Female productivity and mortality in early-20th-century Taiwan

In late-Qing-dynasty Taiwan (1870-1895), female infanticide and general neglect killed over 15% of young girls. During the early years of Japanese rule (1895-1915), female infanticide was almost completely eliminated and the treatment of girls improved. This paper argues that the increase in the willingness to raise daughters was due to an increase in adult female productivity. Under Japanese rule, female seclusion decreased, female labor market participation greatly increased and the custom of foot-binding was ended. These changes increased the expected value of raising a daughter relative to raising a son.     

Integrated climate sensitive restoration framework for transformative changes to sustainable land restoration

Sustainable land restoration is the key to restore degraded land, halt biodiversity loss, and reinstate ecosystem services for human well‐being. Restoration needs to be planned and conducted with due recognition to growing climate uncertainty with an evolved understanding of the future restoration targets. The present opinion article attempts to provide an overview on an integrated climate sensitive restoration framework that recognizes the local participation in mapping degraded lands, identification of species for supporting species modeling to better understand climate uncertainty. Involvement of citizen science‐based restoration monitoring tools can contribute to big data analytics for ecological monitoring and policy support. The Framework potentially helps in sustainable land restoration by transformative changes for achieving the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021–2030), Sustainable Development Goals 15, and addressing the post‐2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. However, to realize success, climate finance mechanisms to drive restoration should be seriously considered for reducing bias and enhancing opportunities of equitable sharing in the era of corruption, authoritarianism, and regulatory capture.     

Diaspora and its discontents: A Caribbean fragment in Toronto in quest of cultural recognition and political empowerment

The essay examines the role of The Ontario Society for Services to the Indo-Caribbean Community [OSSICC], a historic organization that sought to assert the dignity and re-discover the identity of Indo-Caribbean persons as a fragment of the Caribbean diaspora in Toronto, Canada. While it points to the achievement in representing the interests of its members for symbolic cultural recognition, it underscored the limitations in the political arena for empowerment, power sharing, and equality in employment opportunities and for an equitable share of the resources of the state. Further, it describes how the ethnic conflict in the homeland persisted in the new site of the diaspora, about lost opportunities for healing, and about inter-generational discontinuities in the reconstruction of the Caribbean self. On a larger scale, the article is about membership and citizenship in the new homeland of the diaspora, its seductions and betrayals in the new frontier of Canadian multiculturalism.     

Wilderness Restoration: The Paradox of Public Participation

Recent trends in ecological restoration complicate the job of wilderness managers. An emphasis on volunteer participation in restoration designed to foster human/nature relationships often conflicts with the mandate to leave land untrammeled. We frame this conflict as the “participation paradox.” Higgs’ (2003) Nature by Design contains a response to the paradox that includes a strong defense of participatory focal restoration and a related critique of wilderness. After identifying the limitations of Higgs’ arguments, we address the paradox by showing how an appeal to the moral virtues of humility, self‐restraint, and altruism supports a restrictive conception of wilderness and a healing metaphor for wilderness restoration. The virtue‐informed healing metaphor provides an argument for restricting volunteer participation and long‐term restoration projects in wilderness areas. It also identifies the general conditions in which damaged wilderness should be allowed to “heal itself.” The upshot of our approach to the paradox is that some standards for good restoration should be contextualized to land use designations. In particular, the emphasis on participatory restoration is appropriate in humanized landscapes but not in wilderness.     

A proposed process for applying a structured decision‐making framework to restoration planning in the Atchafalaya River Basin,Louisiana, U.S.A.

Environmental decision‐making issues in the Atchafalaya River Basin (ARB), Louisiana require innovative approaches that combine scientific understanding and local stakeholder values. Management of the ARB has evolved from strong federal control to establish the ARB as a primary floodway of the Mississippi River and Tributaries Project to a state and federal collaboration to accommodate fish and wildlife resource promotion, recreational opportunities, and economic development. The management policy has expanded to include a growing number of stakeholders, but the decision‐making process has not kept pace. Current conflicts among many local stakeholder groups, due in part to their lack of involvement in the decision‐making process, impede restoration efforts. The absence of a long‐term collective vision for the ARB by both local stakeholder groups and management agencies further confounds these efforts. This paper proposes a process to apply a structured decision‐making framework, a values‐based approach that explicitly defines objectives, to promote stakeholder‐driven restoration efforts in the ARB and to better prepare for and manage long‐term environmental issues. The goals of this approach are: (1) to create a process founded on stakeholder values and supported by rigorous scientific assessment to meet management agency mandates and (2) to establish a transparent process for restoration planning in the ARB that incorporates current and future non‐governmental stakeholders into the decision‐making process. Similar frameworks have been successful in other river basins; we feel the structure of current restoration efforts in the ARB is well‐suited to adopt a values‐focused management framework.     

中国生物多样性保护的新尝试——以社区为主体的渠楠保护小区管理模式研究

生物多样性是人类赖以生存的物质基础,目前对生物多样性的保护主要通过建立自然保护区来进行。保护小区作为我国现有自然保护区体系的一个重要补充,是联通动植物破碎化的栖息地,维护生态系统完整性的重要手段。该文通过文献研究和实地调查等方式对以社区为主体的渠楠保护小区的组织架构、制度建设、日常工作以及初步成效等进行了系统的整理和分析。结果表明:(1)渠楠保护小区以“自建、自筹、自管、自受益”为指导思想进行建设,采取“平等议事、民主协商”为主的方式进行管理,得到了当地社区居民的认可和拥护,并得到了当地政府和外界的承认和支持。(2)保护小区的成立、建设和发展,不仅提高了社区居民的保护意识和周边动植物种群数量及多样性,还改善了渠楠社区的生活环境,丰富了社区居民的精神文化,为当地的生物多样性和传统文化的保护做出了积极贡献。该文还探讨了以社区为主体的保护小区建设中存在的隐患,并提出可行性建议,以期为我国生物多样性保护及其他保护小区的发展提供参考。     

Unexpected formation of complex bridged tetrazoles via intramolecular 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition of 1,2-O-cyanoalkylidene derivatives of 3-azido-3-deoxy-D-allose

An unexpected and interesting intramolecular side reaction occurred during the attempted synthesis of glycosyl cyanides upon treatment of 1-O-acetyl-3-azido-3-deoxyallose derivatives with TMSCN and different Lewis acids. Exo-1,2-O-cyanoalkylidene derivatives formed by neighboring group participation and attack of cyanide underwent, after Lewis-acid mediated isomerization to the endo-isomer, intramolecular azide-cyanide cycloaddition leading to the formation of tetrazoles embedded in bridged tetracyclic ring systems. The efficiency of cycloaddition is dependent on the ring structure of the sugar (pyranose or furanose). Of the studied molecules, 3-azido-1,2-O-cyanoethylidene-3-deoxy-allopyranose provides the most suitable scaffold for intramolecular [2+3] cycloaddition under exceptionally mild conditions. Our results highlight the capability of carbohydrates to act as scaffolds for the precise positioning of functional groups productive for a specific chemical reaction.     

Cities and social participation: Social inequalities from children's and youth's point of view

Social participation, as far as children and youth are concerned, stands as one of the rights of children formalized by the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The present work is an attempt to contribute to the discussion on the ways whereby this right can be implemented, by raising the issue that children and youth constructively interpret social differences as a main feature of cities by providing explanations of social inequalities and their remedial mechanisms. Three case studies based on an action research invervention in three different institutions are presented. The analysis of focal group discussions with children and youth highlight their perspectives about life in the city: the city that they lived in and the city as they would like it to be demonstrating how children's and youth's views can provide a deep and critical understanding of their own society and the ways to change it.     

基于农牧民响应的阿拉善荒漠复合生态系统管理研究

内蒙古草原是我国华北、东北地区的重要生态屏障,阿拉善盟的生态环境直接影响到首都和华北地区的生态安全。以内蒙古自治区阿拉善盟1980—2014年年际人口、温度、家畜量及农作物面积变化为基础,2015年9月—2016年4月,采用入户访问和半结构访谈的方式,对阿拉善盟3个旗的16个自然村进行问卷调查,分析被访问对象对本区域政府-NGO-农牧民等利益相关者多方参与的荒漠化治理模式的响应和认知,以及对未来生态环境治理的建议和意愿,以期为荒漠复合生态系统的建设提供管理建议。运用The R Programming Language中的探索性因子分析法进行数据分析,结果表明:(1)自然因素(干旱、虫鼠害等)和人为因素(工业增加、城市扩张、农业增加等)是基于访谈对象认知的本区域环境恶化的主要原因。(2)多年来,政府部门主导的生态补偿和生态移民等政策的实施,政府、NGO、农牧民的群策群力以及农牧民环保意识的增强等综合因素是研究区环境局部恢复的主要原因。未来,建议加快生态建设步伐,构建以"政府主导,社会行动,社区参与"为主导的荒漠化治理模式是阿拉善环境保护和可持续发展的需要。