Fishing for answers: The implications of Environmental Defence Society v King Salmon

The Supreme Court's decision Environmental Defence Society v King Salmon, released in early 2014, is a positive development in New Zealand's resource management law. The decision endorses the environmental bottom line approach and prohibits the use of the purpose section of the Resource Management Act 1991 when making operative decisions. If the decision is applied widely, there is scope for some of the problems with the resource management law framework to be addressed. In particular, it has the potential to reduce the uncertainty within the system caused by the lack of central government direction and the inconsistencies between local governments, and the issues when applying the purpose of the Resource Management Act. The paper also analyses the effect of King Salmon on the proposed reforms, and concludes that the arguments for the reforms are now much weaker

Non-Governmental Organisations in international regulation: Lessons from certification schemes

The decentralisation and globalisation of regulation has opened up new kinds of regulatory activities to new kinds of actors. Certification schemes as regulatory tools and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) as regulators are two such examples. NGOs have their own set of regulatory capabilities which can be utilised to address some of the difficulties that occur in regulating across nations. At the international level, there is a strong case to be made for collaborative regulation to exploit the regulatory capacities of NGOs and other non-state actors. Certification schemes are often collaborative, and they exploit market mechanisms to further social agendas. NGO regulation is not without its pitfalls, as there are issues with accountability and effectiveness. Certification schemes as a regulatory tool have their own problems, with questions about the effectiveness of the schemes, problems with supply and demand, and the negative impact of fragmentation. This paper illustrates the potential of certification schemes, but it also argues that that potential is not being realised

Agro-environmental project duration and effectiveness in South-east Asia

Considerable emphasis has been placed on developing technologies for agricultural sustainability. Many bilateral projects are working to achieve this outcome. A desk review was conducted to study the importance of project duration for the effectiveness of sustainable agricultural projects. Longer-duration projects were successful in addressing more holistic issues than short projects. However, funding agencies tend to fund shorter-duration projects, so projects become progressively shorter. At the same time, the number of projects implemented each year is increasing. Despite the decrease in total development assistance, increases in project numbers, particularly since 1986, appear to be at the cost of project duration. Short project duration was one of the most cited reasons for not completing essential dissemination activities for wider adoption, whereas longer- duration projects were usually considered more successful in addressing more holistic issues. It is difficult to produce tangible outputs from agricultural and soil conservation projects within five years. Considering the slow changes in the system and in agricultural and environmental sustainability, the authors suggest that project developers should be advised to plan for a minimum of 5–10 years, depending on the nature of activities. It is time for funding agencies to reconsider their tendency to fund shorter-duration projects

Causal and mediating factors for anxiety, depression and well-being

Background The relationship between well-being and mental ill health is complex; people may experience very low levels of well-being even in the absence of overt mental health problems. Aims This study tested the hypothesis that anxiety, depression and well-being have different causal determinants and psychological mediating mechanisms. Method The influence of causal and mediating factors on anxiety, depression and well-being were investigated in a cross-sectional online questionnaire survey hosted on a UK national broadcasting website. Results Multivariate conditional independence analysis of data from 27 397 participants revealed different association pathways for the two constructs. Anxiety and depression were associated with negative life events mediated by rumination; low levels of subjective well-being were associated with material deprivation and social isolation, mediated by adaptive coping style. Conclusions Our findings support the 'two continua' model of the relationship between psychological well-being and mental health problems, with implications for both treatment and prevention

Variation in Mycobacterium bovis genetic richness suggests that inwards cattle movements are a more important source of infection in beef herds than in dairy herds

Publication history: Accepted - 25 June 2019; Published online - July 2019Background We used genetic Multi-Locus VNTR Analysis (MLVA) data gathered from surveillance efforts to better understand the ongoing bovine tuberculosis (bTB) epidemic in Northern Irish cattle herds. We modelled the factors associated with Mycobacterium bovis MLVA genotype richness at three analytical scales; breakdown level, herd level, and patch level, and compared the results between dairy and non-dairy production types. Results In 83% of breakdowns and in 63% of herds, a single MLVA genotype was isolated. Five or more MLVA genotypes were found in less than 3 % of herds. Herd size and the total number of reactors were important explanatory variables, suggesting that increasing MLVA genotype richness was positively related to increases in the number of host animals. Despite their smaller relative size, however, the highest MLVA genotype richness values were observed in non-dairy herds. Increasing inwards cattle movements were important positive predictors of MLVA genotype richness, but mainly in non-dairy settings. Conclusions The principal finding is that low MLVA genotype richness indicates that small-scale epidemics, e.g. wildlife, contiguous farms, and within-herd recrudescence, are important routes of M. bovis infection in cattle herds. We hypothesise that these mechanisms will maintain, but may not explicitly increase, MLVA genotype richness. The presence of elevated MLVA richness is relatively rare and likely indicates beef fattening enterprises, which purchase cattle from over long distances. Cattle movements were furthermore an important predictor of MLVA genotype richness in non-dairy herds, but not in dairy herds; this may represent reduced cattle purchasing levels in dairy enterprises, compared to beef. These observations allude to the relative contribution of different routes of bTB infection between production types; we posit that infection associated with local factors may be more evident in dairy herds than beef herds, however in beef herds, inwards movements offer additional opportunities for introducing M. bovis into the herd

Validating differential volatilome profiles in Parkinson’s disease

Contains fulltext : 231972.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access

Carbon benefits of wolfberry plantation on secondary saline land in Jingtai oasis, Gansu:A case study on application of the CBP model

The largest global source of anthropogenic CO2 emissions comes from the burning of fossil fuel and approximately 30% of total net emissions come from land use and land use change. Forestation and reforestation are regarded worldwide as effective options of sequestering carbon to mitigate climate change with relatively low costs compared with industrial greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction efforts. Cash trees with a steady augmentation in size are recognized as a multiple-beneficial solution to climate change in China. The reporting of C changes and GHG emissions for sustainable land management (SLM) practices such as afforestation is required for a variety of reasons, such as devising land management options and making policy. The Carbon Benefit Project (CBP) Simple Assessment Tool was employed to estimate changes in soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks and GHG emissions for wolfberry (Lycium barbarum L.) planting on secondary salinized land over a 10 year period (2004–2014) in the Jingtai oasis in Gansu with salinized barren land as baseline scenario. Results show that wolfberry plantation, an intensively managed ecosystem, served as a carbon sink with a large potential for climate change mitigation, a restorative practice for saline land and income stream generator for farmers in soil salinized regions in Gansu province. However, an increase in wolfberry production, driven by economic demands, would bring environmental pressures associated with the use of N fertilizer and irrigation. With an understanding of all of the components of an ecosystem and their interconnections using the Drivers-Pressures-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) framework there comes a need for strategies to respond to them such as capacity building, judicious irrigation and institutional strengthening. Cost benefit analysis (CBA) suggests that wolfberry cultivation was economically profitable and socially beneficial and thus well-accepted locally in the context of carbon sequestration. This study has important implications for Gansu as it helps to understand the role cash trees can play in carbon emission reductions. Such information is necessary in devising management options for sustainable land management (SLM)

Oligopeptide signaling through TbGPR89 drives Trypanosome Quorum sensing

K.R.M. is funded by a Wellcome Trust Investigator Award (103740/Z14/Z) and a Royal Society Wolfson Research merit award (WM140045). The Medical Research Council (MR/M020118/1) supported T.K.S., and the Wellcome Trust supported J.T. (202094/Z/16/Z). M.A. received financial support from the Scottish Universities Life Sciences Alliance (SULSA; https://www.sulsa.ac.uk) and a Medical Research Council strategic grant (J54359).Trypanosome parasites control their virulence and spread by using quorum sensing (QS) to generate transmissible “stumpy forms” in their host bloodstream. However, the QS signal “stumpy induction factor” (SIF) and its reception mechanism are unknown. Although trypanosomes lack G protein-coupled receptor signaling, we have identified a surface GPR89-family protein that regulates stumpy formation. TbGPR89 is expressed on bloodstream “slender form” trypanosomes, which receive the SIF signal, and when ectopically expressed, TbGPR89 drives stumpy formation in a SIF-pathway-dependent process. Structural modeling of TbGPR89 predicts unexpected similarity to oligopeptide transporters (POT), and when expressed in bacteria, TbGPR89 transports oligopeptides. Conversely, expression of an E. coli POT in trypanosomes drives parasite differentiation, and oligopeptides promote stumpy formation in vitro. Furthermore, the expression of secreted trypanosome oligopeptidases generates a paracrine signal that accelerates stumpy formation in vivo. Peptidase-generated oligopeptide QS signals being received through TbGPR89 provides a mechanism for both trypanosome SIF production and reception.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Riparian buffers can help mitigate biodiversity declines in oil palm agriculture

Agricultural expansion drives biodiversity decline in forested tropical regions. Consequently, it is important to understand the conservation value of remnant forest in production landscapes. In a tropical landscape dominated by oil palm we characterized faunal communities across eight taxa occurring within riparian forest buffers, which are legally protected alongside rivers, and compared them to nearby recovering logged forest. Buffer width was the main predictor of species richness and abundance, with widths of 40-100 m on each side of the river supporting broadly equivalent levels of biodiversity to logged forest. However, width responses varied markedly among taxa, and buffers often lacked forest-dependent species. Much wider buffers than are currently mandated are needed to safeguard most species. The largest biodiversity gains are achieved by increasing relatively narrow buffers. To provide optimal conservation outcomes in tropical production landscapes we encourage policymakers to prescribe width requirements for key taxa and different landscape contexts.Newton-Ungku Omar Fund (grants 216433953, 537134717) – delivered by the British Council and funded by the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Malaysian Industry-Government Group for High Technology – as well as the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NE/K016407/1, NE/K016261/1; https://lombok.nerc-hmtf.info/). MJS was supported by a Research Leadership Award from the Leverhulme Trust