49 research outputs found

    Remanescentes de vegetação natural em diferentes tipos de unidades de produção agropecuária na microbacia do rio Oriçanga - São Paulo.

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    Este trabalho tem por objetivo avaliar a cobertura com vegetação natural em diferentes tipos de unidades de produção agropecuárias, e é parte de um estudo em que se avaliam os impactos econômicos da reserva legal florestal sobre distintos tipos de produtores. A região escolhida para análise foi a Microbacia do Rio Oriçanga, que é representativa da estrutura produtiva altamente diversificada da região Nordeste do Estado de São Paulo. Elaborou-se inicialmente uma tipologia de unidades de produção agropecuária, a partir de dados do Levantamento de Unidades de Produção Agropecuária do Estado de São Paulo (LUPA), empregando-se análise estatística multivariada. A estimativa da quantidade de vegetação natural dentro das propriedades típicas se fez através de técnicas de geoprocessamento. Os resultados, além de descreverem a estrutura produtiva de cada um dos oito tipo encontrados, fornecem uma estimativa dos remanescentes de vegetação natural mantidos por cada um deles. Os resultados evidenciam que, em média, cerca de 43% das Áreas de Proteção Permanentes (APPs) das unidades de produção analisadas estão cobertas com vegetação natural e que perto de 7,5% das áreas das unidades de produção representam áreas de vegetação natural fora das APPS, passíveis, em princípio, de serem averbadas como reserva legal, porém com importante variação entre os diversos tipos estudados. As análises conduzidas considerando a diferenciação dos produtores poderiam abalizar políticas agroambientais, uma vez que existe uma variedade muito grande de situações

    Strategic approaches to restoring ecosystems can triple conservation gains and halve costs.

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    International commitments for ecosystem restoration add up to one-quarter of the world's arable land. Fulfilling them would ease global challenges such as climate change and biodiversity decline but could displace food production and impose financial costs on farmers. Here, we present a restoration prioritization approach capable of revealing these synergies and trade-offs, incorporating ecological and economic efficiencies of scale and modelling specific policy options. Using an actual large-scale restoration target of the Atlantic Forest hotspot, we show that our approach can deliver an eightfold increase in cost-effectiveness for biodiversity conservation compared with a baseline of non-systematic restoration. A compromise solution avoids 26% of the biome's current extinction debt of 2,864 plant and animal species (an increase of 257% compared with the baseline). Moreover, this solution sequesters 1 billion tonnes of CO2-equivalent (a 105% increase) while reducing costs by US$28 billion (a 57% decrease). Seizing similar opportunities elsewhere would offer substantial contributions to some of the greatest challenges for humankind

    A cluster randomised controlled trial of the community effectiveness of two interventions in rural Malawi to improve health care and to reduce maternal, newborn and infant mortality

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    <p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The UN Millennium Development Goals call for substantial reductions in maternal and child mortality, to be achieved through reductions in morbidity and mortality during pregnancy, delivery, postpartum and early childhood. The MaiMwana Project aims to test community-based interventions that tackle maternal and child health problems through increasing awareness and local action.</p> <p>Methods/Design</p> <p>This study uses a two-by-two factorial cluster-randomised controlled trial design to test the impact of two interventions. The impact of a community mobilisation intervention run through women's groups, on home care, health care-seeking behaviours and maternal and infant mortality, will be tested. The impact of a volunteer-led infant feeding and care support intervention, on rates of exclusive breastfeeding, uptake of HIV-prevention services and infant mortality, will also be tested. The women's group intervention will employ local female facilitators to guide women's groups through a four-phase cycle of problem identification and prioritisation, strategy identification, implementation and evaluation. Meetings will be held monthly at village level. The infant feeding intervention will select local volunteers to provide advice and support for breastfeeding, birth preparedness, newborn care and immunisation. They will visit pregnant and new mothers in their homes five times during and after pregnancy.</p> <p>The unit of intervention allocation will be clusters of rural villages of 2500-4000 population. 48 clusters have been defined and randomly allocated to either women's groups only, infant feeding support only, both interventions, or no intervention. Study villages are surrounded by 'buffer areas' of non-study villages to reduce contamination between intervention and control areas. Outcome indicators will be measured through a demographic surveillance system. Primary outcomes will be maternal, infant, neonatal and perinatal mortality for the women's group intervention, and exclusive breastfeeding rates and infant mortality for the infant feeding intervention.</p> <p>Structured interviews will be conducted with mothers one-month and six-months after birth to collect detailed quantitative data on care practices and health-care-seeking. Further qualitative, quantitative and economic data will be collected for process and economic evaluations.</p> <p>Trial registration</p> <p>ISRCTN06477126</p

    Reviewing the use of resilience concepts in forest sciences

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    Purpose of the review Resilience is a key concept to deal with an uncertain future in forestry. In recent years, it has received increasing attention from both research and practice. However, a common understanding of what resilience means in a forestry context, and how to operationalise it is lacking. Here, we conducted a systematic review of the recent forest science literature on resilience in the forestry context, synthesising how resilience is defined and assessed. Recent findings Based on a detailed review of 255 studies, we analysed how the concepts of engineering resilience, ecological resilience, and social-ecological resilience are used in forest sciences. A clear majority of the studies applied the concept of engineering resilience, quantifying resilience as the recovery time after a disturbance. The two most used indicators for engineering resilience were basal area increment and vegetation cover, whereas ecological resilience studies frequently focus on vegetation cover and tree density. In contrast, important social-ecological resilience indicators used in the literature are socio-economic diversity and stock of natural resources. In the context of global change, we expected an increase in studies adopting the more holistic social-ecological resilience concept, but this was not the observed trend. Summary Our analysis points to the nestedness of these three resilience concepts, suggesting that they are complementary rather than contradictory. It also means that the variety of resilience approaches does not need to be an obstacle for operationalisation of the concept. We provide guidance for choosing the most suitable resilience concept and indicators based on the management, disturbance and application context

    Comparing the establishment of an invasive and an endemic palm species in the Atlantic rainforest

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    Background: Biological invasions are one of the major causes of biodiversity loss, yet remain rather understudied in tropical environments. The Australian palm tree Archontophoenix cunninghamiana was introduced into Brazil for ornamental purposes, but has become an invasive species in urban and suburban forest patches. The substitution of A. cunninghamiana by the native palm Euterpe edulis has been proposed as a management action. Aims: We aimed to evaluate the regeneration potential of these two palm species in an Atlantic forest remnant in south-eastern Brazil where both species occur. Methods: We compared seedling establishment and seed longevity of both species through seed sowing, and also measured the contribution of A. cunninghamiana to the local seed rain and seed bank. Results: Nearly half of the non-anemochoric diaspores collected from the seed rain belonged to A. cunninghamiana, which represented a high propagule pressure in the community. The distribution of the alien palm seeds in the seed rain correlated with the distribution of nearby young and adult individuals inside the forest. Neither A. cunninghamiana nor E. edulis appeared to have a persistent seed bank in a burial experiment; seedling survival experiments suggested a much better performance for A. cunninghamiana, which had a survival rate of ca. 30% compared with a rate of only 3.5% for E. edulis. Conclusions: The results suggest a higher regeneration capacity for the alien palm over the native species when co-occurring in a forest fragment. Management actions are thus proposed to reduce a potential biological invasion process.FAPESP (Fundacao de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Sao Paulo) [proc. 2008/56015-8]Fundacao de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Sao Paulo (FAPESP

    The suggestion that landscapes should contain 40% of forest cover lacks evidence and is problematic

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    A recent review suggests that forest cover needs to be restored or maintained on at least 40% of land area. In the absence of empirical evidence to support this threshold, we discuss how this suggestion is unhelpful and potentially dangerous. We advocate for regionally defined thresholds to inform conservation and restoration

    Современная аварийно-спасательная техника

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    В статье рассмотреныс овременные пожарные автомобили, а так же проекты разрабатываемые Академией ГПС МЧС России. Приведены примеры современных аварийно- спасательных автомобилей и их преимущества. Сделан вывод, что о необходимости постоянной модернизации аварийно- спасательной техники.The article considers modern fire trucks, as well as projects developed by the State Fire Service Academy of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia. Examples of modern rescue vehicles and their advantages are given. It is concluded that there is a need for constant modernization of emergency rescue equipment
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