Building Coherent Gas Flaring Policy in Nigeria:[Policy Brief]

This policy brief details advice to policy makers on building a coherent gas flaring policy in light of ongoing energy sustainability challenges in the country

Building Coherent Gas Flaring Policy in Nigeria:[Policy Brief]

This policy brief details advice to policy makers on building a coherent gas flaring policy in light of ongoing energy sustainability challenges in the country

Towards Ethical Global Gas Flaring Policy:[Policy Brief]

This policy brief draws recommendations based upon a Q-methodological study of global gas flaring and energy justice with international stakeholders

Towards Ethical Global Gas Flaring Policy:[Policy Brief]

This policy brief draws recommendations based upon a Q-methodological study of global gas flaring and energy justice with international stakeholders

Optimising Gas Flaring Policy for Net Zero:[Policy Brief]

This policy brief looks at ways to optimise gas flaring policy to achieve net zero aims, based upon research with gas industry stakeholders

Optimising Gas Flaring Policy for Net Zero:[Policy Brief]

This policy brief looks at ways to optimise gas flaring policy to achieve net zero aims, based upon research with gas industry stakeholders

Applying the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in Africa: Scientific and Land User Dimensions of Environmental Degradation

This study takes an integrated approach using theories and methods from both the natural and social sciences to examine western scientific, government, NGO and local land user understandings of land degradation in Swaziland. Of key importance in the research is the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), which itself marks a new, integrated approach to sustainable development, promoting concepts of community participation and local level decision-making. Grounded in the theory of political ecology, these concepts are examined in the Swazi context. Local knowledges are integrated with western scientific understandings of land degradation to create hybrid understandings of environmental degradation and to examine issues such as how far, under what conditions and for whom land degradation is problematic. Understandings of soil fertility, drought, changes to woodland areas and soil erosion in three case study villages are critically assessed, as local inputs into policies addressing land degradation are evaluated and reasons behind both individual and collective actions to combat degradation are considered. Issues of access and power are found to dominate natural resource management in Swaziland, as the majority of the power is concentrated in the hands of the minority of the population. Using a community land rehabilitation project as a case study, it is discovered that concepts such as community participation and local level decision-making by democratically elected village committees can cause conflict to develop between new and traditional institutions, as new institutions challenge the traditional balance of power. It is concluded that until changes are made to broader scale governance structures, concepts advocated by the UNCCD will not be implemented to their full potential in Swaziland and this could have important social and ecological implications

Mangrove system dynamics in Southeast Asia: linking livelihoods and ecosystem services in Vietnam

Across Southeast Asia, human activity has caused rapid mangrove system degradation and loss. In Vietnam, a country undergoing economic transition, mangrove systems are vital to the livelihoods of coastal rural communities. This paper studies three mangrove system-dependent communities on Vietnam’s northern coast. Guided by the sustainable livelihood framework, the paper adopts a mixed methods approach. It presents current uses of mangrove system goods and the factors shaping past livelihood responses to mangrove system change, using livelihood trajectory analysis. Findings demonstrate that communities depend on mangrove systems to different degrees for income, subsistence and to respond to change. However, the rapid development of aquaculture is associated with a significantly reduced and degraded mangrove system commons necessary to support the livelihoods of low-income households. Three distinct livelihood trajectories are identified: consolidator groups able to use their access to a wide range of resources, locked into resilient trajectories; accumulator groups able to use their access to limited resources to move from vulnerable to more resilient trajectories; and marginalised groups facing increasingly reduced access to resources locked into vulnerable trajectories. Vietnam faces challenges in reconciling a more market-orientated economy with the maintenance of mangrove system functions and processes that shape the vulnerability and resilience of livelihood trajectories. Policies and projects promoting the sustainable management of mangrove systems should acknowledge the substantial contribution and multiple uses of mangrove systems in livelihoods, particularly of the poor, and the impact of aquaculture on income equality and livelihood diversity that shapes household resilience and vulnerability

Reflections and recommendations on transitioning from pre- to post-disaster research

Fieldwork often takes place in dynamic, uncertain environments. This is especially true of fieldwork in developing countries. Occasionally events can occur that have significant repercussions for ongoing research involving human participants. For example, political and social unrest, terror attacks, economic crises, epidemics, and natural disasters all have the potential to derail fieldwork plans and to radically alter the circumstances in which researchers operate. However, literature on how to anticipate and navigate these repercussions is limited. While a number of papers have reflected on the difficulties of conducting post‐crisis fieldwork, few have discussed the rather different challenge of dealing with, and adapting to, events that occur during ongoing work. In this paper, we discuss how the 2015 Nepal earthquake – which occurred while we were conducting fieldwork in one of the affected areas – forced us to reassess our research agenda, profoundly affected our relationship with the community we had been working in, and evoked challenging ethical questions in respect to our obligations to our research participants. Based on our reflections, we suggest eight issues that researchers who are engaged in fieldwork in high‐risk or post disaster locations should give consideration to. The issues include matters relating to research design, fieldwork risk and ethics assessment, interaction with research participants, and researcher support