrounding community reflecting this demographic, culturally relevant concepts are necessary to guide organizational change. Relationality has been identified as essential for many FNMI peoples, so the local Cree concept of mitho-pimatisowin, meaning one’s necessity to acknowledge and respect all relations and to accept responsibility for them (Cardinal & Hildebrandt, 2020; Settee, 2011), is a key concept to direct and measure the existing organizational climate and change initiatives, and to prioritize the creation and maintenance of strong relationships between all partners who serve our students and the surrounding community. In support of mitho-pimatisowin, an emphasis on team and inclusive leadership will operate through a social constructivist lens so that all our partners can begin to construct meaningful alliances and understandings within a critical paradigm. An emphasis on enhancing our organizational relationships will ensure a culture of collective efficacy is developed, and this will re-center Indigenous worldviews and epistemologies so that they work in collaboration with Western approaches, thereby improving relations and FNMI student engagement. Keywords: Mitho-pimatisowin, Indigenous, psychological safety, education, social constructivism, inclusive leadership, team leadershi
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