Public participation and willingness to cooperate in common-pool resource management: a field experiment with fishing communities in Brazil

The primary evidence about the factors determining successful self-governance of common-pool resources (CPR) has come from case studies. More recently, this observational evidence has been complemented by insights from economic experiments. Here we advance a third approach in which the role of local deliberation about the management of a fishery resource is investigated in a field experiment. Using three control and three treatment communities in a freshwater fishery, we tested if participation in developing specific measures for community-based sustainable CPR management increased the willingness to contribute to the implementation of these measures. Each community was also exposed to information about their community leader's advice about the proposed measures. Both participation and leader advice affected the willingness of participants to contribute to one of three concrete proposals. However, the strongest influence on individual willingness to contribute was exerted by the individual beliefs about the cooperation of others in CPR management. --local deliberation,participatory research,willingness to contribute,beliefs,fishing resources,field experiment

PHILOSOPHICAL EGOISM: ITS NATURE AND LIMITATIONS

Egoism and altruism are unequal contenders in the explanation of human behaviour. While egoism tends to be viewed as natural and unproblematic, altruism has always been treated with suspicion, and it has often been argued that apparent cases of altruistic behaviour might really just be some special form of egoism. The reason for this is that egoism fits into our usual theoretical views of human behaviour in a way that altruism does not. This is true on the biological level, where an evolutionary account seems to favour egoism, as well as on the psychological level, where an account of self-interested motivation is deeply rooted in folk psychology and in the economic model of human behaviour. While altruism has started to receive increasing support in both biological and psychological debates over the last decades, this paper focuses on yet another level, where egoism is still widely taken for granted. Philosophical egoism (Martin Hollis' term) is the view that, on the ultimate level of intentional explanation, all action is motivated by one of the agent's desires. This view is supported by the standard notion that for a complex of behaviour to be an action, there has to be a way to account for that behaviour in terms of the agent's own pro-attitudes. Psychological altruists, it is claimed, are philosophical egoists in that they are motivated by desires that have the other's benefit rather than the agent's own for its ultimate object (other-directed desires). This paper casts doubt on this thesis, arguing that empathetic agents act on other people's pro-attitudes in very much the same way as agents usually act on their own, and that while other-directed desires do play an important role in many cases of psychologically altruistic action, they are not necessary in explanations of some of the most basic and most pervasive types of human altruistic behaviour. The paper concludes with the claim that philosophical egoism is really a cultural value rather than a conceptual feature of actio

Glass transition of hard spheres in high dimensions

We have investigated analytically and numerically the liquid-glass transition of hard spheres for dimensions $d\to \infty$ in the framework of mode-coupling theory. The numerical results for the critical collective and self nonergodicity parameters $f_{c}(k;d)$ and $f_{c}^{(s)}(k;d)$ exhibit non-Gaussian $k$ -dependence even up to $d=800$. $f_{c}^{(s)}(k;d)$ and $f_{c}(k;d)$ differ for $k\sim d^{1/2}$, but become identical on a scale $k\sim d$, which is proven analytically. The critical packing fraction $\phi_{c}(d) \sim d^{2}2^{-d}$ is above the corresponding Kauzmann packing fraction $\phi_{K}(d)$ derived by a small cage expansion. Its quadratic pre-exponential factor is different from the linear one found earlier. The numerical values for the exponent parameter and therefore the critical exponents $a$ and $b$ depend on $d$, even for the largest values of $d$.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, Phys. Rev. E (in print

Multi-stage thrusting at the "Penninic Front" in the Western Alps between Mont Blanc and Pelvoux massifs

The different segments of the tectonic boundary between external (European) and internal (Penninic) units in the Western Alps, the so-called Penninic Front (PF), formed at different times and according to different kinematic scenarios. During a first episode (Eocene), the PF corresponds to a transpressive suture zone between Penninic and European units. North- to NNW-trending stretching lineations, found along internal nappe contacts within the Penninic units, are related to this episode. This subduction zone was sealed by the Priabonian flysch of the Aiguilles d'Arves, a detrital trench formation that formed during the final stages of subduction. During a second episode, starting in mid-Oligocene times, the PF, imaged along the ECORS-CROP profile, acted as a WNW-directed thrust. This thrust, the Roselend Thrust (RT), only partially coincides with the PF. South of Moûtiers, the RT propagates into the Dauphinois units, carrying the former Eocene PF (including the Priabonian flysch) passively in its hangingwall. South of the Pelvoux massif the RT finds its continuation along the "Briançonnais Front", an out-of-sequence thrust behind the Embrunais-Ubaye nappes. On a larger scale, our findings indicate oblique (sinistral) collision within the future Western Alps during the Eocene, followed by westward indentation of the Adriatic bloc

Public participation and willingness to cooperate in common-pool resource management: a field experiment with fishing communities in Brazil

The primary evidence about the factors determining successful self-governance of common-pool resources (CPR) has come from case studies. More recently, this observational evidence has been complemented by insights from economic experiments. Here we advance a third approach in which the role of local deliberation about the management of a fishery resource is investigated in a field experiment. Using three control and three treatment communities in a freshwater fishery, we tested if participation in developing specific measures for community-based sustainable CPR management increased the willingness to contribute to the implementation of these measures. Each community was also exposed to information about their community leader's advice about the proposed measures. Both participation and leader advice affected the willingness of participants to contribute to one of three concrete proposals. However, the strongest influence on individual willingness to contribute was exerted by the individual beliefs about the cooperation of others in CPR management

Predator diversity and abundance provide little support for the enemies hypothesis in forests of high tree diversity

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