Analysis of Property Values, Local Government Finances and Reservation of Land for National Parks and Similar Purposes

The impact on local government finances of the reservation of land for national parks in local government areas has been a bone of contention. This article identifies conditions in which the reservation of land for national parks increases total rateable unimproved property values in a local government area. The level of a local government's receipts from rates tends to move in the same direction as the total value of rateable property in its local government area. Thus, even though national parks and similar natural areas are not rateable, it is possible that the reservation of some local government areas for such protection can increase revenue from rates. However this is not always so and conditions for an increase in local government revenue are specified. Local governments may wish to maximise their income for discretionary expenditures rather than total receipts. Conditions are specified in which the reservation of local areas for national parks fosters - and conflicts with - this objective. Depending upon the nature of the relevant functions, local government finances may benefit from the existence of national parks in a local government area or be adversely affected by their presence. As far as we are aware, the conditions for this have not been previously specified

Tourism Diversification and Its Implications for Smart Specialisation

The complex nature of tourism, its strong inter-sectoral relationships and regional dimension challenge innovation. The advent of smart specialisation, which focuses on regional diversification across sectors, offers considerable and hitherto largely unrealized potential for developing innovative tourism policies within this new agenda. This paper addresses the understudied concept of tourism diversification and its unrealized relevance to smart specialisation, which has emerged as a mainstream logic underpinning EU Cohesion Policy reforms and has diffused into other OECD countries. It provides a theoretical framework for studying product, market, sectoral and regional diversification as well as related variety in tourism. Some policy implications for realizing tourism diversification and for the potential role of tourism in smart specialisation strategies in particular are suggested

Generation mean analysis of grain quality traits in selected rice populations derived from different amylose characteristics

BACKGROUND: Genetic analysis using generation mean analysis is a tool for designing the most appropriate breeding approaches to developing varieties of rice. It estimates the gene actions that control quantitative traits, as well as the additive, dominance and epistatic effects. This study was conducted using three rice populations that were derived from parental lines with different amylose content. The aim was to partition the gene actions using generation mean analysis for the selected populations. RESULTS: A scaling test was carried out to evaluate the fulfilment of the additive-dominance model. Non-allelic interaction was observed for milled grain length, length-to-width ratio and milled rice recovery of all populations evaluated. An additive-dominance model was not adequate for amylose, gel consistency, grain length, grain width, milled grain width and head rice recovery, thus epistasis was involved in the populations evaluated. The importance of additive gene action was observed for grain length, milled grain length and milled rice recovery for populations of high- and low-amylose parents. However, populations with intermediate- and high-amylose parents and intermediate- and low-amylose parents shared almost similar dominance gene actions for most of the physical grain quality traits. CONCLUSION: These results suggested that delayed selection is the best approach for traits governed by dominance and epistasis effects. Meanwhile, the traits that were governed by additive effects should undergo thorough selection at an early stage