Clearing or clouding the discourse - a South African perspective on the utility of the IUCN protected areas governance typology

‘To illustrate how difficult communication can be internationally, here is an example from outside of conservation. If you walk into a Starbucks in America and ask for a café grande, they will give you a medium-sized cup of coffee. If you ask for a café grande in Mexico, they may give you a bowl of coffee and a quizzical look. Ask for a café grande in Venice, and they will direct you to a shop on the Piazza Indipendenza. To understand parks and protected areas globally, we have to have a common language

Fuelling the sustainable development debate in South Africa

Prescribing and implementing legal doctrine are two interrelated but distinct tasks, the latter frequently proving far more challenging than the former. This is very evident in the domestic implementation of the sustainable development doctrine, generally regarded as ‘the fundamental building block around which environmental law norms have been fashioned both internationally and in South Africa’(J Glazewski ‘The environmental right’in M H Cheadle, D M Davis&NRL Haysom South African Constitutional Law: The Bill of Rights (2002) 423). Notwithstanding the fact that its origins date back over two decades, the exact meaning and ambit of sustainable development remains subject to debate (see Elmene Bray ‘Towards sustainable development: Are we on the right track?’ (1998) 5 SAJELP 1; P Birnie & A Boyle International Law & the Environment 2ed (2002) 44–7; Philippe Sands Principles of International Environmental Law 2ed (2003) 252–6). South Africa’s legislators have sought to define the doctrine in the country’s constitutional, framework and sectoral legislation

Bridging the gap between conservation and land reform : communally-conserved areas as a tool for managing South Africa's natural commons

Includes abstract.Includes bibliographical references (p. 370-417).This dissertation examines whether the concept of communally-conserved areas provides a useful tool for bridging the current apparent impasse between South Africa’s conservation and land reform agendas

Identification and characterisation of 17 polymorphic candidate genes for response to parasitic nematode (Trichostrongylus tenuis) infection in red grouse (Lagopus lagopus scotica)

Acknowledgements This study was funded by a BBSRC studentship (MA Wenzel) and NERC Grants NE/H00775X/1 and NE/D000602/1 (SB Piertney). We are grateful to Jacob Hoglund for providing willow grouse samples, Mario Roder, Keliya Bai, Marianne James, Matt Oliver, Gill Murray-Dickson, Francois Mougeot and Jesus Martınez-Padilla for help with fieldwork, and all grouse estate factors, owners and keepers, most particularly Alistair Mitchell, Shaila Rao, Christopher Murphy, Richard Cooke and Fred Taylor, for providing access to estate game larders.Peer reviewedPostprin

Accurate Analysis of Quality Properties of Software with Observation-Based Markov Chain Refinement

We introduce a tool-supported method for the automated refinement of continuous-time Markov chains (CTMCs) used to assess quality properties of component-based software. Existing research focuses on improving the efficiency of CTMC analysis and on identifying new applications for this analysis. As such, ensuring that the analysis is accurate by using CTMCs that closely model the behaviour of the analysed software has received relatively little attention. Our new method addresses this gap by refining the high-level CTMC model of a component-based software system based on observations of the execution times of its components. Our refinement method reduced analysis errors by 77–90.3% for a service-based system implemented using six public web services from three different providers, improving the accuracy of the analysis and significantly reducing the risk of invalid software engineering decisions

A transcriptomic investigation of handicap models in sexual selection

We are grateful to D. Calder and T. Helps for access to study sites, and G. Murray-Dickson and M. Oliver for help with fieldwork and comments on manuscript drafts. This work was funded by NERC grant NE/D000602/1 (SBP), a NERC advanced fellowship (FM) and a BBSRC studentship (MAW)Peer reviewedPostprin

Scoping the Potential Influence of Law on Terrestrially Located Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures

Area-based conservation initiatives have historically been a key component of international efforts to conserve biodiversity and promote climate mitigation and adaptation. Significant strides have been made over the past decade to expand the coverage, effectiveness and equitable management of these initiatives, fuelled by global commitments made by parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in 2010, specifically Aichi Target 11 embedded within the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity (2011-2020). However, these strides have been skewed in favour of protected areas with other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs) largely playing second fiddle. The delay in defining what are OECMs and developing guidelines to clarify their form and nature, have been identified by several commentators as key reasons for them playing second fiddle. OECMs nonetheless remain a key component of the future global agenda with the draft Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework anticipating a target of ensuring that ‘at least 30 percent globally of land areas and of sea areas, especially areas of particular importance for biodiversity and its contributions to people, are conserved through effectively and equitably managed, ecologically representative and well-connected systems of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures and integrated into the wider landscapes and seascapes’. Efforts under the auspices of the CBD and International Union for the Conservation of Nature to introduce Scientific and Technical Advice on OECMs (including a definition) and Guidelines on Recognising and Reporting OECMs in 2018 and 2019 respectively, have brought much needed clarity relating the form and nature of OECMs. These efforts are, however, largely silent on the potential influence of law. Law may have a significant influence on OECMs, and this article has sought to scope this potential and develop understanding on it, with the aim of promoting the increased recognition of OECMs across the globe. It identifies an array of generic legal issues which domestic law and policymakers could use as an initial frame of reference to evaluate the current and potential influence of their domestic legal frameworks on OECMs. It uses several elements of the definition of OECMs to structure this scoping exercise, concluding that law has a significant potential influence on each. It acknowledges that: legal interventions need to be tailored to the specific domestic context; law brings both potential benefits and constraints and these need to be carefully managed; a blend of many different areas, spheres and levels of law may be of influence emphasising the need to promote legal alignment and integration; and that legal pluralism should be recognised and promoted where relevant as OECMs may frequently overlap areas subject to customary tenure and governance systems

Development Strategies for Animal Medical Therapeutics

The process of developing a new therapeutic is long, expensive, and risky. Current small animal models are often poor representations of human disease, contributing to the high rate of failure in human trials. Outbred dogs can be excellent models for researching human disease. Clinical trials in dogs are inexpensive and efficient compared with human trials. Advaxis, a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing cancer immunotherapies, provides one case study on how trials in dogs can help advance trials in humans

Oil whirl of flexible rotors

Abstract Not Provided