Emergent conservation outcomes of shared risk perception in human‐wildlife systems

Human perception of risks related to economic damages caused by nearby wildlife can be transmitted through social networks. Understanding how sharing risk information within a human community alters the spatial dynamics of human‐wildlife interactions has important implications for the design and implementation of effective conservation actions. We developed an agent‐based model that simulates farmer livelihood decisions and activities in an agricultural landscape shared with a population of a generic wildlife species (wildlife‐human interactions in shared landscapes [WHISL]). In the model, based on risk perception and economic information, farmers decide how much labor to allocate to farming and whether and where to exclude wildlife from their farms (e.g., through fencing, trenches, or vegetation thinning). In scenarios where the risk perception of farmers was strongly influenced by other farmers, exclusion of wildlife was widespread, resulting in decreased quality of wildlife habitat and frequency of wildlife damages across the landscape. When economic losses from encounters with wildlife were high, perception of risk increased and led to highly synchronous behaviors by farmers in space and time. Interactions between wildlife and farmers sometimes led to a spillover effect of wildlife damage displaced from socially and spatially connected communities to less connected neighboring farms. The WHISL model is a useful conservation‐planning tool because it provides a test bed for theories and predictions about human‐wildlife dynamics across a range of different agricultural landscapes.Resultados Emergentes de Conservación de la Percepción Compartida sobre Riesgos en los Sistemas Humanos – FaunaResumenLa percepción humana de los riesgos relacionados con los daños económicos causados por la fauna vecina puede transmitirse por medio de las redes sociales. El entendimiento de cómo la propagación de la información sobre riesgos dentro de una comunidad humana altera las dinámicas espaciales de las interacciones humanos – fauna tiene implicaciones importantes para el diseño e implementación de las acciones de conservación efectiva. Desarrollamos un modelo basado en agentes que simula las decisiones y las actividades de subsistencia de los agricultores en un paisaje agrícola compartido con una especie genérica de fauna (interacciones humanos – fauna en paisajes compartidos [WHISL, en inglés]). En el modelo, con base en la percepción del riesgo y en la información económica, los agricultores decidieron cuánto trabajo asignar a la agricultura y si y en dónde excluir a la fauna de sus parcelas (por ejemplo, por medio de cercas, fosas o la reducción de la vegetación). En los escenarios en los que la percepción de riesgo de los agricultores estuvo fuertemente influenciada por otros agricultores, la exclusión de la fauna estuvo generalizada, lo que resultó en una disminución de la calidad del hábitat de la fauna y en la frecuencia de daños causados por los animales a lo largo del paisaje. Cuando las pérdidas económicas causadas por los encuentros con la fauna fueron altas, la percepción del riesgo incrementó y resultó en comportamientos altamente sincrónicos adoptados por los agricultores en el tiempo y el espacio. Las interacciones entre la fauna y los agricultores a veces resultaron en un efecto de derrama de daños causados por la fauna desplazada de las comunidades conectadas social y espacialmente hacia parcelas vecinas con una menor conexión. El modelo WHISL es una herramienta útil para la planificación de la conservación porque proporciona una plataforma de experimentación para las teorías y predicciones sobre las dinámicas humano – fauna en una extensión geográfica de diferentes paisajes agrícolas.摘要人类对附近野生动物造成经济损失的风险感知可以通过社会网络传播。理解人类社会中共享风险信息如何改变人类与野生动物互作的空间动态, 对设计和实施有效保护行动具有重要意义。我们开发了一种基于主体的模型, 以模拟存在野生动物种群的农业景观中农场主的生计决策和活动 (共享景观中的野生动物‐人类互作) 。在这个模型中, 农场主根据风险感知和经济方面的信息来决定如何分配农作劳动、是否以及在哪里将野生动物驱逐到农场之外 (如通过建围栏、挖沟渠或减少植被覆盖) 。在农场主的风险感知受到其它农场主强烈影响的情况下, 农场主普遍会驱逐野生动物, 导致整个景观中野生动物生境质量下降, 野生动物造成破坏的频率也下降。当遭遇野生动物造成的经济损失较高时, 农场主对风险的感知会增加, 从而导致他们的行为在时空上高度同步。野生动物和农场主之间的互作有时候也会产生溢出效应, 使野生动物造成的破坏从社会及空间上紧密联系的社区转移到联系不够紧密的临近农场。本研究的共享景观中野生动物‐人类互作模型是一种有效的保护规划工具, 为不同农业景观中人类‐野生动物动态变化的理论和预测提供了试验平台。 【翻译: 胡怡思; 审校: 聂永刚】Article impact statement: Sharing of risk perception in social networks alters spatial patterns of human‐wildlife interactions, sometimes creating spillover effects.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/156460/2/cobi13473_am.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/156460/1/cobi13473.pd

Climate change adaptation in vulnerable crop and livestock production systems in Mgeta, Tanzania

Increased occurrence of drought and dry spells during the growing season have resulted in increased interest in protection of tropical water catchment areas. In Mgeta, a water catchment area in the Uluguru Mountains in Tanzania, water used for vegetable and fruit production is provided through canals from the Uluguru South Forest Reserve. The clearing of forest land for cultivation in the steep slopes in the area is causing severe land degradation, which is threatening the water catchment area, livelihoods, and food security of the local communities, as well as the major population centers in the lowlands. In this paper, the economic performance of a traditional cropping-livestock system with East African (EA)-goats and pigs and extensive vegetable production is compared with a more sustainable and environmentally friendly crop-dairy goat production system. A linear programming (LP) crop-livestock model, maximizing farm income considering the environmental constraints in the area was applied for studying the economic performance of dairy goats in the production system. The model was worked out for the rainy and dry seasons and the analysis was conducted for a basic scenario representing the current situation, based on the variability in the 30 years period from 1982-2012, and in a scenario of both lower crop yields and increased crop variability due to climate change. Data obtained from a sample of 60 farmers that were interviewed using a questionnaire was used to develop and parameterize the model. The study found that in the steep slopes of the area, a crop-dairy goat system with extensive use of grass and multipurpose trees (MPTs) would do better than the traditional vegetable gardening with the EA goat production system. The crop-dairy goat system was superior both in the basic and in a climate change scenario since the yield variation of the grass and MPTs system was less affected compared to vegetable crops due to more tree cover and the use of perennial grasses. However, the goat milk production in the area was constrained by inadequate feeding and lack of an appropriate breeding program. Hence, farmers should enhance goat milk production by supplementing with more concentrate feed and by implementing goat-breeding principles. Moreover, policy measures to promote such a development are briefly discussed.Keywords: dairy goats, climate change, risk analysis, Tanzania, production syste

Worm control practice against gastro-intestinal parasites in Norwegian sheep and goat flocks

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Anthelmintic treatment is the most common way of controlling nematode infections in ruminants. However, several countries have reported anthelmintic resistance (AR), representing a limitation for sustainable small ruminant production. The knowledge regarding worm control management represents a baseline to develop a guideline for preventing AR. The aim of the present study was therefore to improve our knowledge about the worm control practices in small ruminant flocks in Norway.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A questionnaire survey regarding worm control practices was performed in small ruminant flocks in Norway. Flocks were selected from the three main areas of small ruminant farming, i.e. the coastal, inland and northern areas. A total of 825 questionnaires, comprising 587 sheep flocks (return rate of 51.3%) and 238 goat flocks (52.6%) were included.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The results indicated that visual appraisal of individual weight was the most common means of estimating the anthelmintic dose used in sheep (78.6%) and goat (85.1%) flocks. The mean yearly drenching rate in lambs and ewes were 2.5 ± 1.7 and 1.9 ± 1.1, respectively, whereas it was 1.0 (once a year) in goats. However, these figures were higher in sheep in the coastal area with a rate of 3.4 and 2.2 in lambs and ewes, respectively. Benzimidazoles were the predominant anthelmintic class used in sheep flocks (64.9% in 2007), whereas benzimidazoles and macrocyclic lactones were both equally used in dairy goat flocks. In the period of 2005-2007, 46.3% of the sheep flocks never changed the anthelmintic class. The dose and move strategy was practiced in 33.2% of the sheep flocks.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The present study showed that inaccurate weight calculation gives a risk of under-dosing in over 90% of the sheep and goat flocks in Norway. Taken together with a high treatment frequency in lambs, a lack of anthelmintic class rotation and the common use of a dose-and-move strategy, a real danger for development of anthelmintic resistance (AR) seems to exist in Norwegian sheep and goat flocks. This risk seems particularly high in coastal areas where high treatment frequencies in lambs were recorded.</p

Risk aversion and optimal forest replanting: A stochastic efficiency study

A new stochastic efficiency analysis approach, called stochastic efficiency with respect to a function (SERF), is applied to analyse optimal tree replanting on an area of recently harvested forest land. SERF partitions a set of risky alternative tree replanting strategies in terms of certainty equivalents (CEs) for a specified range of attitudes to risk. Both the entailed risk and the forest owner's risk aversion are taken into account. The forest owner's degree of risk aversion affects both the optimal tree replacement strategy and the reinvestment decision. The degree of risk aversion also needs to be taken into account when designing policy measures to affect forest investment

Majority voting leads to unanimity

Majority voting, Core, Cooperative game theory, D72, C71,

Additive representation of separable preferences over infinite products

International audienc