Property Rights Conservation and Development: An Analysis of Extractive Reserves in the Brazilian Amazon

The economic literature of property rights has been assessing the impact of different community based arrangements on the efficiency of natural resource management of specific areas. Differently, other strands of development economics and policy-oriented research have been concerned with issues such as poverty alleviation, technological progress and the capability to compete in market economies, which go beyond the local areas where traditional communities live and include the wider economy. The extractive reserves in the Brazilian Amazon offer perhaps one of the most interesting cases for investigating the connections between these two approaches in the context of tropical forests. It is based on the idea that the combination of public property with collective use in particular forest areas can generate competitive and, at the same time, sustainable exploitation of its natural resources. This paper aims to analyse whether the existing property rights support the joint objective of conservation and development. Our main result is that current property rights systems are efficient only with respect to competition in markets for existing extractive products. This finding points out to a fundamental contradiction between the static structure of the property rights systems and the dynamic nature of two most promising development paths, namely the discovery of new products and the supply of biological inputs for plantations. The current model of extractive reserves based on the design of internal property rights fails to taken into account the broader economic context where the reserves must generate a viable revenue stream. We conclude therefore that under the current set of institutions, the development objectives inherent in the extractive reserves model are likely to face probably considerable challenges to be accomplished in the future.Property rights, Extractive reserves, Environment and Development

Petrology, geochemistry, U-Pb Zircon ages and structure of the Yiddah Porphyry Cu-(Au-Mo) prospect of the Late Macquarie Arc, NSW

The Yiddah porphyry Cu-(Au-Mo) system of central-southern New South Wales is contained within the Ordovician-Silurian Goonumbla-Trangie Volcanic Belt of the Macquarie Arc, 12km north of the village of Barmedman and 2 km east of the Gilmore Fault Zone. It is one of several small and poorly understood porphyry-related systems contained within a ~ 40 km north-northwest striking region known as the Rain Hill district. Petrography (microscopy, XRD, ion microprobe), whole rock geochemistry (XRF, ICP-MS), geophysical imagery and geochronology (U-Pb SHRIMP zircon dating) have been used to describe the geology and produce a petrogenetic model of the Yiddah system. This study shows that emplacement of the Yiddah porphyry Cu-(Au-Mo) system occurred during the early Silurian (433.8 ± 6.4 Ma) with the intrusion of a number of oxidised amphibole-feldspar porphyritic stocks of previously unrecognised primary monzodiorite shoshonitic affinity. These mineralised stocks evolved from a contemporaneous (439.2 ± 6.4 Ma) and genetically related sub-equigranular monzodiorite granitoid located to the west and beneath the mineralised zone. Geophysical, petrographic and geochemical findings indicate that this granitoid represents the northern extension of the Rain Hill Monzodiorite identified in the southern Gidginbung Volcanics. Mineralised stocks were intruded into two steeply eastward dipping volcaniclastic units; a low-K calc-alkaline basaltic volcaniclastic and a high-K calc-alkaline andesitic volcaniclastic. The Yiddah porphyry system has an early, central chlorite-magnetite alteration zone containing disseminated and quartz-seam hosted chalcopyrite and molybdenite, a similarlymineralised overlying chlorite-sericite zone and a further overlying lesser-mineralised sericitic zone. Beneath the chlorite-magnetite zone, propylitic style alteration is developed within the basaltic volcaniclastics and the Rain Hill Monzodiorite, neither of which are significantly mineralised. Post-emplacement deformation relating to movement of the Gilmore Fault Zone generated sub-greenschist facies metamorphism at temperatures of ~ 300ºC as constrained by chlorite geothermometry. The shear zone-related deformation manifests itself as a strong north-northwest trending foliation, a pervasive ‘regional-propylitic’ overprint and the minor mobilisation of chalcopyrite. All of the intrusive samples analysed possess trace element signatures consistent with subduction-related tectonic settings with a possible crustal component (moderate LIL/HFS element ratios and Ta-Nb depletion). Shoshonitic magmatism is therefore interpreted to be the result of either; (1) latest Macquarie Arc activity, whereby incorporation of an increased flux of Gondwanan-derived subducted sediment occurred, or (2) post-collisional collapse immediately following accretion of the arc onto eastern Gondwana, analogous to the configuration currently observed in the Northern Taiwan Volcanic Zone (Luzon Arc). The recognition of late Macquarie Arc shoshonitic affinity magmatism within the Gidginbung Volcanics is significant as it provides a genetic link between the Rain Hill Cu-(Au-Mo) porphyry systems and the world class Cadia and Goonumbla porphyry districts; thus improving prospectivity in this relatively under-explored portion of the Macquarie Arc

Urban water management: optimal price and investment policy under uncertainty

Australian urban water utilities face a significant challenge in designing appropriate demand management and supply augmentation policies in the presence of increasing water scarcity and uncertainty over future dam inflows. This paper considers the design of optimal demand management and supply augmentation policies for urban water. In particular, scarcity pricing is considered as a potential alternative to the predominant demand management policy of water restrictions. A stochastic dynamic programming model of an urban water market is developed based on data from the Australian Capital Territory. The model involves an explicit consideration of uncertainty via a probability distribution over dam inflows. Given a specification of the demand and supply for urban water, state dependent optimal price and investment policies are estimated. The results illustrate how the optimal urban water price varies inversely with the prevailing storage level and how the optimal timing of investment differs significantly between rain dependent and rain independent augmentation options.Public Economics, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Risk and Uncertainty,

A Critique of the Secondary Literature on Weimar Film : The Importance of the Weimar Film Industry

Only when all aspects of the German film industry of the 1920's have been fully analyzed and understood will "Weimar film" be truly comprehensible. Once this has been achieved the study of this phenomenon will fulfill its potential and provide accurate insights into the Weimar era. Ambitious psychoanalytic studies of Weimar film as well as general filmographies are useful sources on Weimar film, but the accessible works are also incomplete and even misleading. Theories about Weimar culture, about the group mind of Weimar, have been expounded, for example, which are based on limited rather than exhaustive studies of Weimar film. Yet these have nonetheless dominated the literature because no counter theories have been put forth. Both the deficiencies of the secondary literature and the nature of the topic under study--the film media--necessitate that attention be focused on the films themselves if the mysteries of the Weimar screen are to be untangled and accurately analyzed. Unfortunately the remnants of Weimar film available today are not perfect sources of information and not even firsthand accounts in other sources on content and quality are reliable. However, these sources--the films and firsthand accounts of them--remain to be fully explored. They must be fully explored if the study of Weimar film is ever to advance. Any further studies of Weimar film will have to be grounded in fact if they are to arrive at significant and meaningful conclusions. A thorough examination of the industry is a prerequisite to any further interpretive studies. To understand the films, one has to first understand their genesis. All aspects of the industry must be thoroughly researched: the production companies, the studios, production volume, cinemas, costs and salaries, organizations and institutions, protectionism, censorship, and taxation. Some information is available on these topics, but it is incomplete and sometimes inaccurate. Even the most extensive studies written to date which are accessible raise more questions than they answer. Sources do exist which could shed light on these concerns, but they have not been fully utilized. However, they must be utilized and the many unanswered questions on the Weimar film industry resolved. A thorough knowledge of Weimar films must at last be integrated with a thorough knowledge of the Weimar film industry per se

Molecular Evidence of Pneumocystis Transmission in Pediatric Transplant Unit

We describe an outbreak of Pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia in a pediatric renal transplant unit, likely attributable to patient-to-patient transmission. Single-strand conformation polymorphism molecular typing showed that 3 affected patients had acquired the same 2 strains of Pneumocystis, which suggests interhuman infection. An infant with mitochondriopathy was the probable index patient

Risk for Pneumocystis carinii Transmission among Patients with Pneumonia: a Molecular Epidemiology Study

We report a molecular typing and epidemiologic analysis of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) cases diagnosed in our geographic area from 1990 to 2000. Our analysis suggests that transmission from patients with active PCP to susceptible persons caused only a few, if any, PCP cases in our setting

Healthcare Worker Occupation and Immune Response to Pneumocystis jirovecii

Humans may be a reservoir for this pathogen and transmit it from person to person