Community Monitoring of Carbon Stocks for REDD+: Does Accuracy and Cost Change over Time?

Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries, and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries (REDD+) is a potentially powerful international policy mechanism that many tropical countries are working towards implementing. Thus far, limited practical consideration has been paid to local rights to forests and forest resources in REDD+ readiness programs, beyond noting the importance of these issues. Previous studies have shown that community members can reliably and cost-effectively monitor forest biomass. At the same time, this can improve local ownership and forge important links between monitoring activities and local decision-making. Existing studies have, however, been static assessments of biomass at one point in time. REDD+ programs will require repeated surveys of biomass over extended time frames. Here, we examine trends in accuracy and costs of local forest monitoring over time. We analyse repeated measurements by community members and professional foresters of 289 plots over two years in four countries in Southeast Asia. This shows, for the first time, that with repeated measurements community members’ biomass measurements become increasingly accurate and costs decline. These findings provide additional support to available evidence that community members can play a strong role in monitoring forest biomass in the local implementation of REDD+

Die notfallmässige Koniotomie

Alle internationalen Empfehlungen zum Management des schwierigen, mit konventionellen Mitteln nicht beherrschbaren Atemweges beinhalten als „ultima ratio“ die Notfallkoniotomie. Diese invasive Notfalltechnik stellt eine relativ sichere und schnelle Möglichkeit der notfallmäßigen Atemwegsicherung dar. Dennoch kann die Notfallkoniotomie insbesondere in der Prähospitalphase mit Komplikationen behaftet sein. Als Verfahren stehen die chirurgisch-anatomische Präpariertechnik und diverse Punktionsverfahren zur Verfügung. Neben der reinen Beherrschung der Notfalltechniken muss sich der potentielle Anwender bereits vor dem Notfall über die Indikationen der Notfallkoniotomie, den entsprechenden Entscheidungsprozess und das gewählte Vorgehen bei einer schwierigen Atemwegsicherung im Klaren sein. Diese invasive Notfalltechnik muss trainiert werden, um sie im Ernstfall effektiv einsetzen zu können. Hierbei eignen sich sowohl Kurse an Leichenpräparaten als auch an Phantommodellen

Challenge-induced plasma exudation and mucinous secretion in human airways

Secretion of mucins and exudation of plasma are distinct processes of importance to innate immunity and inflammatory disease. Yet, little is known about their relation in human airways. The objective of the present study was to use the human nasal airway to determine mucinous secretion and plasma exudation in response to common challenge agents and mediators. Ten healthy volunteers were subjected to nasal challenge-lavage procedures. Thus, the nasal mucosa was exposed to increasing doses of histamine (40 and 400 mu g ml(-1)), methacholine (12.5 and 25 mg) and capsaicin (30 and 300 ng ml(-1)). Fucose was selected as a global marker of mucinous secretion and alpha(2)-macroglobulin as an index of exudation of bulk plasma. All challenge agents increased the mucosal output of fucose to about the same level (P < 0.01-0.05). Once significant secretion had been induced the subsequently increased dose of the challenge agent, in the case of histamine and methacholine, failed to further increase the response. Only histamine increased the mucosal output of alpha(2)-macroglobulin (P < 0.01). We conclude that prompt but potentially rapidly depleted mucinous secretion is common to different kinds of airway challenges, whereas inflammatory histamine-type mediators are required to produce plasma exudation. Along with the acknowledged secretion of mucins, a practically non-depletable, pluripotent mucosal output of plasma emerges as an important component of the innate immunity of human airways