Strengthening the global system of protected areas post-2020: A perspective from the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas

Protected areas are the cornerstones of biodiversity conservation and have never been more relevant than at the present time when the world is facing both a biodiversity and a climate change crisis. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) has been helping to set global standards and best practice guidelines in protected area planning and management for 60 years. Following this guidance, many countries have made significant progress toward their Aichi Target 11 commitments under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The global community will be coming together at the 15th Conference of the Parties of the CBD to set new biodiversity conservation targets for the next decade, as milestones to 2050 and a vision of “a world living in harmony with nature.” This paper lays out the WCPA perspective on priorities for supporting effective protected and conserved areas for the post-2020 era

Retirement from sport and the loss of athletic identity

The purpose of this study was to examine how a sample of elite athletes coped with distressful reactions to retirement from sport. As part of a larger research project, 15 former elite athletes were identified as having experienced severe emotional difficulties upon athletic career termination. Through use of a micronarrative methodology, it was determined that account making can be a significant moderator of distress during the career transition process. In addition, the quality of the account making was found to be related to present affect and overall success in coping with athletic retirement. Finally, changes in athletic identity were found to be significant determinants of adjustment for athletes upon career termination. Suggestions are presented for future research on treatment strategies for distressful reactions to retirement from sport

Feeding back about eco-feedback: How do consumers use and respond to energy monitors?

To date, a multitude of studies have examined the empirical effect of feedback on energy consumption yet very few have examined how feedback might work and the processes it involves. Moreover, it remains to be seen if the theoretical claims made concerning how feedback works can be substantiated using empirical data. To start to address this knowledge gap, the present research used qualitative data analysis to examine how consumers use and respond to energy monitors. The findings suggest feedback may increase both the physical and conscious visibility of consumption as well as knowledge about consumption. Accordingly, support was evident for the theoretical assertions that feedback transforms energy from invisible to visible, prompts motivated users to learn about their energy habits, and helps address information deficits about energy usage. We conclude by evaluating the feasibility of feedback to substantially reduce consumption and discuss ways in which feedback could be improved to aid its effectiveness in the long term before discussing the implication our findings may have for government policy

The Skewness of Commodity Futures Returns

This article studies the relation between the skewness of commodity futures returns and expected returns. A trading strategy that takes long positions in commodity futures with the most negative skew and shorts those with the most positive skew generates significant excess returns that remain after controlling for exposure to well-known risk factors. A tradeable skewness factor explains the cross-section of commodity futures returns beyond exposures to standard risk premia. The impact that skewness has on future returns is explained by investors’ preferences for skewness under cumulative prospect theory and selective hedging practices

Rethinking the concept of labour

Is labour a useful concept for anthropology today? This essay attempts to respond theoretically to the challenge that the contributions to this special issue empirically pose. The essay rethinks the concept of labour by addressing three questions that deal with the relation of human work effort and capital accumulation: the first refers to alienation; the second to the difference between abstract and concrete labour; and the third to ambiguity. Over the years, these issues have addressed particular aspects of social reproduction, helping define labour as a concept, albeit a heterogeneous one, that is relationally linked to capital. Dislocation, together with the parallel concepts of dispossession, disorganization, disconnection, and differentiation, emerges prominently in the analyses of contemporary labour transformations and specificities. Finally, the essay engages with seemingly disappearing labour futures and what this means for the concept of labour. What is the value of work for capital and, conversely, the value of labouring for people today

Gravel-bed river floodplains are the ecological nexus of glaciated mountain landscapes

Sherpa Romeo green journal: open accessGravel-bed river floodplains in mountain landscapes disproportionately concentrate diverse habitats, nutrient cycling, productivity of biota, and species interactions. Although stream ecologists know that river channel and floodplain habitats used by aquatic organisms are maintained by hydrologic regimes that mobilize gravel-bed sediments, terrestrial ecologists have largely been unaware of the importance of floodplain structures and processes to the life requirements of a wide variety of species. We provide insight into gravel-bed rivers as the ecological nexus of glaciated mountain landscapes. We show why gravel-bed river floodplains are the primary arena where interactions take place among aquatic, avian, and terrestrial species from microbes to grizzly bears and provide essential connectivity as corridors for movement for both aquatic and terrestrial species. Paradoxically, gravel-bed river floodplains are also disproportionately unprotected where human developments are concentrated. Structural modifications to floodplains such as roads, railways, and housing and hydrologicaltering hydroelectric or water storage dams have severe impacts to floodplain habitat diversity and productivity, restrict local and regional connectivity, and reduce the resilience of both aquatic and terrestrial species, including adaptation to climate change. To be effective, conservation efforts in glaciated mountain landscapes intended to benefit the widest variety of organisms need a paradigm shift that has gravel-bed rivers and their floodplains as the central focus and that prioritizes the maintenance or restoration of the intact structure and processes of these critically important systems throughout their length and breadth.Ye

Working landscapes need at least 20% native habitat

International agreements aim to conserve 17% of Earth's land area by 2020 but include no area‐based conservation targets within the working landscapes that support human needs through farming, ranching, and forestry. Through a review of country‐level legislation, we found that just 38% of countries have minimum area requirements for conserving native habitats within working landscapes. We argue for increasing native habitats to at least 20% of working landscape area where it is below this minimum. Such target has benefits for food security, nature's contributions to people, and the connectivity and effectiveness of protected area networks in biomes in which protected areas are underrepresented. We also argue for maintaining native habitat at higher levels where it currently exceeds the 20% minimum, and performed a literature review that shows that even more than 50% native habitat restoration is needed in particular landscapes. The post‐2020 Global Biodiversity Framework is an opportune moment to include a minimum habitat restoration target for working landscapes that contributes to, but does not compete with, initiatives for expanding protected areas, the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021–2030) and the UN Sustainable Development Goals

A mitotic recombination map proximal to the APC locus on chromosome 5q and assessment of influences on colorectal cancer risk

Mitotic recombination is important for inactivating tumour suppressor genes by copy-neutral loss of heterozygosity (LOH). Although meiotic recombination maps are plentiful, little is known about mitotic recombination. The APC gene (chr5q21) is mutated in most colorectal tumours and its usual mode of LOH is mitotic recombination.