371 research outputs found
Using social media to measure the contribution of Red List species to the nature-based tourism potential of African protected areas
Cultural ecosystem services are defined by people’s perception of the environment, which make them hard to quantify systematically. Methods to describe cultural benefits from ecosystems typically include resource-demanding survey techniques, which are not suitable to assess cultural ecosystem services for large areas. In this paper we explore a method to quantify cultural benefits through the enjoyment of natured-based tourism, by assessing the potential tourism attractiveness of species for each protected area in Africa using the IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species. We use the number of pictures of wildlife posted on a photo sharing website as a proxy for charisma, popularity, and ease of observation, as these factors combined are assumed to determine how attractive species are for the global wildlife tourist. Based on photo counts of 2473 African animals and plants, species that seem most attractive to nature-based tourism are the Lion, African Elephant and Leopard. Combining the photo counts with species range data, African protected areas with the highest potential to attract wildlife tourists based on attractive species occurrence were Samburu National Reserve in Kenya, Mukogodo Forest Reserve located just north of Mount Kenya, and Addo Elephant National Park in South-Africa. The proposed method requires only three data sources which are freely accessible and available online, which could make the proposed index tractable for large scale quantitative ecosystem service assessments. The index directly links species presence to the tourism potential of protected areas, making the connection between nature and human benefits explicit, but excludes other important contributing factors for tourism, such as accessibility and safety. This social media based index provides a broad understanding of those species that are popular globally; in many cases these are not the species of highest conservation concern.JRC.H.5-Land Resources Managemen
Intrusive Images in Psychological Disorders: Characteristics, Neural Mechanisms, and Treatment Implications
Involuntary images and visual memories are prominent in many types of psychopathology. Patients with posttraumatic stress disorder, other anxiety disorders, depression, eating disorders, and psychosis frequently report repeated visual intrusions corresponding to a small number of real or imaginary events, usually extremely vivid, detailed, and with highly distressing content. Both memory and imagery appear to rely on common networks involving medial prefrontal regions, posterior regions in the medial and lateral parietal cortices, the lateral temporal cortex, and the medial temporal lobe. Evidence from cognitive psychology and neuroscience implies distinct neural bases to abstract, flexible, contextualized representations (C-reps) and to inflexible, sensory-bound representations (S-reps). We revise our previous dual representation theory of posttraumatic stress disorder to place it within a neural systems model of healthy memory and imagery. The revised model is used to explain how the different types of distressing visual intrusions associated with clinical disorders arise, in terms of the need for correct interaction between the neural systems supporting S-reps and C-reps via visuospatial working memory. Finally, we discuss the treatment implications of the new model and relate it to existing forms of psychological therapy
Where are the major gaps in the reserve network for Africa's mammals?
The original publication is available from http://www.cambridge.org/The establishment of protected areas for wildlife conservation in Africa was motivated by a number of
different reasons (including hunting, recreation and wildlife conservation). The current reserve network
provides good coverage of the distributions of the 194 species of larger mammals (> 3 kg) and 51 species of
threatened larger mammals. However, it is less effective in covering the distribution of all 197 of Africa's
threatened mammal species, which includes >140 smaller bodied species ( <3 kg) often restricted to habitat
patches. A fully comprehensive network of areas for the conservation of African mammals, especially those
facing extinction, is not yet in place, and further reserves may be needed in the Horn of Africa (Somalia in
particular), the Cameroon Highlands, parts of the eastern African coastal forests and Eastern Arc Mountains,
and parts of the Albertine Rift Mountains. More and larger reserve areas are also required to adequately
cover all the species of South Africa. Parts of these gaps are already covered by government forest
reserves, and the importance of this reserve category for the conservation of African mammals, especially
threatened species, needs to be better recognized. As many of the gaps in reserve coverage are in areas of
high human population and good agricultural potential, conservation goals may be difficult to achieve unless
we supplement traditional reserves with novel approaches to maintain natural habitats and wildlife outside
reserves.Postprint versio
Impacts of community-based natural resource management on wealth, food security and child health in Tanzania
Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) is a major global strategy for enhancing conservation outcomes while also seeking to improve rural livelihoods; however, little evidence of socioeconomic outcomes exists. We present a national-level analysis that empirically estimates socioeconomic impacts of CBNRM across Tanzania, while systematically controlling for potential sources of bias. Specifically, we apply a difference-indifferences model to national-scale, cross-sectional data to estimate the impact of three different CBNRM governance regimes on wealth, food security and child health, considering differential impacts of CBNRM on wealthy and poor populations. We also explore whether or not longer-standing CBNRM efforts provide more benefits than recently-established CBNRM areas. Our results show significant improvements in household food security in CBNRM areas compared with non-CBNRM areas, but household wealth and health outcomes in children are generally not significantly different. No one CBNRM governance regime demonstrates consistently different welfare outcomes than the others. Wealthy households benefit more from CBNRM than poor households and CBNRM benefits appear to increase with longer periods of implementation. Perhaps evidence of CBNRM benefits is limited because CBNRM hasn\u27t been around long enough to yield demonstrable outcomes. Nonetheless, achieving demonstrable benefits to rural populations will be crucial for CBNRM\u27s future success in Tanzania. Copyright
Uncertainty quantification and weak approximation of an elliptic inverse problem
We consider the inverse problem of determining the permeability from the
pressure in a Darcy model of flow in a porous medium. Mathematically the
problem is to find the diffusion coefficient for a linear uniformly elliptic
partial differential equation in divergence form, in a bounded domain in
dimension , from measurements of the solution in the interior. We
adopt a Bayesian approach to the problem. We place a prior random field measure
on the log permeability, specified through the Karhunen-Lo\`eve expansion of
its draws. We consider Gaussian measures constructed this way, and study the
regularity of functions drawn from them. We also study the Lipschitz properties
of the observation operator mapping the log permeability to the observations.
Combining these regularity and continuity estimates, we show that the posterior
measure is well-defined on a suitable Banach space. Furthermore the posterior
measure is shown to be Lipschitz with respect to the data in the Hellinger
metric, giving rise to a form of well-posedness of the inverse problem.
Determining the posterior measure, given the data, solves the problem of
uncertainty quantification for this inverse problem. In practice the posterior
measure must be approximated in a finite dimensional space. We quantify the
errors incurred by employing a truncated Karhunen-Lo\`eve expansion to
represent this meausure. In particular we study weak convergence of a general
class of locally Lipschitz functions of the log permeability, and apply this
general theory to estimate errors in the posterior mean of the pressure and the
pressure covariance, under refinement of the finite dimensional
Karhunen-Lo\`eve truncation.Comment: 19 pages, 0 figures, submitted to SIAM Journal on Numerical Analysi
Impact of Tanzania’s Wildlife Management Areas on household wealth
Large-scale area-based conservation measures affect millions of people globally. Understanding their social impacts is necessary to improve effectiveness and minimize negative consequences. However, quantifying the impacts of conservation measures that affect large geographic areas and diverse peoples is expensive and methodologically challenging, particularly because such evaluations should capture locally defined conceptions of well-being while permitting policy-relevant comparisons. Here, we measure the impact of Tanzania’s Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs), a national community-based conservation and poverty reduction initiative. We use a novel, cost-effective impact evaluation method based on participatory wealth ranking and Bayesian multilevel modelling. We find that from 2007 to 2015 the impacts of WMAs on wealth were small and variable, with no clear evidence of widespread poverty reduction. Accompanying qualitative data suggest that apparently positive effects in one WMA cannot be directly attributed to WMA activities. Our results suggest that current WMA policy needs to be revisited if it is to promote positive local development
Poorer without It? The Neglected Role of the Natural Environment in Poverty and Wellbeing
The relationship between sustainable development’s prime goal, human wellbeing, and the natural environment has been narrowly conceived. This paper focuses on the possibility and the implications of treating the natural environment as a ‘constituent’, or internal element, of the concepts of wellbeing and poverty, as opposed to a ‘determinant’, or instrumental, external factor. Our review of philosophical accounts and conceptual frameworks of wellbeing and poverty suggests that treating the environment as a constituent element is philosophically sound, conceptually robust and empirically grounded. We argue that failing to consider these missing environmental aspects can result in an incomplete capturing of the multiple dimensions of wellbeing and poverty, and their underlying drivers. This broader framing of the environment– wellbeing relationship has the potential to inform a new generation of individual level wellbeing and poverty indicators, creating measures of multidimensional poverty that reflect the broadened scope ambitiously articulated in the Sustainable Development Goals
Securing tropical forest carbon: the contribution of protected areas to REDD
Forest loss and degradation in the tropics contribute 6-17% of all greenhouse gas emissions. Protected areas cover 217.2 million ha (19.6%) of the world's humid tropical forests and contain c. 70.3 petagrams of carbon (Pg C) in biomass and soil to 1 m depth. Between 2000 and 2005, we estimate that 1.75 million ha of forest were lost from protected areas in humid tropical forests, causing the emission of 0.25-0.33 Pg C. Protected areas lost about half as much carbon as the same area of unprotected forest. We estimate that the reduction of these carbon emissions from ongoing deforestation in protected sites in humid tropical forests could be valued at USD 6,200-7,400 million depending on the land use after clearance. This is >1.5 times the estimated spending on protected area management in these regions. Improving management of protected areas to retain forest cover better may be an important, although certainly not sufficient, component of an overall strategy for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD
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