101 research outputs found
Protected areas: providing natural solutions to 21st century challenges
Protected areas remain a cornerstone of global conservation efforts. The double impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss are major threats to achieving the Millennium Development Goals, especially those relating to environmental sustainability, poverty alleviation and food and water security. The growing awareness of the planetâs vulnerability to human driven changes also provides an opportunity to re-emphasize the multiple values of natural ecosystems and the services that they provide. Protected areas, when integrated into landuse plans as part of larger and connected conservation networks, offer practical, tangible solutions to the problems of both species loss and adaptation to climate change. Natural habitats make a significant contribution to mitigation by storing and sequestering carbon in vegetation and soils, and to adaptation by maintaining essential ecosystem services which help societies to respond to, and cope with climate change and other environmental challenges. Many protected areas could be justified on socioeconomic grounds alone yet their multiple goods and services are largely unrecognized in national accounting. This paper argues that there is a convincing case for greater investment in expanded and better-connected protected area systems, under a range of governance and management regimes that are specifically designed to counter the threats of climate change, increased demand and altered patterns of resource use. The new agenda for protected areas requires greater inclusivity of a broader spectrum of actors and rights holders, with growing attention to landscapes and seascapes protected by indigenous peoples, local communities, private owners and other actors which complement conservation areas managed by state agencies. Greater attention also needs to be focused on ways to integrate and mainstream protected areas into sustainable development, including promotion of âgreenâ infrastructure as a strategic part of responses to climate change
Dialogue across Indigenous, local and scientific knowledge systems reflecting on the IPBES Assessment on Pollinators, Pollination and Food Production
The Dialogue across Indigenous, local and scientific knowledge systems reflecting on the IPBES Assessment on Pollinators, Pollination and Food Production report presents the main outcomes of a Dialogue across Indigenous, local and scientific knowledge systems that revisited and reflected on the key messages derived from the Assessment Report on Pollinators, Pollination and Food Production of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). The Dialogue was hosted from the 21st to the 25th of January 2019 by the Karen community of Hin Lad Nai, Chiang Rai, Thailand, and it was co-convened and jointly designed by the Inter Mountain Peoples Education and Culture in Thailand Association (IMPECT) and Pgakenyaw Association for Sustainable Development (PASD) together with SwedBio at the Stockholm Resilience Centre and UNESCO Natural Science Sector
Unlocking the grid: Language-in-education policy realisation in post-apartheid South Africa
This paper reflects on the state of educational language policy two decades into a postApartheid South Africa caught between official multilingualism and English. The
focus is on the national language-in-education policy (LiEP) that advocates additive
bi/multilingualism, and a provincial counterpart, the language transformation plan
(LTP). Using Ricento and Hornbergerâs onion metaphor, the paper seeks to uncover
the meanings of policy realisation in education at legislative, institutional, and
interpersonal levels. The LiEPâs non-realisation at institutional level is indexed by a
âgridlock of collusionâ (Alexander, personal communication) between political elites
and the majority of African-language speakers, who emulatively seek the goods that
an English-medium education promises. To illustrate how teachers can become policy
advocates, data are presented from a bilingual education in-service programme that
supported the LTP. The paper argues that sociolinguistic insights into speakersâ
heteroglossic practices should be used to counter prevailing monoglossic policy
discourses and school language practices, and that all languages should be used as
learning resources. Strategic essentialism would recognise the schooling systemâs
need to separately classify language subjects and to identify the languages most
productively used for teaching across the curriculum. The paper concludes with a call
for the revision of the LiEP
Hypoxanthine-guanine phosophoribosyltransferase (HPRT) deficiency: Lesch-Nyhan syndrome
Deficiency of hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase (HPRT) activity is an inborn error of purine metabolism associated with uric acid overproduction and a continuum spectrum of neurological manifestations depending on the degree of the enzymatic deficiency. The prevalence is estimated at 1/380,000 live births in Canada, and 1/235,000 live births in Spain. Uric acid overproduction is present inall HPRT-deficient patients and is associated with lithiasis and gout. Neurological manifestations include severe action dystonia, choreoathetosis, ballismus, cognitive and attention deficit, and self-injurious behaviour. The most severe forms are known as Lesch-Nyhan syndrome (patients are normal at birth and diagnosis can be accomplished when psychomotor delay becomes apparent). Partial HPRT-deficient patients present these symptoms with a different intensity, and in the least severe forms symptoms may be unapparent. Megaloblastic anaemia is also associated with the disease. Inheritance of HPRT deficiency is X-linked recessive, thus males are generally affected and heterozygous female are carriers (usually asymptomatic). Human HPRT is encoded by a single structural gene on the long arm of the X chromosome at Xq26. To date, more than 300 disease-associated mutations in the HPRT1 gene have been identified. The diagnosis is based on clinical and biochemical findings (hyperuricemia and hyperuricosuria associated with psychomotor delay), and enzymatic (HPRT activity determination in haemolysate, intact erythrocytes or fibroblasts) and molecular tests. Molecular diagnosis allows faster and more accurate carrier and prenatal diagnosis. Prenatal diagnosis can be performed with amniotic cells obtained by amniocentesis at about 15â18 weeks' gestation, or chorionic villus cells obtained at about 10â12 weeks' gestation. Uric acid overproduction can be managed by allopurinol treatment. Doses must be carefully adjusted to avoid xanthine lithiasis. The lack of precise understanding of the neurological dysfunction has precluded development of useful therapies. Spasticity, when present, and dystonia can be managed with benzodiazepines and gamma-aminobutyric acid inhibitors such as baclofen. Physical rehabilitation, including management of dysarthria and dysphagia, special devices to enable hand control, appropriate walking aids, and a programme of posture management to prevent deformities are recommended. Self-injurious behaviour must be managed by a combination of physical restraints, behavioural and pharmaceutical treatments
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