Attempting affirmative political ecologies: Collective transformative learning for social justice in Nepal's community forestry

Whilst political ecology scholarship has contributed much to articulating social injustices associated with Nepal's community forestry, here we took a different approach, by attempting an 'affirmative political ecology.' We drew on feminist and activist scholarship to inspire collective action that engaged directly with challenges of social justice and those charged with delivering it through their work. Guided by theories and practices of 'transformative learning' and a range of associated reflective practices, our participatory action research involved 4 facilitators and (up to) 25 participants who work across Nepal's forest bureaucracy (and for some, the wider community-based natural resource management sector). Together physically, remotely and through our writing, we reflect upon the operation of power in our professional – and personal – lives, exploring how that may enable a more informed and meaningful engagement with social justice within the workplace, and beyond. This article presents the process of our collective reflection and learning, and shares some of its initial outcomes based on the experiences of the 15 co-authors. Whilst 'simply' having the time and space to come together was hugely important, it was the form and feel of that space that was particularly significant, as we focused on co-creating a safe space which was non-judgmental and based on mutual respect, enabling comfortable and open discussion of often unspoken and uncomfortable issues. Ultimately, this article argues that collective practices of reflection and transformative learning can create shared learning, understanding, empathy and solidarity, and thus that it offers hope in the face of on-going social injustices. It therefore urges political ecologists to work towards such caring and affirmative collective engagements with practitioners as one way in which to affect change

Roads and landslides in Nepal: How development affects environmental risk

10.5194/nhess-18-3203-2018Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences18123203-321

Interspecies Recombination-Led Speciation of a Novel Geminivirus in Pakistan

Recombination between isolates of different virus species has been known to be one of the sources of speciation. Weeds serve as mixing vessels for begomoviruses, infecting a wide range of economically important plants, thereby facilitating recombination. Chenopodium album is an economically important weed spread worldwide. Here, we present the molecular characterization of a novel recombinant begomovirus identified from C. album in Lahore, Pakistan. The complete DNA- A genome of the virus associated with the leaf distortion occurred in the infected C. album plants was cloned and sequenced. DNA sequence analysis showed that the nucleotide sequence of the virus shared 93% identity with those of the rose leaf curl virus and the duranta leaf curl virus. Interestingly, this newly identified virus is composed of open reading frames (ORFs) from different origins. Phylogenetic networks and complementary recombination detection methods revealed extensive recombination among the sequences. The infectious clone of the newly detected virus was found to be fully infectious in C. album and Nicotiana benthamiana as the viral DNA was successfully reconstituted from systemically infected tissues of inoculated plants, thus fulfilling Koch’s postulates. Our study reveals a new speciation of an emergent ssDNA plant virus associated with C. album through recombination and therefore, proposed the tentative name ‘Chenopodium leaf distortion virus’ (CLDV)

Identification of a Novel Geminivirus in Fraxinus rhynchophylla in Korea

Fraxinus rhynchophylla, common name ash, belongs to the family Oleaceae and is found in China, Korea, North America, the Indian subcontinent, and eastern Russia. It has been used as a traditional herbal medicine in Korea and various parts of the world due to its chemical constituents. During a field survey in March 2019, mild vein thickening (almost negligible) was observed in a few ash trees. High-throughput sequencing of libraries of total DNA from ash trees, rolling-circle amplification (RCA), and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) allowed the identification of a Fraxinus symptomless virus. This virus has five confirmed open reading frames along with a possible sixth open reading frame that encodes the movement protein and is almost 2.7 kb in size, with a nonanucleotide and stem loop structure identical to begomoviruses. In terms of its size and structure, this virus strongly resembles begomoviruses, but does not show any significant sequence identity with them. To confirm movement of the virus within the trees, different parts of infected trees were examined, and viral movement was successfully observed. No satellite molecules or DNA B were identified. Two-step PCR confirmed the virion and complementary strands during replication in both freshly collected infected samples of ash tree and Nicotiana benthamiana samples agro-inoculated with infectious clones. This taxon is so distantly grouped from other known geminiviruses that it likely represents a new geminivirus genus