Urban Forest Justice and the Rights to Wild Foods, Medicines, and Materials in the City

Urban forests are multifunctional socio-ecological landscapes, yet some of their social benefits remain poorly understood. This paper draws on ethnographic evidence from Seattle, Washington to demonstrate that urban forests contain nontimber forest products that contribute a variety of wild foods, medicines, and materials for the wellbeing of urban residents. We show that gathering wild plants and fungi in urban forests is a persistent subsistence and livelihood practice that provides sociocultural and material benefits to city residents, and creates opportunities for connecting with nature and enhancing social ties. We suggest that an orientation toward human-nature interactions in cities that conceptualizes the gathering of forest products as a legitimate social benefit may support and expand urban forest justice. Urban forest justice recognizes the rights of local people to have control over their own culturally appropriate wild food and health systems, including access to natural resources and to the decision-making processes affecting them.     

Urban Kampongs in Ambon: Whose Domain? Whose Desa?

A devastating fire in a poor quarter of the city of Ambon, Eastern Indonesia, provided the context in which a number of the social, cultural and historical factors shaping the lives of the city's residents came to the fore. The paper argues that to comprehend the experiences of people whose lives were touched by the fire, and to appreciate its significance, the meanings ascribed to the event, it is necessary to comprehend those multiple factors in all their complexity and interpenetration. The paper argues that the symbolic construction of urban space and its constitution as ‘place’ are continuously emergent out of processes which appear in transformational moments, such as this fire. Physical changes to the quarter through time are examined to demonstrate their relevance to understanding the contemporary social processes and their local interpretations. The migratory origins of the people; continuing divisions between Christian and Muslim populations; the ongoing relevance of ancestral spirits and magic; the role of colonial and postcolonial states, and Ambon's strategic position, are all argued to be important to understanding the meaning of the place and the use of space in the city. The implications of the intersection of at least four clusters of ideas about space and place are considered critical to any adequate account of the contemporary lives of Ambonese and to explaining how it comes to be that some residents can become permanently displaced. The argument emphasises the processual nature of the understandings of space in the urban context.     

The nostalgic construction of community: Memory and social identity in Urban Malta

This paper examines local people's memories of a Maltese urban community that was demolished in the 1970s. The memories create an idealised, nostalgic picture of community harmony and solidarity prior to the demolition, but also apportion blame for its subsequent destruction. The paper argues that in such situations of physical displacement and/or social dislocation, this nostalgic process serves as a strategic resource that not only produces order and identity, but also creates legitimate moral claims against the state. The paper thereby contributes to ongoing debates about the relationship between local identity and wider political and economic processes.     

The relationship between social behaviour and habitat familiarity in African elephants (Loxodonta africana)

Social associations with conspecifics can expedite animals'' acclimation to novel environments. However, the benefits gained from sociality may change as the habitat becomes familiar. Furthermore, the particular individuals with whom animals associate upon arrival at a new place, familiar conspecifics or knowledgeable unfamiliar residents, may influence the type of information they acquire about their new home. To examine animals'' social dynamics in novel habitats, we studied the social behaviour of African elephants (Loxodonta africana) translocated into a novel environment. We found that the translocated elephants'' association with conspecifics decreased over time supporting our hypothesis that sociality provides added benefits in novel environments. In addition, we found a positive correlation between body condition and social association, suggesting that elephants gain direct benefits from sociality. Furthermore, the translocated elephants associated significantly less than expected with the local residents and more than expected with familiar, but not necessarily genetically related, translocated elephants. The social segregation between the translocated and resident elephants declined over time, suggesting that elephants can integrate into an existing social setting. Knowledge of the relationship between sociality and habitat familiarity is highly important in our constantly changing world to both conservation practice and our understanding of animals'' behaviour in novel environments.     

Urbanicity,social adversity and psychosis

In recent years, there has been increasing interest in research on geographical variation in the incidence of schizophrenia and other psychoses. In this paper, we review the evidence on variation in incidence of schizophrenia and other psychoses in terms of place, as well as the individual‐ and area‐level factors that account for this variation. We further review findings on potential mechanisms that link adverse urban environment and psychosis. There is evidence from earlier and more recent studies that urbanicity is associated with an increased incidence of schizophrenia and non‐affective psychosis. In addition, considerable variation in incidence across neighbourhoods has been observed for these disorders. Findings suggest it is unlikely that social drift alone can fully account for geographical variation in incidence. Evidence further suggests that the impact of adverse social contexts – indexed by area‐level exposures such as population density, social fragmentation and deprivation – on risk of psychosis is explained (confounding) or modified (interaction) by environmental exposures at the individual level (i.e., cannabis use, social adversity, exclusion and discrimination). On a neurobiological level, several studies suggest a close link between social adversity, isolation and stress on the one hand, and monoamine dysfunction on the other, which resembles findings in schizophrenia patients. However, studies directly assessing correlations between urban stress or discrimination and neurobiological alterations in schizophrenia are lacking to date.     

Social isolation,and concentration effects: William Julius Wilson ­revisited and re-applied

Two concepts employed by William Julius Wilson in his effort to advance scholarship on race and urban poverty in America are social isolation and concentration effects. These concepts help comprise a conceptual scheme that provides an alternative lens to that which centres on the behaviour of the urban poor as the principal source of their troubled lives. This article elucidates a research agenda that asserts that the impact of social isolation and concentration effects extends beyond measures of distance or proximity to institutions and individuals that can enable greater efficacy for the urban poor. Rather, social isolation and the concentration of disadvantaged people within bounded geographic regions also facilitates serial patterns of social contact and exposure that become crucial factors for how people construct interpretations of social reality. These interpretations are crucial factors for initiating (or, in some cases, inhibiting) individual action on the part of the urban poor.     

基于社会公平正义的城市公园绿地空间配置供需关系——以上海徐汇区为例

从社会维度的视角分析评价生态系统所提供的各种效用,必然涉及供需双方。在提供城市公共服务的过程中,城市公园绿地的空间配置会潜在地影响社会效益享用的平等与有效性,是具有显著空间属性的社会资源。研究同时关注城市公园绿地与居住人口(使用者)的空间布局特征,提出基于社会公平正义的生态系统服务供需关系的研究框架,从"地域平等"、"社会公平"与"社会正义"3个层次评估城市公园绿地的空间配置对于社会服务有效供给能力的影响,进而关联使用者需求空间特征分析供需匹配关系。研究构建基于社会公平正义的6个指标反映城市公园绿地社会服务供需状况,并选取上海徐汇区进行实证研究。研究结果表明:(1)徐汇区城市公园绿地存在供需空间不匹配状况,尤其是口袋公园层面存在较大缺口;(2)空间布局均好性较高,地域平等性较好;(3)人均享有绿地资源水平还有待提高,社会公平性不足;(4)进一步地在社会正义层面,评价结果显示过去进行城市公园绿地空间布局决策时并没有特别关注老年人、青少年群体,各个空间单元差距较大,且这两类使用人群密度较高的空间单元在这两个指标上往往低于平均水平,社会正义性亟待提高。研究为实现城市公园绿地空间的社会效益均衡、高效、可持续发展提供了有益的探索。     

Characterization of Households and its Implications for the Vegetation of Urban Ecosystems

Our understanding of the dynamics of urban ecosystems can be enhanced by examining the multidimensional social characteristics of households. To this end, we investigated the relative significance of three social theories of household structure—population, lifestyle behavior, and social stratification—to the distribution of vegetation cover in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Our ability to assess the relative significance of these theories depended on fine-scale social and biophysical data. We distinguished among vegetation in three areas hypothesized to be differentially linked to these social theories: riparian areas, private lands, and public rights-of-way (PROWs). Using a multimodel inferential approach, we found that variation of vegetation cover in riparian areas was not explained by any of the three theories and that lifestyle behavior was the best predictor of vegetation cover on private lands. Surprisingly, lifestyle behavior was also the best predictor of vegetation cover in PROWs. The inclusion of a quadratic term for housing age significantly improved the models. Based on these research results, we question the exclusive use of income and education as the standard variables to explain variations in vegetation cover in urban ecological systems. We further suggest that the management of urban vegetation can be improved by developing environmental marketing strategies that address the underlying household motivations for and participation in local land management.     

Welfare micropublics and inequality: urban super-diversity in a time of austerity

This article argues for the importance of the role of the national and local state, and of increasing socio-economic inequality for understanding urban super-diversity in a time of austerity. Using a methodology and conceptualization that avoids the methodological ethnicism and “methodological neighbourhoodism” inherent in some diversity research, we draw on quantitative analysis and ethnographically produced material from south London to ask what differences make a difference. Examining interactions in “welfare micropublics”, including maternity services, schools, and elderly social care, we show that residents and service providers, often following an “ethos of inclusion”, routinely engage with difference in encounters, allowing the potential for conviviality to emerge. We argue that only by considering diversity together with inequality, can we develop more textured and nuanced accounts of super-diverse urban areas, including a fuller understanding of the social production of difference and indifference.     

Local technicians in long-term research projects: evaluation of 25 years experience in an active tropical research station

Most field ecology is conceived and financed by scientists from urban areas but is actually carried out in rural areas. Field staff can either be imported from urban areas or recruited from local residents. We evaluated the advantages and disadvantages of involving rural residents as local technicians over a 25- year period at active field research site in Costa Rica. We defined "local technicians" as local residents with no university education who acquired significant experience in field data collection, data management and/or laboratory work. We analyzed the experiences of incorporating these technicians into field research in developing countries from the points of view of scientist and of the local technicians themselves. Primary data were written responses from to a standardized survey of 19 senior scientists and Ph.D. students,and results from standardized personal interviews with 22 local technicians. Researchers highlighted the advantages of highly-skilled technicians with minimal staff turnover, as well as the technicians' knowledge of local ecological conditions. Local technicians considered the primary advantages of their jobs to be opportunities for continuing education training in science as well as cultural enrichment through interactions with people of different cultures. The main challenges identified by researchers were the lack of long-term funding for projects and extended training required for local technicians. Local technicians can be of great benefit to research projects by providing high-quality data collection at reasonable costs with low staff turnover. Over the last 25 years the research model at the field station we studied has evolved to the point that most long-term projects now depend heavily on local technicians. This model of involving local technicians in long-term research has multiple benefits for the researchers, the technicians and the local community, and could be adapted to a variety of settings in rural areas of developing countries.     

Fragility of Traditions: The Disturbance Hypothesis for the Loss of Local Traditions in Orangutans

Chimpanzees and orangutans have increasingly well documented local traditions involving learned skillful behaviors, often involving tools, which vary from place to place and are maintained by social transmission. These local traditions are most likely the antecedents of human culture. The complexity of local traditions is thought largely to be a function of the cumulative frequency of opportunities for social learning, and hence of the extent of tolerant gregarious foraging. Data on orangutans and chimpanzees are consistent with this hypothesis. This reliance on continued social transmission makes local traditions vulnerable to interruptions of transmission. I examine the disturbance hypothesis, which suggests that local extinction, hunting pressure, selective logging, and habitat loss in general affect the key parameters of the transmission process—innovation, diffusion, horizontal transmission—and hence will significantly impoverish the repertoire of complex skills for subsistence. Given current trends in orangutan habitats, serious erosion of local traditions is taking place. I also speculate that disturbance in the past has led to a significant loss of orangutan traditions.     

城市居民对高温热浪的感知——基于福州市的调查

全球气候正在经历以变暖为主要特征的显著变化,高温热浪更是其突出表现。民众感知是适应高温热浪的重要前提与社会基础。以高温热浪发生最为剧烈的福州市为例,基于585份问卷调查数据,分析了城市居民对高温热浪的感知及其差异。结果显示:(1)75.56%的居民能够准确感知当地气温升高趋势,85.81%的居民认为2000年至今气温升高最为明显,感知结果与气象监测数据基本一致;(2)居民对于高温热浪影响感知水平较高,85.81%的居民认为高温热浪对个人与家人的日常生活有显著影响;(3)不同年龄段居民对气温升高趋势感知差异明显,而不同健康状况居民对高温热浪影响感知差异明显。研究对于引导城市居民采取适应措施减缓或消除高温热浪不利影响,以及政府制定适应政策具有一定的借鉴。     

Metropolitanism and the Transformation of Urban Space in Nineteenth-Century Colonial Metropoles

In this paper, I argue that the nineteenth-century movement of "metropolitanism" was a transnational attempt to rebuild and re-imagine cities in a bourgeois image and through a capitalist process of investment. This movement began with the attempt by wealthy residents of imperial metropoles to remake their cities in ways that created greater social distance between themselves and their colonies—both external and internal. I explore how a discourse with specific urban content can engender a movement that revolutionizes people's view of the city. The analysis points toward a revitalization of this movement in the present moment of global transformations, suggesting that the reshaping of urban social organization and urban institutions through transnational processes is not new. [urban, metropolitanism, colonialism, housing, architecture]     

城市绿色空间可达性与居民分布的空间匹配与影响因素

城市居民的绿色空间可达性是衡量城市基础设施公平分配的指向标,关乎城市民生福祉。以宁波为研究区,基于高德地图路径规划Application Programming Interface(API)测度了绿色空间可达性,融合多源数据模拟了人口空间分布,分析了绿色空间可达性与人口分布的空间匹配状态,并采用地理探测器探讨其影响因素。研究表明：(1)宁波绿色空间可达性由各区中心向郊区衰减,高可达性空间占比不高,反映了绿色服务供给不足的现状。高可达性空间集中于三江口、鄞州新城、北仑城区和镇海老城区,低可达性空间则主要分布在东部郊区、西部山区和南部农业区。(2)宁波居民的绿色空间可达性在空间上表现为市中心高人口密度-高可达性和郊区低人口密度-低可达性的空间匹配特征,在规模上仅不及半数的居民享有15min绿色空间可达性,在乡镇尺度上呈现显著的城区—郊区二元类型分异。(3)城市居民绿色空间可达性受多重影响因子驱动,按照重要性依次为区位特征、人类活动、开发强度、社会经济和地形条件。     

View-Based Organization and Interplay of Spatial Working and Long-Term Memories

Space perception provides egocentric, oriented views of the environment from which working and long-term memories are constructed. “Allocentric” (i.e. position-independent) long-term memories may be organized as graphs of recognized places or views but the interaction of such cognitive graphs with egocentric working memories is unclear. Here we present a simple coherent model of view-based working and long-term memories, together with supporting evidence from behavioral experiments. The model predicts that within a given place, memories for some views may be more salient than others, that imagery of a target square should depend on the location where the recall takes place, and that recall favors views of the target square that would be obtained when approaching it from the current recall location. In two separate experiments in an outdoor urban environment, pedestrians were approached at various interview locations and asked to draw sketch maps of one of two well-known squares. Orientations of the sketch map productions depended significantly on distance and direction of the interview location from the target square, i.e. different views were recalled at different locations. Further analysis showed that location-dependent recall is related to the respective approach direction when imagining a walk from the interview location to the target square. The results are consistent with a view-based model of spatial long-term and working memories and their interplay.     

Place Cell Rate Remapping by CA3 Recurrent Collaterals

Episodic-like memory is thought to be supported by attractor dynamics in the hippocampus. A possible neural substrate for this memory mechanism is rate remapping, in which the spatial map of place cells encodes contextual information through firing rate variability. To test whether memories are stored as multimodal attractors in populations of place cells, recent experiments morphed one familiar context into another while observing the responses of CA3 cell ensembles. Average population activity in CA3 was reported to transition gradually rather than abruptly from one familiar context to the next, suggesting a lack of attractive forces associated with the two stored representations. On the other hand, individual CA3 cells showed a mix of gradual and abrupt transitions at different points along the morph sequence, and some displayed hysteresis which is a signature of attractor dynamics. To understand whether these seemingly conflicting results are commensurate with attractor network theory, we developed a neural network model of the CA3 with attractors for both position and discrete contexts. We found that for memories stored in overlapping neural ensembles within a single spatial map, position-dependent context attractors made transitions at different points along the morph sequence. Smooth transition curves arose from averaging across the population, while a heterogeneous set of responses was observed on the single unit level. In contrast, orthogonal memories led to abrupt and coherent transitions on both population and single unit levels as experimentally observed when remapping between two independent spatial maps. Strong recurrent feedback entailed a hysteretic effect on the network which diminished with the amount of overlap in the stored memories. These results suggest that context-dependent memory can be supported by overlapping local attractors within a spatial map of CA3 place cells. Similar mechanisms for context-dependent memory may also be found in other regions of the cerebral cortex.     

“How Could I Live Here and Not Be a Member?”: Economic Versus Social Drivers of Participation in Namibian Conservation Programs

Economic goals form a critical component of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) programs, but many studies question whether these initiatives actually deliver economic benefits to local communities. This presents a puzzle regarding why rural residents remain in CBNRM programs, and raises the possibility that non-economic incentives also influence participation. We address this question in a study of two Namibian communal conservancies, analyzing survey and interview data collected between 2009 and 2011. We find that economic incentives explain participation in one conservancy, whereas social motivations take precedence in the other. Our findings indicate that strong attachment to place and preferences for social cohesion can motivate people to comply with CBNRM even when economic incentives fail to materialize.     

Geo-Spatial Aspects of Acceptance of Illegal Hunting of Large Carnivores in Scandinavia

Human-carnivore conflicts are complex and are influenced by: the spatial distribution of the conflict species; the organisation and intensity of management measures such as zoning; historical experience with wildlife; land use patterns; and local cultural traditions. We have used a geographically stratified sampling of social values and attitudes to provide a novel perspective to the human – wildlife conflict. We have focused on acceptance by and disagreements between residents (measured as Potential Conflict Index; PCI) towards illegal hunting of four species of large carnivores (bear, lynx, wolf, wolverine). The study is based on surveys of residents in every municipality in Sweden and Norway who were asked their opinion on illegal hunting. Our results show how certain social values are associated with acceptance of poaching, and how these values differ geographically independent of carnivore abundance. Our approach differs from traditional survey designs, which are often biased towards urban areas. Although these traditional designs intend to be representative of a region (i.e. a random sample from a country), they tend to receive relatively few respondents from rural areas that experience the majority of conflict with carnivores. Acceptance of poaching differed significantly between Norway (12.7–15.7% of respondents) and Sweden (3.3–4.1% of respondents). We found the highest acceptance of illegal hunting in rural areas with free-ranging sheep and strong hunting traditions. Disagreements between residents (as measured by PCI) were highest in areas with intermediate population density. There was no correlation between carnivore density and either acceptance of illegal hunting or PCI. A strong positive correlation between acceptance of illegal hunting and PCI showed that areas with high acceptance of illegal hunting are areas with high potential conflict between people. Our results show that spatially-stratified surveys are required to reveal the large scale patterns in social dynamics of human-wildlife conflicts.     

Tuberculosis in an Urban Area in China: Differences between Urban Migrants and Local Residents

Background

The increase in urban migrants is one of major challenges for tuberculosis control in China. The different characteristics of tuberculosis cases between urban migrants and local residents in China have not been investigated before.

Methodology/Principal Findings

We performed a retrospective study of all pulmonary tuberculosis patients reported in Songjiang district, Shanghai, to determine the demographic, clinical and microbiological characteristics of tuberculosis cases between urban migrants and local residents. We calculated the odds ratios (OR) and performed multivariate logistic regression to identify the characteristics that were independently associated with tuberculosis among urban migrants. A total of 1,348 pulmonary tuberculosis cases were reported during 2006–2008, among whom 440 (32.6%) were local residents and 908 (67.4%) were urban migrants. Urban migrant (38.9/100,000 population) had higher tuberculosis rates than local residents (27.8/100,000 population), and the rates among persons younger than age 35 years were 3 times higher among urban migrants than among local residents. Younger age (adjusted OR per additional year at risk = 0.92, 95% CI: 0.91–0.94, p<0.001), poor treatment outcome (adjusted OR = 4.12, 95% CI: 2.65–5.72, p<0.001), and lower frequency of any comorbidity at diagnosis (adjusted OR = 0.20, 95% CI: 0.13–0.26, p = 0.013) were significantly associated with tuberculosis patients among urban migrants. There were poor treatment outcomes among urban migrants, mainly from transfers to another jurisdiction (19.3% of all tuberculosis patients among urban migrants).

Conclusions/Significance

A considerable proportion of tuberculosis cases in Songjiang district, China, during 2006–2008 occurred among urban migrants. Our findings highlight the need to develop and implement specific tuberculosis control strategies for urban migrants, such as more exhaustive case finding, improved case management and follow-up, and use of directly observed therapy (DOT).     

Advancing urban ecological studies: Frameworks,concepts, and results from the Baltimore Ecosystem Study

Abstract Urban ecological studies have had a long history, but they have not been a component of mainstream ecology until recently. The growing interest of ecologists in urban systems provides an opportunity to articulate integrative frameworks, and identify research tools and approaches that can help achieve a broader ecological understanding of urban systems. Based on our experience in the Baltimore Ecosystem Study (BES), Long‐term Ecological Research project, located in metropolitan Baltimore, Maryland, USA, we identify several frameworks that may be useful in comparative urban studies, and may be worthy of consideration in other integrative urban ecosystem studies: (i) spatial patch dynamics of biophysical and social factors; (ii) the watershed as an integrative tool; and (iii) the human ecosystem framework. These frameworks build on empirical research investigating urban biota, nutrient and energy budgets, ecological footprints of cities, as well as biotic classifications aimed at urban planning. These frameworks bring together perspectives, measurements, and models from biophysical and social sciences. We illustrate their application in the BES, which is designed to investigate (i) the structure and change of the urban ecosystem; (ii) the fluxes of matter, energy, capital, and population in the metropolis; and (iii) how ecological information affects the quality of the local and regional environments. Exemplary results concerning urban stream nutrient flux, the ability of riparian zones to process nitrate pollution, and the lags in the relationships between vegetation structure and socio‐economic factors in specific neighbourhoods are presented. The current advances in urban ecological studies have profited greatly from the variety of integrative frameworks and tools that have been tested and applied in urban areas over the last decade. The field is poised to make significant progress as a result of ongoing conceptual and empirical consolidation.