Conflicts Over Extractivist Policy and the Forest Frontier in Central America

Central America is characterized by an asymmetric forest transition in which net deforestation is a product of both forest loss and patches of forest resurgence. Forest loss is also associated with rights violations. We explore the extent to which extractive industry and infrastructure investments create pressure on forest resources, community rights and livelihoods. Drivers of this investment are identified, in particular: constitutional, legislative and regulatory reforms; energy policies; new financial flows; and ideas of development emphasizing the centrality of infrastructure in combining geographical integration and economic growth. We discuss forms of contentious action that have emerged in response to these pressures, asking how far and in what ways this contention has elicited changes in the policies that govern investment and extractive industry, and how far such changes might reduce pressure on Central America\u27s remaining forest cover. The paper develops a conceptual framework for analysing relationships among contention, policy change and the resilience of policy changes

The RaDIANT community study protocol: community-based participatory research for reducing disparities in access to kidney transplantation.

BACKGROUND: The Southeastern United States has the lowest kidney transplant rates in the nation, and racial disparities in kidney transplant access are concentrated in this region. The Southeastern Kidney Transplant Coalition (SEKTC) of Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina is an academic and community partnership that was formed with the mission to improve access to kidney transplantation and reduce disparities among African American (AA) end stage renal disease (ESRD) patients in the Southeastern United States. METHODS/DESIGN: We describe the community-based participatory research (CBPR) process utilized in planning the Reducing Disparities In Access to kidNey Transplantation (RaDIANT) Community Study, a trial developed by the SEKTC to reduce health disparities in access to kidney transplantation among AA ESRD patients in Georgia, the state with the lowest kidney transplant rates in the nation. The SEKTC Coalition conducted a needs assessment of the ESRD population in the Southeast and used results to develop a multicomponent, dialysis facility-randomized, quality improvement intervention to improve transplant access among dialysis facilities in GA. A total of 134 dialysis facilities are randomized to receive either: (1) standard of care or usual transplant education, or (2) the multicomponent intervention consisting of transplant education and engagement activities targeting dialysis facility leadership, staff, and patients within dialysis facilities. The primary outcome is change in facility-level referral for kidney transplantation from baseline to 12 months; the secondary outcome is reduction in racial disparity in transplant referral. DISCUSSION: The RaDIANT Community Study aims to improve equity in access to kidney transplantation for ESRD patients in the Southeast. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Clinicaltrials.gov number NCT02092727

Global Forces of Change: Implications for Forest-poverty Dynamics

This article examines global trends likely to influence forests and tree-based systems and considers the poverty implications of these interactions. The trends, identified through a series of expert discussions and review of the literature, include: (i) climatic impacts mediated through changes in forests, (ii) growth in commodity markets, (iii) shifts in private and public forest sector financing, (iv) technological advances and rising interconnectivity, (v) global socio-political movements, and (vi) emerging infectious diseases. These trends bring opportunities and risks to the forest-reliant poor. A review of available evidence suggests that in a business-as-usual scenario, the cumulative risks posed by these global forces, in conjunction with limited rights, resources, and skills required to prosper from global changes, are likely to place poor and transient poor households under additional stress. The article concludes with an assessment of how interventions for enhancing forest management, combined with supportive policy and institutional conditions, can contribute to a different and more prosperous future for forests and people

Priorities for Governing Large-scale Infrastructure in the Tropics

National governments, International Financial Institutions, and the G-20 have intensified investments of infrastructure to boost economic growth in the wake of economic recessions and the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. This infrastructure enables investments in large-scale agriculture, ranching, mining, and oil and gas extraction which tend to intensify the current inequalities. These activities is slated to occur in tropical forests and on lands historically occupied by Indigenous, Afro-Descendant, Traditional and other rural peoples. This has unprecedented negative impact on the ecosystem, the biodiversity as well as on the peoples. This article calls for a \u27three-leg\u27 agenda to align infrastructure, development, and sustainability. The first one deals for the stakeholders and society at large to rethink our understanding of the relationships between infrastructure and development. The second one involves with infrastructure planning and decision-making which must be based on territorially-based planning that includes all voices that are affected by these changes. Lastly, approaches to infrastructure planning must greatly expand the scope for public debate and oversight of what infrastructure is needed

Resource Extraction and Infrastructure Threaten Forest Cover and Community Rights

Mineral and hydrocarbon extraction and infrastructure are increasingly significant drivers of forest loss, greenhouse gas emissions, and threats to the rights of forest communities in forested areas of Amazonia, Indonesia, and Mesoamerica. Projected investments in these sectors suggest that future threats to forests and rights are substantial, particularly because resource extraction and infrastructure reinforce each other and enable population movements and agricultural expansion further into the forest. In each region, governments have made framework policy commitments to national and cross-border infrastructure integration, increased energy production, and growth strategies based on further exploitation of natural resources. This reflects political settlements among national elites that endorse resource extraction as a pathway toward development. Regulations that protect forests, indigenous and rural peoples’ lands, and conservation areas are being rolled back or are under threat. Small-scale gold mining has intensified in specific locations and also has become a driver of deforestation and degradation. Forest dwellers’ perceptions of insecurity have increased, as have documented homicides of environmental activists. To explain the relationships among extraction, infrastructure, and forests, this paper combines a geospatial analysis of forest loss overlapped with areas of potential resource extraction, interviews with key informants, and feedback from stakeholder workshops. The increasing significance of resource extraction and associated infrastructure as drivers of forest loss and rights violations merits greater attention in the empirical analyses and conceptual frameworks of Sustainability Science

Superfluidity of Σ−\Sigma^- hyperons in β\beta-stable neutron star matter

In this work we evaluate the $^1S_0$ energy gap of $\Sigma^-$ hyperons in $\beta$-stable neutron star matter. We solve the BCS gap equation for an effective $\Sigma^-\Sigma^-$ pairing interaction derived from the most recent parametrization of the hyperon-hyperon interaction constructed by the Nijmegen group. We find that the $\Sigma^-$ hyperons are in a $^1S_0$ superfluid state in the density region $\sim 0.27-0.7$ fm$^{-3}$, with a maximum energy gap of order 8 MeV at a total baryon number density of $\sim 0.37$ fm$^{-3}$ and a $\Sigma^-$ fraction of about 8%. We examine the implications on neutron star cooling.Comment: 4 pages, double column, 4 figures. Accepted in PR

Remittances and land change: A systematic review

Remittances—funds sent by migrants to family and friends back home—are an important source of global monetary flows, and they have implications for the maintenance and transformation of land systems. A number of published reviews have synthesized work on a variety of aspects of remittances (e.g., rural livelihoods, disasters, and economic development). To our knowledge, there are no reviews of work investigating the linkages between remittances and land change, broadly understood. This knowledge gap is important to address because researchers have recognized that remittances flows are a mechanism that helps to explain how migration can affect land change. Thus, understanding the specific roles remittances play in land system changes should help to clarify the multiple processes associated with migration and their independent and interactive effects. To address the state of knowledge about the connection between remittances and land systems, this paper conducts a systematic review. Our review of 51 journal articles finds that the linkages uncovered were commonly subtle and/or indirect. Very few studies looked at the direct connections between receipt of remittances and quantitative changes in land. Most commonly, the relationship between remittances and land change was found to occur through pathways from labor migration to household income to agricultural development and productivity. We find four non-exclusive pathways through which households spend remittances with consequent changes to land systems: (1) agricultural crops and livestock, (2) agricultural labor and technologies, (3) land purchases, and (4) non-agricultural purchases and consumables. In the papers reviewed, these expenditures are linked to various land system change outcomes, including land use change, soil degradation, pasture degradation, afforestation/deforestation/degradation, agricultural intensification/extensification/diversification, and no impact. These findings suggest four avenues for future research. One avenue is the use of the theoretical lens of telecoupling to understand how remittances may produce wider-scale changes in land systems. A second avenue is further examination of the impacts of shocks and disturbances to remittance flows on land change both in migrant sending and in remittance receiving areas. A third avenue is scholarship that examines the extent that household uses of remittances have a “ripple effect” on land uses in nearby interlinked systems. A fourth avenue for future work is the use of spatially explicit modeling that leverages land cover and land use data based on imagery and other geospatial information

Justice and ethics in conservation remote sensing: Current discourses and research needs

Advances in remote sensing are transforming research and practice in biodiversity conservation. But the increasing use of these technologies and data also provokes major ethical and social justice questions. In this scoping review, we examine the extent to and ways in which ethics and justice are discussed in relation to uses of remote sensing in conservation. Our literature search identifies only 31 peer-reviewed English language papers containing substantive discussion of justice and/or ethics and conservation remote sensing. Within these papers, emergent themes and tensions include the use of remote sensing technologies for surveillance (and the extent to which this is framed as positive or negative), the militarised associations of remote sensing technologies, the ways that remote sensing technologies can disrupt or harden power asymmetries, and whether the greatest ethical risks or benefits are seen as being for people or other species. Building on recommendations identified in this review, we reflect on how conservation can learn from work on data ethics in other fields, such as the ethics of artificial intelligence. We also discuss the mechanisms (such as formal laws, journal review procedures, and greater individual reflexivity) which could support the use of remote sensing technologies and data to advance socially just conservation. Finally, we highlight research priorities including the need for more comparative case study analyses, greater research efforts on the political economy and geopolitics of conservation remote sensing, and work which situates novel technologies within longer-standing debates about ethics and philosophies of biodiversity conservation

Conflicts over Extractivist Policy and the Forest Frontier in Central America

Central America is characterized by an asymmetric forest transition in which net deforestation is a product of both forest loss and patches of forest resurgence. Forest loss is also associated with rights violations. We explore the extent to which extractive industry and infrastructure investments create pressure on forest resources, community rights and livelihoods. Drivers of this investment are identified, in particular: constitutional, legislative and regulatory reforms; energy policies; new financial flows; and ideas of development emphasizing the centrality of infrastructure in combining geographical integration and economic growth. We discuss forms of contentious action that have emerged in response to these pressures, asking how far and in what ways this contention has elicited changes in the policies that govern investment and extractive industry, and how far such changes might reduce pressure on Central America’s remaining forest cover. The paper develops a conceptual framework for analysing relationships among contention, policy change and the resilience of policy changes. Resumen: Conflictos sobre política extractivista y la frontera forestal de América CentralAmérica Central se caracteriza por una transición forestal asimétrica en la que la deforestación es producto tanto de la pérdida de bosques como de parches de resurgimiento forestal. La pérdida de bosques también está asociada con violaciones de derechos. Exploramos hasta qué punto las inversiones en industrias e infraestructuras extractivas crean presión sobre los recursos forestales, los derechos de la comunidad y los medios de vida. Se identifican los impulsores de esta inversión, en particular: reformas constitucionales, legislativas y reglamentarias; políticas energéticas; nuevos flujos financieros; e ideas de desarrollo que enfatizan la centralidad de la infraestructura en combinación con la integración geográfica y el crecimiento económico. Discutimos formas de acción contenciosa que han surgido en respuesta a estas presiones, cuestionándonos cuántos y cómo ha provocado este conflicto cambios en las políticas que gobiernan la inversión y la industria extractiva, y hasta qué punto dichos cambios podrían reducir la presión sobre el bosque restante de América Central. El documento desarrolla un marco conceptual para analizar las relaciones entre la contención, el cambio de política y la resistencia de los cambios de política