Scenario Planning: A Planning Tool for an Uncertain Future

This paper uses scenario planning as a tool to identify key external drivers, build plausible scenarios, and develop policies and strategies. Drawing on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Arizona as a case study, the purpose of this study was to develop a systematic scenario planning process that helps the agency in preparation for uncertainties. Two scenario workshops were conducted to cover a wide range of social and natural resource related issues. Various expert participants from universities, agencies, and community stakeholder groups were invited to participate and engage in scenario planning activities. The study developed plausible scenarios as well as policies and strategies for each scenario. The paper discusses methodological and practical implications

Tourism and decolonisation: locating research and self

This paper critically explores decolonial theory and its relevance for tourism studies. We suggest that while postcolonial and related critical theoretical perspectives furthered understandings of the consequences of colonisation, such critical theorising has not provided an epistemological perspective of tourism which legitimises the cosmologies of, and actively empowers, traditionally marginalised groupings. We review published tourism research which adopts critical and postcolonial perspectives, and argue that while these have been valuable in terms of exposing the existence and effects of dominant discourses and practices in tourism, their emancipatory objectives are limited because tourism knowledge is still predominantly colonial. Epistemological decolonisation is thus presented as a more radical project which can provide an ‘other’ way of thinking, being and knowing about tourism. Keywords: colonial; decolonisation; decolonial theory; de-linking; epistemological; postcolonia

Stakeholder Opinions About Tourism

Research on sustainable tourism is growing but often not done in tandem with a community led initiative to effect policy. This study was part of a community and tourism sustainability effort that involved a stakeholder-involved process in a community in the southwestern U.S. The community is a popular destination by in-state, national and international tourists. This paper focuses on the results of two of the several data collection efforts that were part of this project: resident survey and business owner/manager survey. Specially, the findings of this research show that the community atmosphere factor that includes indicators related to the physical environment and safety most contributes to a high QOL in the community and must be a priority consideration in sustainable tourism planning. Conversely, the crowding factor most severely detracts from QOL with traffic, crowding and congestion being detrimental to QOL

Role of oligodendrocytes in reversing ethambutol induced optic neuropathy

Ethambutol is one of the first line drugs for treating tuberculosis. Its toxic effects on the optic nerve are majorly classified as reversible. However, worsening of vision and permanent vision loss after ethambutol discontinuation is also documented. To determine the effect of ethambutol toxicity on oligodendrocytes at different periods of treatment. Twenty-five male adult wistar rats of 110-130g average weight were housed in cages, exposed to 12-hour of dark and light cycles. After one week of acclimatization, five animals were randomly selected and sacrificed prior to ethambutol treatment for the control group (week 0). The remaining 20 animals were each orally administered 100mg/kg/day ethambutol. Five animals were randomly picked and sacrificed at the end of first, second, third, and fourth week of ethambutol treatment. There was no statistically significant difference in the number of oligodendrocyte cells obtained at the different stages of ethambutol treatment. Oligodendrocytes are not vulnerable to ethambutol toxicity for at least one month and they play a key role in reversing ethambutol induced neuropathy through myelin sheaths reconstruction. Key Words: Ethambutol, Oligodendrocytes, Optic Nerve, Optic Neuropathy

Social Production and Consumption of Space: A Lefebvrian Analysis of the Kumbh Mela

Kumbh Mela is the world’s largest pilgrimage gathering on the shores of the River Ganges. Drawing on Lefebvre’s (1991) trialectics of space framework, this paper interrogates the spatial dynamics of the Kumbh Mela through the spatial meanings espoused by local and international pilgrims. Accounting for dominant discourses that frame the event as occurring in and around a sacred waterscape, five focus groups with pilgrims were conducted at the Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, India. The findings indicate that local pilgrims were aware of river pollution, but they used discursive strategies to decouple this material fact from their lived spiritual experiences; from this vantage point the sacred was believed to be insulated from the secular. International pilgrims’ perceptions significantly differed, from those of their local counterparts, in that the sacred waterscape was seen as polluted and the onus was on them to remedy what they believed locals had neglected to do; for this group cleaning the River was a sacred act. The findings indicate that despite the existence of dominant spatial conceptualisations of a sacred waterscape, through use of the space, new and often competing spatial meanings arise that illuminate our understanding of the human condition and the social relations therewithin