Big sugar in southern Africa : rural development and the perverted potential of sugar/ethanol exports

This paper asks how investment in large-scale sugar cane production has contributed, and will contribute, to rural development in southern Africa. Taking a case study of the South African company Illovo in Zambia, the argument is made that the potential for greater tax revenue, domestic competition, access to resources and wealth distribution from sugar/ethanol production have all been perverted and with relatively little payoff in wage labour opportunities in return. If the benefits of agro-exports cannot be so easily assumed, then the prospective 'balance sheet' of biofuels needs to be re-examined. In this light, the paper advocates smaller-scale agrarian initiatives

Understanding policy integration in the EU—Insights from a multi-level lens on climate adaptation and the EU's coastal and marine policy

© 2017 Elsevier Ltd Integration of relatively new policy tasks like climate adaptation into established higher-level policy fields is insufficiently understood in the academic literature. This paper proposes a framework to evaluate the integration of climate adaptation into the sectoral policy-making of the European Commission, particularly following the publication of the EU Adaptation Strategy (in 2013). The paper uses a framework of micro, meso and macro-level institutional behaviour drawing strongly on new institutionalism perspectives to identify and explain factors enabling and hindering policy integration. It focuses on integration in the coastal and marine policy sector, which is expected to be particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts, and draws from data collected through a document review and interviews with key informants. The findings show that the integration of climate adaptation is still at an early stage. The integration process appears to be largely dependent on institutional dynamics at the EU-level combined with how member states and wider sectoral stakeholders engage with adaptation concerns. In particular, the ambivalence of some member states and a lack of urgency among sectoral stakeholders has hampered the integration of adaptation goals

“Top-Down-Bottom-Up” Methodology as a Common Approach to Defining Bespoke Sets of Sustainability Assessment Criteria for the Built Environment

YesThe top-down-bottom-up (TDBU) methodology for defining bespoke sets of sustainability criteria for specific civil engineering project types is introduced and discussed. The need to define sustainability criteria for specific civil engineering project types occurs mainly in one or both of the following cases: (1) when a more comprehensive and indicative assessment of the sustainability of the project type in question is required; and/or (2) there is no readily available bespoke sustainability assessment tool, or set of criteria, for assessing the sustainability of the project type. The construction of roads, buildings, airports, tunnels, dams, flood banks, bridges, water supply, and sewage systems and their supporting systems are considered to be unique civil engineering/infrastructure project types. The normative definition of sustainable civil engineering/infrastructure projects and the framework for assessing its sustainability is defined and provided by the authors. An example of the TDBU methodology being applied to define sustainability criteria for transport noise reducing devices is presented and discussed. The end result of applying the methodology is a systematically researched and industry validated set of criteria that denotes assessing the sustainability of the civil engineering/infrastructure project type. The paper concludes that the top-down-bottom-up will support stakeholders and managers involved in assessing sustainability to consider all major research methods to define general and unique sustainability criteria to assess and so maximize sustainability

Global distribution and drivers of language extinction risk

Many of the world's languages face serious risk of extinction. Efforts to prevent this cultural loss are severely constrained by a poor understanding of the geographical patterns and drivers of extinction risk. We quantify the global distribution of language extinction risk—represented by small range and speaker population sizes and rapid declines in the number of speakers—and identify the underlying environmental and socioeconomic drivers. We show that both small range and speaker population sizes are associated with rapid declines in speaker numbers, causing 25% of existing languages to be threatened based on criteria used for species. Language range and population sizes are small in tropical and arctic regions, particularly in areas with high rainfall, high topographic heterogeneity and/or rapidly growing human populations. By contrast, recent speaker declines have mainly occurred at high latitudes and are strongly linked to high economic growth. Threatened languages are numerous in the tropics, the Himalayas and northwestern North America. These results indicate that small-population languages remaining in economically developed regions are seriously threatened by continued speaker declines. However, risks of future language losses are especially high in the tropics and in the Himalayas, as these regions harbour many small-population languages and are undergoing rapid economic growth

Comparative analysis on the communication strategies of the forest owners associations in Europe

This research reports a comparative analysis of the communication strategy that forest owners' associations across Europe use to influence society on one side and the decision-makers on the other, in order to fulfill forest owners' interests. 60% of Europe's forests are privately owned by an estimated number of 16 million forest owners, who are represented by forest owners' associations. One of its main functions is to influence the public perceptions on forests and forestry. In this article it is analyzed how a specific forestry stakeholder fixes its strategies to communicate with and lobby society in order to get acceptability for their proposals/demands. Open-end surveys have been used as a source of information in 2006 and repeated in 2012. Besides of the comparison among countries, a comparison along the time has been also performed. The whole communication frame is analyzed, considering the objectives, the structure, the messages, the channels, and the evaluation. The main conclusions that arise are: first, the temporary comparison (2006 2012) results into an improvement in several issues; second, there is room for improvement of professionalization of communication in forest owners' associations in Europe; third, social research into public perception of forestry might help to define communication strategies.Fabra Crespo, M.; Rojas Briales, E. (2015). Comparative analysis on the communication strategies of the forest owners associations in Europe. Forest Policy and Economics. 50:20-30. doi:10.1016/j.forpol.2014.06.004S20305

Use of life cycle assessment methodology in the analysis of ecological footprint assessment results to evaluate the environmental performance of universities

The assessment of the environmental performance of an organization is an essential part of the decision making process of an Environmental Management System. Having robust indicators enables a reliable assessment. The Ecological Footprint Assessment is used in different types of organizations, including universities. Its ability to clearly communicate over-consumption by using a land-base unit is an advantage when involving the university community in achieving better environmental performance. However, its lack of standardization makes it difficult to use as an indicator. It is believed that Life Cycle Assessment offers a framework with which to standardize the Ecological Footprint Assessment. In this paper, an Ecological Footprint Assessment considering Life Cycle Assessment methodology is developed as a case study for Universitat Politecnica de Valencia. Findings regarding the critical decisions of the methodology are compared with 23 Ecological Footprint Assessments of universities using a Life Cycle Assessment framework. Only 26% of the studies analyzed reference the Life Cycle Assessment methodology. Critical decisions such as defining a Functional Unit were relevant but not standardized, while the definition of the product system was the most standardized and homogeneous decision. The difficulty of gathering information when Environmental Management Systems are not available makes the Ecological Footprint Assessment a weak indicator. Nevertheless, results show that Life Cycle Assessment can guide an Ecological Footprint Assessment methodology where comparability and reliability is possible. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Lo-Iacono-Ferreira, VG.; Torregrosa López, JI.; Capuz-Rizo, SF. (2016). Use of life cycle assessment methodology in the analysis of ecological footprint assessment results to evaluate the environmental performance of universities. Journal of Cleaner Production. 133:45-53. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.05.046S455313

Women, wellbeing and Wildlife Management Areas in Tanzania

Community-based wildlife management claims pro-poor, gender-sensitive outcomes. However, intersectional political ecology predicts adverse impacts on marginalised people. Our large-scale quantitative approach draws out common patterns and differentiated ways women are affected by Tanzania’s Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs). This first large-scale, rigorous evaluation studies WMA impacts on livelihoods and wellbeing of 937 married women in 42 villages across six WMAs and matched controls in Northern and Southern Tanzania. While WMAs bring community infrastructure benefits, most women have limited political participation, and experience resource use restrictions and fear of wildlife attacks. Wealth and region are important determinants, with the poorest worst impacted

Something old, something new: historical perspectives provide lessons for blue growth agendas

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley via the DOI in this record.The concept of ‘blue growth’, which aims to promote the growth of ocean economies whilst holistically managing marine socio-ecological systems, is emerging within national and international marine policy. The concept is often promoted as being novel, however, we show that, historical analogies exist which can provide insights for contemporary planning and implementation of blue growth. Using a case study approach based on expert knowledge, we identified 20 historical fisheries or aquaculture examples from 13 countries, spanning the last 40–800 years, that we contend embody blue growth concepts. This is the first time, to our knowledge, that blue growth has been investigated across such broad spatial and temporal scales. The past societies managed to balance exploitation with equitable access, ecological integrity, and/or economic growth for varying periods of time. Four main trajectories existed that led to the success or failure of blue growth. Success was linked to equitable rather than open access, innovation, and management that was responsive, holistic, and based on scientific knowledge and monitoring. The inability to achieve or maintain blue growth resulted from failures to address limits to industry growth and/or anticipate the impacts of adverse extrinsic events and drivers (e.g., changes in international markets, war), the prioritisation of short-term gains over long-term sustainability, and loss of supporting systems. Fourteen cross-cutting lessons and 10 recommendations were derived that can improve understanding and implementation of blue growth. Despite the contemporary literature broadly supporting our findings, these recommendations are not adequately addressed by agendas seeking to realize blue growth.European Commissio

Energy-saving potential of large housing stocks of listed buildings, case study: l'Eixample of Valencia

[EN] A significant part of the European residential building stock is architectural heritage and is protected by law in different grades. Although these dwellings seldom fulfil the current eco-efficiency requirements, listed buildings are exempt from energy regulations requirements. This paper reviews the constructional characteristics common to 588 multi-storey listed buildings (circa 6000 dwellings) located in l'Eixample district in Valencia (Spain). The poor thermal performance of these buildings proven by this study reveal a significant potential for saving energy and reducing CO2 emissions, particularly when considering the current requirements fixed by the current Spanish building code. Retrofitting measures intended to improve the thermal behaviour of these buildings, while being respectful to their listed nature, are proposed and assessed in terms of energy demand, air pollution and economy.Perez-Garcia, A.; Guardiola, AP.; Gómez-Martínez, F.; Guardiola Villora, AP. (2018). Energy-saving potential of large housing stocks of listed buildings, case study: l'Eixample of Valencia. Sustainable Cities and Society. 42:59-81. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2018.06.018S59814