The role of social values in the management of ecological systems

The concept of value is central to the practice and science of ecological management and conservation. There is a well-developed body of theory and evidence that explores concepts of value in different ways across different disciplines including philosophy, economics, sociology and psychology. Insight from these disciplines provides a robust and sophisticated platform for considering the role of social values in ecological conservation, management and research. This paper reviews theories of value from these disciplines and discusses practical tools and instruments that can be utilised by researchers and practitioners. A distinction is highlighted between underlying values that shape people's perception of the world (e.g. altruistic or biospheric value orientations), and the values that people assign to things in the world (e.g. natural heritage, money). Evidence from numerous studies has shown that there are multiple pathways between these values and attitudes, beliefs and behaviours relevant to ecological management and conservation. In an age of increasing anthropogenic impacts on natural systems, recognising how and why people value different aspects of ecological systems can allow ecological managers to act to minimise conflict between stakeholders and promote the social acceptability of management activities. A series of practical guidelines are provided to enable social values to be better considered in ecosystem management and research

Lake Michigan Salmonid Stocking Costs in Wisconsin

The costs of stocking salmonids in the Wisconsin waters of Lake Michigan are estimated for 1985. Estimation procedures and costs per stocked and captured fish are presented. Fingerlings of a species were found in most cases to cost more per captured fish than yearlings. However chinook salmon fingerlings were least expensive at an average cost of only $0.35 per captured fish. Most expensive were brook yearlings and fingerlings at$12.67 and $10.14 respectively. While a full policy evaluation awaits additional research on species specific benefits, three tentative conclusions can be drawn for the Wisconsin fishery. First, the role of brook trout in the fishery should be reviewed. Second, despite difficulties with lake trout rehabilitation, the role of lake trout in the sport fishery is encouraging and may justify continued stocking. Finally, increased stocking of the popular chinook salmon may be justified if the recent problems of low capture-per-release rates can be solved.restocking costs, benefit-cost methodology, sport fisheries, salmonids, Lake Michigan, Environmental Economics and Policy, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Caregivers' experiences with the new family‐centred paediatric physiotherapy programme COPCA : a qualitative study

Caregivers' experiences during early intervention of their infant with special needs have consequences for their participation in the intervention. Hence, it is vital to understand caregivers' view. This study explored caregivers' experiences with the family-centred early intervention programme "COPing with and CAring for infants with special needs" (COPCA)

The ethics of offsetting nature

Biodiversity offsetting is transforming conservation practice around the world. Development activities that degrade or destroy biodiversity at one location are now increasingly acceptable because of compensatory environmental gains generated elsewhere. This change represents a major shift in how nature is protected, and yet its philosophical justification has received little attention. We argue that biodiversity offsetting aligns most easily with a utilitarian ethic, where outcomes rather than actions are the focus. However, offsetting schemes often neglect to account for the multiple values that people assign to biodiversity including unique, place-based values. Furthermore, the implications of defining nature as a tradeable commodity may affect our sense of obligation to protect biodiversity. Ironically, offsetting may exacerbate environmental harm because it erodes ethical barriers based on moral objections to the destruction of biodiversity. By failing to consider the ethical implications of biodiversity offsetting, we risk compromising the underlying motivations for protecting nature

Preliminary Starch Grain Evidence of Ancient Stone Tool Use at the Early Archaic (9,000 B.P.) Site of Sandy Hill, Mashantucket, Connecticut

Early Archaic subsistence strategies of New England remain poorly understood despite their importance in helping researchers understand how people adapt to changing landscapes following the end of the last glacial maximum (21,000-14,000 B.P.). Excavations at the Mashantucket Pequot Reservation in Mashantucket, Connecticut during the 1990s revealed a large, semi-sedentary village nestled alongside a complex wetland ecosystem. In this paper, we present preliminary starch grain analysis of several stone tools recovered and curated from these excavations. The results of this study indicate that both transitory and reserve starch grains are preserved on these artifacts and that at least one of the artifacts may have been used for leaf or stem processing. The results of this study also demonstrate the potential for future research in which paired macrobotanical and residue analysis will allow for a better understanding of subsistence practices at the site and during the early Archaic in general.</p

Fallacious, misleading and unhelpful:The case for removing ‘systematic review’ from bioethics nomenclature

Attempts to conduct systematic reviews of ethical arguments in bioethics are fundamentally misguided. All areas of enquiry need thorough and informative literature reviews, and efforts to bring transparency and systematic methods to bioethics are to be welcomed. Nevertheless, the raw materials of bioethical articles are not suited to methods of systematic review. The eclecticism of philosophy may lead to suspicion of philosophical methods in bioethics. Because bioethics aims to influence medical and scientific practice it is tempting to adopt scientific language and methods. One manifestation is the increasing innovation in, and use of, systematic reviews of ethical arguments in bioethics. Yet bioethics, as a broadly philosophical area of enquiry, is unsuited to systematic review. Bioethical arguments are evaluative, so notions of quality and bias are inapplicable. Bioethical argument is conceptual rather than numerical, and the classification of concepts is itself a process of argument that cannot aspire to neutrality. Any ‘systematic review’ of ethical arguments in bioethics thus falls short of that name. Furthermore, labels matter. Although the bioethics research community may find that adopting the language and the outward methods of clinical science offers apparent prospects of credibility, policy influence and funding, we argue that such misdirection carries risks and is unlikely to pay dividends in the long term. Bioethical sources are amenable to the review methods of the social sciences, and it is on these methods that specific methods of bioethics literature review should be built