The Legal Challenge of Protecting Animal Migrations as Phenomena of Abundance

Animal migrations are as familiar as geese in the sky on a fall afternoon and as mysterious as the peregrinations of sea turtles across thousands of miles of open ocean. This article discusses the distinguishing attributes of animal migrations, why they are important to biodiversity conservation, and the legal challenges posed by migration conservation. In particular, the article focuses on those aspects of migration conservation that existing law, dominated by imperiled species protection, fails to address. It consequently suggests law reforms that would better conserve animal migrations. A step toward serious legal efforts to protect the process and function of migration would represent significant broadening of the current framework for biodiversity protection policy. This article begins by describing animal migrations and explaining the common threats that raise conservation concerns. Any successful strategy for protecting migration will need to address habitat destruction, human-created obstacles, overexploitation (i.e., hunting and fishing), and climate change. The article examines the four key legal elements of a conservation strategy. The first is the establishment of differential thresholds of action responsive to different abundance goals for a migration. Second is transboundary coordination, which may involve international or interstate agreements, depending on the scale of the migration. Third is the protection of migration connectivity. Effective connectivity requires designation of corridors. Within the corridors, legal activity should concentrate on acquisition of habitat as well as activity-based regulation of habitat-disturbing practices. Fourth is controlling commercial and recreational harvests of migrating animals or the species on which the migrations rely. Finally, the article presents a theoretical model that tailors a place-based legal response to both migratory population abundance and the ecological importance of habitat. Application of the model would result in variable levels of legal protection to minimize unnecessary costs and optimize the benefit of conservation efforts. Existing attempts to conserve migrations using variable levels of protection compose a mixed record from which we extract lessons

The Legal Challenge of Protecting Animal Migrations as Phenomena of Abundance

Animal migrations are as familiar as geese in the sky on a fall afternoon and as mysterious as the peregrinations of sea turtles across thousands of miles of open ocean. This article discusses the distinguishing attributes of animal migrations, why they are important to biodiversity conservation, and the legal challenges posed by migration conservation. In particular, the article focuses on those aspects of migration conservation that existing law, dominated by imperiled species protection, fails to address. It consequently suggests law reforms that would better conserve animal migrations. A step toward serious legal efforts to protect the process and function of migration would represent significant broadening of the current framework for biodiversity protection policy. This article begins by describing animal migrations and explaining the common threats that raise conservation concerns. Any successful strategy for protecting migration will need to address habitat destruction, human-created obstacles, overexploitation (i.e., hunting and fishing), and climate change. The article examines the four key legal elements of a conservation strategy. The first is the establishment of differential thresholds of action responsive to different abundance goals for a migration. Second is transboundary coordination, which may involve international or interstate agreements, depending on the scale of the migration. Third is the protection of migration connectivity. Effective connectivity requires designation of corridors. Within the corridors, legal activity should concentrate on acquisition of habitat as well as activity-based regulation of habitat-disturbing practices. Fourth is controlling commercial and recreational harvests of migrating animals or the species on which the migrations rely. Finally, the article presents a theoretical model that tailors a place-based legal response to both migratory population abundance and the ecological importance of habitat. Application of the model would result in variable levels of legal protection to minimize unnecessary costs and optimize the benefit of conservation efforts. Existing attempts to conserve migrations using variable levels of protection compose a mixed record from which we extract lessons

The Legal Challenge of Protecting Animal Migrations as Phenomena of Abundance

Animal migrations are as familiar as geese in the sky on a fall afternoon and as mysterious as the peregrinations of sea turtles across thousands of miles of open ocean. This article discusses the distinguishing attributes of animal migrations, why they are important to biodiversity conservation, and the legal challenges posed by migration conservation. In particular, the article focuses on those aspects of migration conservation that existing law, dominated by imperiled species protection, fails to address. It consequently suggests law reforms that would better conserve animal migrations. A step toward serious legal efforts to protect the process and function of migration would represent significant broadening of the current framework for biodiversity protection policy. This article begins by describing animal migrations and explaining the common threats that raise conservation concerns. Any successful strategy for protecting migration will need to address habitat destruction, human-created obstacles, overexploitation (i.e., hunting and fishing), and climate change. The article examines the four key legal elements of a conservation strategy. The first is the establishment of differential thresholds of action responsive to different abundance goals for a migration. Second is transboundary coordination, which may involve international or interstate agreements, depending on the scale of the migration. Third is the protection of migration connectivity. Effective connectivity requires designation of corridors. Within the corridors, legal activity should concentrate on acquisition of habitat as well as activity-based regulation of habitat-disturbing practices. Fourth is controlling commercial and recreational harvests of migrating animals or the species on which the migrations rely. Finally, the article presents a theoretical model that tailors a place-based legal response to both migratory population abundance and the ecological importance of habitat. Application of the model would result in variable levels of legal protection to minimize unnecessary costs and optimize the benefit of conservation efforts. Existing attempts to conserve migrations using variable levels of protection compose a mixed record from which we extract lessons

"Community Development Banking, A Proposal to Establish a Nationwide System of Community Development Banks"

This brief proposes that the establishment of a nationwide system of community development banks (CDBs) would advance the capital development of the economy. The proposal is based on the notion that a critical function of the financial system is not being adequately performed by existing institutions for low-income citizens, inner-city minorities, and entrepreneurs who seek modest financing for small businesses. The primary goals of the CDBs are to deliver credit, payment, and savings opportunities to communities not well served by banks and to provide financing throughout a designated area for businesses too small to attract the interest of the investment banking and normal commercial banking communities.

"Community Development Banks"

The Clinton/Gore proposal for the creation of a network of 100 community development banks (CDBs) to revitalize communities is bold, and will contribute to the success of the U.S. economy. Banks are essential institutions in any community, and the establishment of a bank is often a prerequisite for the investment process. For this reason, the creation of banks in communities lacking such institutions is important to the welfare of these communities. The vitality of the American economy depends on the continual creation of new and initially small firms. Because it is in the public interest to foster the creation of new entrants into industry, trade, and finance, it is also in the public interest to have a set of strong, independent, profit-seeking banking institutions that specialize in financing smaller businesses. When market forces fail to provide a service that is needed and potentially profitable, it is appropriate for government to help create the market. Community development banks fall into such a category. They do not require a government subsidy, and after start-up costs, the banks are expected to be profitable. The primary perspective of this concept paper is that the main function of the financial structure is to advance the capital development of the economy-to increase the real productive capacity and wealth-producing ability of the economy. The second assumption is that capital development is encouraged by the provision of a broad range of financial services to various segments of the U.S. economy, including consumers, small and large businesses, retailers, developers, and all levels of government. The third is that the existing financial structure is particularly weak in servicing small and start-up businesses, and in servicing certain consumer groups. The fourth is that this problem has become more acute because of a decrease in the number of independent financing alternatives and a rise in the size distribution of financing sources, which have increased the financial system's bias toward larger transactions. These are assumptions that appear to be supported by the evidence: they are also incorporated in other proposals that advance programs to develop community development banking.

Propagation of tau pathology in Alzheimer’s disease: identification of novel therapeutic targets

Accumulation and aggregation of the microtubule-associated protein tau are a pathological hallmark of neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD). In AD, tau becomes abnormally phosphorylated and forms inclusions throughout the brain, starting in the entorhinal cortex and progressively affecting additional brain regions as the disease progresses. Formation of these inclusions is thought to lead to synapse loss and cell death. Tau is also found in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), and elevated levels are a biomarker for AD. Until recently, it was thought that the presence of tau in the CSF was due to the passive release of aggregated tau from dead or dying tangle-bearing neurons. However, accumulating evidence from different AD model systems suggests that tau is actively secreted and transferred between synaptically connected neurons. Transgenic mouse lines with localized expression of aggregating human tau in the entorhinal cortex have demonstrated that, as these animals age, tau becomes mislocalized from axons to cell bodies and dendrites and that human tau-positive aggregates form first in the entorhinal cortex and later in downstream projection targets. Numerous in vitro and in vivo studies have provided insight into the mechanisms by which tau may be released and internalized by neurons and have started to provide insight into how tau pathology may spread in AD. In this review, we discuss the evidence for regulated tau release and its specific uptake by neurons. Furthermore, we identify possible therapeutic targets for preventing the propagation of tau pathology, as inhibition of tau transfer may restrict development of tau tangles in a small subset of neurons affected in early stages of AD and therefore prevent widespread neuron loss and cognitive dysfunction associated with later stages of the disease

Cell proliferation and differentiation kinetics during spermatogenesis in Hydra carnea

Spermatogenesis inHydra carnea was investigated. The cell proliferation and differentiation kinetics of intermediates in the spermatogenesis pathway were determined, using quantitative determinations of cell abundance, pulse and continuous labelling with3H-thymidine and nuclear DNA measurements. Testes develop in the ectoderm of male hydra as a result of interstitial cell proliferation. Gonial stem cells and proliferating spermatogonia have cell cycles of 28 h and 22 h, respectively. Stem cells undergo four, five or six cell divisions prior to meiosis which includes a premeiotic S+G2 phase of 20 h followed by a long meiotic prophase (22 h). Spermatid differentiation requires 12–29 h. When they first appear, testes contain only proliferating spermatogonia; meiotic and postmeiotic cells appear after 2 and 3 days, respectively and release of mature sperm begins after 4 days. Mature testes produce about 27,000 sperm per day over a period of 4–6 days: about 220 gonial stem cells per testis are required to support this level of sperm differentiation. Further results indicate that somatic (e.g. nematocyte) differentiation does not occur in testes although it continues normally in ectodermal tissue outside testes. Our results support the hypothesis that spermatogenesis is controlled locally in regions of the ectoderm where testes develop

Community Development Banking: A Proposal to Establish a Nationwide System of Community Development Banks

Public Policy Brief No. 3, Levy Economics Institute of Bard College

Density Matrix Renormalization Group Study of the Haldane Phase in Random One-Dimensional Antiferromagnets

It is conjectured that the Haldane phase of the S=1 antiferromagnetic Heisenberg chain and the $S=1/2$ ferromagnetic-antiferromagnetic alternating Heisenberg chain is stable against any strength of randomness, because of imposed breakdown of translational symmetry. This conjecture is confirmed by the density matrix renormalization group calculation of the string order parameter and the energy gap distribution.Comment: 4 Pages, 7 figures; Considerable revisions are made in abstract and main text. Final accepted versio

Numerical renormalization-group study of spin correlations in one-dimensional random spin chains

We calculate the ground-state two-spin correlation functions of spin-1/2 quantum Heisenberg chains with random exchange couplings using the real-space renormalization group scheme. We extend the conventional scheme to take account of the contribution of local higher multiplet excitations in each decimation step. This extended scheme can provide highly accurate numerical data for large systems. The random average of staggered spin correlations of the chains with random antiferromagnetic (AF) couplings shows algebraic decay like $1/r^2$, which verifies the Fisher's analytic results. For chains with random ferromagnetic (FM) and AF couplings, the random average of generalized staggered correlations is found to decay more slowly than a power-law, in the form close to $1/\ln(r)$. The difference between the distribution functions of the spin correlations of the random AF chains and of the random FM-AF chains is also discussed.Comment: 14 pages including 8 figures, REVTeX, submitted to Physical Review