Ambient video awareness: “It’s great, but I still don’t want it”

Video instant messaging tools are not as widely used as we would have predicted and have so far failed to fulfill their promise to become an indispensable tool of social presence, interacting within the workgroup environment and creating a sense of community. Whilst users are becoming comfortable with videoconferencing and software video meetings, the use of video in “awareness” is still very uncommon. Over a 2-year period, we have run 8 discrete Hexagon room studies on naturalistic “ambient video awareness”. Only one of these studies can be considered to be a (limited) success. This paper discusses some of the factors inhibiting the use of such tools in e-learning environments, based on users’ feedback on issues, such as the tool promotion, user interface, size of community and visibility concerns

A policy evaluation of Hawaii\u27s coral reef management strategies

Coral reefs playa critically important rale in both the human and natural world. They are among the most biologically rich systems on earth and are of significant economic value to humans. They act as an important base for fisheries and provide food, jobs, and income to billions of people worldwide. These delicate systems are increasingly threatened by several factors including overexploitation pollution, habitat loss, coral bleaching, and global climate change. The rapid decline and loss of the ancient and complex ecosystems had triggered major concern all over the world. Hawaiian coral reefs have experienced an increasing exposure to anthropogenic threats since development skyracketed in the 1950\u27s. Because this is a period of less than a century, the reefs in Hawaii are among the most pristine in the world in close proximity to human development. Their isolation pravides an outstanding opportunity to study the direct effects of anthrapogenic and natural impacts to coral reef ecosystems. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between population changes in Hawaii, policy implementation, and trends observed in local coral reefs. This information will pravide a better understanding of policy effectiveness, and provides a means to recommend possible policy improvements. Learning how to manage Hawaii\u27s coral reef ecosystems can provide a valuable framework for coral conservation efforts around the world, and con be a key component in the movement toward coral reef sustainability

Building the foundations of sustainable environmental management:Understanding the influence of natural capital on ecosystem services

Global indicators of ecosystem extent and condition have declined by 47%, relative to their earliest estimated states. Natural capital is the worlds’ stocks of these natural assets, which supply a wide range of ecosystem services that directly or indirectly produce value for people. This decline in our natural capital is likely to have repercussions for the ecosystem services it supplies. To support and inform sustainable and effective environmental management decisions for the provision of our vital ecosystem services we must fully understand the linkages between them and natural capital. Yet many existing approaches only assess a limited number of ecosystem services and natural capital assets, and therefore miss important synergies and trade-offs. Furthermore, there has been very little exploration into the context dependency of these linkages and the evidence underlying them; natural capital to ecosystem service linkages may be of different relevance to decision makers depending on their desired application. This thesis follows the creation of the Linking Natural Capital Attribute Groups to Ecosystem Services (LiNCAGES) platform to support collation, exploration and synthesis of evidence on linkages between natural capital and ecosystem services and its communication in environmental decision making. The thesis shows how the LiNCAGES platform allows for the holistic investigation of natural capital and ecosystem service linkages while accounting for the context dependency of a user’s decisions. Furthermore, this thesis reveals how accounting for relationships between multiple natural capital attributes can reveal new indirect trade-offs and synergies between ecosystem services and how these are affected by context dependency. Additionally, the thesis highlights the importance of understanding the strengths and limitations of evidence on natural capital that underpins maps of ecosystem service provision, which are frequently used to support environmental decisions. Maps of present and future ecosystem service provision created using evidence from the literature, expert scoring and an existing model were found to vary considerably by the region, ecosystem service, and future scenario mapped. The work presented in this thesis provides new insight into the complexities and context dependencies in natural capital to ecosystem service linkages and relationships between natural capital attributes, as well as in the evidence used to communicate such linkages via ecosystem service provision maps. This deeper understanding contributes to the support of sustainable and effective environmental management decisions necessary for the preservation of our vital ecosystem services