Attitudes Toward Resolution of Human–Wildlife Conflict Among Forest-Dependent Agriculturalists Near Rajaji National Park,India

Understanding local attitudes towards human–wildlife conflict (HWC) is key to developing successful conflict mitigation strategies. In this paper, in-depth interview and questionnaire data about resolution of HWC in Uttarakhand, India are examined from both qualitative and quantitative approaches (n = 70). Responses are differentiated between and within three subgroups: gender, literacy status, and relative wealth. Overall, the plurality of respondents said that fencing is the best solution, that the Forest Department should take leadership, and that villagers would be willing to participate in a cooperative management institution. However, cooperative action was only actively supported by 27.4% of respondents, suggesting that comanagement of this protected area will require significant capacity building and trust building activities. Intragroup differences show that all three factors are significant, and underscore the importance of addressing gender differences in attitudes about HWC in particular. Women were less likely than men to support compensation, more likely to prefer that the village take leadership, and less willing to participate in a cooperative management institution. The study illustrates the value of mixed-method research, and suggests a number of specific entry points for action.

Can Experience Improve Hospital Management?

Background

Experience curve effects were first observed in the industrial arena as demonstrations of the relationship between experience and efficiency. These relationships were largely determined by improvements in management efficiency and quality of care. In the health care industry, volume-outcome relationships have been established with respect to quality of care improvement, but little is known about the effects of experience on management efficiency. Here, we examine the relationship between experience and hospital management in Japanese hospitals.

Methods

The study sample comprised individuals who had undergone surgery for unruptured abdominal aortic aneurysms and had been discharged from participant hospitals between April 1, 2006 and December 31, 2008. We analyzed the association between case volume (both at the hospital and surgeon level) and postoperative complications using multilevel logistic regression analysis. Multilevel log-linear regression analyses were performed to investigate the associations between case volume and length of stay (LOS) before and after surgery.

Results

We analyzed 909 patients and 849 patients using the hospital-level and surgeon-level analytical models, respectively. The odds ratio of postoperative complication occurrence for an increase of one surgery annually was 0.981 (P<0.001) at the hospital level and 0.982 (P<0.001) at the surgeon level. The log-linear regression analyses showed that shorter postoperative LOS was significantly associated with high hospital-level case volume (coefficient for an increase of one surgery: −0.006, P = 0.009) and surgeon-level case volume (coefficient for an increase of one surgery: −0.011, P = 0.022). Although an increase of one surgery annually at the hospital level was statistically associated with a reduction of preoperative LOS by 1.1% (P = 0.006), there was no significant association detected between surgeon-level case volume and preoperative LOS (P = 0.504).

Conclusion

Experience at the hospital level may contribute to the improvement of hospital management efficiency.     

Can Sacrificial Feeding Areas Protect Aquatic Plants from Herbivore Grazing? Using Behavioural Ecology to Inform Wildlife Management

Effective wildlife management is needed for conservation, economic and human well-being objectives. However, traditional population control methods are frequently ineffective, unpopular with stakeholders, may affect non-target species, and can be both expensive and impractical to implement. New methods which address these issues and offer effective wildlife management are required. We used an individual-based model to predict the efficacy of a sacrificial feeding area in preventing grazing damage by mute swans (Cygnus olor) to adjacent river vegetation of high conservation and economic value. The accuracy of model predictions was assessed by a comparison with observed field data, whilst prediction robustness was evaluated using a sensitivity analysis. We used repeated simulations to evaluate how the efficacy of the sacrificial feeding area was regulated by (i) food quantity, (ii) food quality, and (iii) the functional response of the forager. Our model gave accurate predictions of aquatic plant biomass, carrying capacity, swan mortality, swan foraging effort, and river use. Our model predicted that increased sacrificial feeding area food quantity and quality would prevent the depletion of aquatic plant biomass by swans. When the functional response for vegetation in the sacrificial feeding area was increased, the food quantity and quality in the sacrificial feeding area required to protect adjacent aquatic plants were reduced. Our study demonstrates how the insights of behavioural ecology can be used to inform wildlife management. The principles that underpin our model predictions are likely to be valid across a range of different resource-consumer interactions, emphasising the generality of our approach to the evaluation of strategies for resolving wildlife management problems.     

Restoration of Degraded Grazing Lands through Grazing Management: Can It Work?

Grazing lands are the most degraded land use type in the world, particularly in arid and semiarid areas, as a result of improper human activities such as overgrazing coupled with drought. For restoration of degraded grazing lands, large-scale projects are implemented, which include extensive vegetation improvements (e.g., reseeding, weed control, shrub plantations, reforestations, etc.). Such interventions, apart from being very expensive, often create environmental problems. In situations where the abiotic function of the degraded grazing land has not been irreversibly damaged, application of appropriate grazing management is an ecologically viable solution to their restoration. This is especially necessary for grazed lands with a long history of grazing by large herbivores, including livestock. Excluding domestic animals from such ecosystems may lead to several ecological problems such as loss of biodiversity and devastating wildfires. Appropriate grazing management should include an adjusted stocking rate to the grazing capacity of the restored land, the right kind of animal species, and an appropriate grazing system. In addition, grazing management should be implemented on the basis of a plan that is part of the restoration project. It is concluded that grazing management should become a priority option in restoration of the biotic function of degraded grazing lands, especially in those that have had a long history with the presence of domestic animals.     

Can Joint Carbon and Biodiversity Management in Tropical Agroforestry Landscapes Be Optimized?

Managing ecosystems for carbon storage may also benefit biodiversity conservation, but such a potential ‘win-win’ scenario has not yet been assessed for tropical agroforestry landscapes. We measured above- and below-ground carbon stocks as well as the species richness of four groups of plants and eight of animals on 14 representative plots in Sulawesi, Indonesia, ranging from natural rainforest to cacao agroforests that have replaced former natural forest. The conversion of natural forests with carbon stocks of 227–362 Mg C ha⁻¹ to agroforests with 82–211 Mg C ha⁻¹ showed no relationships to overall biodiversity but led to a significant loss of forest-related species richness. We conclude that the conservation of the forest-related biodiversity, and to a lesser degree of carbon stocks, mainly depends on the preservation of natural forest habitats. In the three most carbon-rich agroforestry systems, carbon stocks were about 60% of those of natural forest, suggesting that 1.6 ha of optimally managed agroforest can contribute to the conservation of carbon stocks as much as 1 ha of natural forest. However, agroforestry systems had comparatively low biodiversity, and we found no evidence for a tight link between carbon storage and biodiversity. Yet, potential win-win agroforestry management solutions include combining high shade-tree quality which favours biodiversity with cacao-yield adapted shade levels.     

Can Impacts of Climate Change and Agricultural Adaptation Strategies Be Accurately Quantified if Crop Models Are Annually Re-Initialized?

Estimates of climate change impacts on global food production are generally based on statistical or process-based models. Process-based models can provide robust predictions of agricultural yield responses to changing climate and management. However, applications of these models often suffer from bias due to the common practice of re-initializing soil conditions to the same state for each year of the forecast period. If simulations neglect to include year-to-year changes in initial soil conditions and water content related to agronomic management, adaptation and mitigation strategies designed to maintain stable yields under climate change cannot be properly evaluated. We apply a process-based crop system model that avoids re-initialization bias to demonstrate the importance of simulating both year-to-year and cumulative changes in pre-season soil carbon, nutrient, and water availability. Results are contrasted with simulations using annual re-initialization, and differences are striking. We then demonstrate the potential for the most likely adaptation strategy to offset climate change impacts on yields using continuous simulations through the end of the 21^st century. Simulations that annually re-initialize pre-season soil carbon and water contents introduce an inappropriate yield bias that obscures the potential for agricultural management to ameliorate the deleterious effects of rising temperatures and greater rainfall variability.     

Knowledge,Attitudes, and Decision Making in Hospital Glycemic Management: are Faculty up to Speed?

Objective: Knowledge and confidence deficits in the management of hospital glucose abnormalities are prevalent among resident physicians. However, it is unclear whether such gaps prevail among faculty within different professional fields. In this study, we examined faculty knowledge and explored perceptions of challenges related to the management of inpatient hyperglycemia and diabetes.Methods: We conducted a survey that examined management decisions about inpatient hyperglycemia and diabetes among Medicine, Medicine/Pediatrics, Family and Community Medicine, Surgery, and Neurology faculty clinicians. All participating faculty had teaching and patient care responsibilities.Results: Responses from 69 faculty participants revealed gaps in several areas, including biomedical and contextual knowledge, familiarity with resources, clinical decision making, and self-efficacy. We identified important factors perceived as barriers to optimal glycemic management in the inpatient settings.Conclusion: The results of this study enhance our insight about the limitations existing among faculty related to the management of hyperglycemia and diabetes in hospitalized patients. We suggest that these barriers may impede optimization of patient care. Faculty play a crucial role in the clinical decision-making process and quality of care delivered by trainees. Therefore, attending physicians are likely to impact trainees' clinical performance and competency in the management of inpatient diabetes during training and beyond. Education in this subject should be a priority among trainees and faculty alike.Abbreviation: ICU = intensive care unit     

Can Community Health Workers Report Accurately on Births and Deaths? Results of Field Assessments in Ethiopia,Malawi and Mali

Introduction

Most low-income countries lack complete and accurate vital registration systems. As a result, measures of under-five mortality rates rely mostly on household surveys. In collaboration with partners in Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, and Mali, we assessed the completeness and accuracy of reporting of births and deaths by community-based health workers, and the accuracy of annualized under-five mortality rate estimates derived from these data. Here we report on results from Ethiopia, Malawi and Mali.

Method

In all three countries, community health workers (CHWs) were trained, equipped and supported to report pregnancies, births and deaths within defined geographic areas over a period of at least fifteen months. In-country institutions collected these data every month. At each study site, we administered a full birth history (FBH) or full pregnancy history (FPH), to women of reproductive age via a census of households in Mali and via household surveys in Ethiopia and Malawi. Using these FBHs/FPHs as a validation data source, we assessed the completeness of the counts of births and deaths and the accuracy of under-five, infant, and neonatal mortality rates from the community-based method against the retrospective FBH/FPH for rolling twelve-month periods. For each method we calculated total cost, average annual cost per 1,000 population, and average cost per vital event reported.

Results

On average, CHWs submitted monthly vital event reports for over 95 percent of catchment areas in Ethiopia and Malawi, and for 100 percent of catchment areas in Mali. The completeness of vital events reporting by CHWs varied: we estimated that 30%-90% of annualized expected births (i.e. the number of births estimated using a FPH) were documented by CHWs and 22%-91% of annualized expected under-five deaths were documented by CHWs. Resulting annualized under-five mortality rates based on the CHW vital events reporting were, on average, under-estimated by 28% in Ethiopia, 32% in Malawi, and 9% in Mali relative to comparable FPHs. Costs per vital event reported ranged from $21 in Malawi to $149 in Mali.

Discussion

Our findings in Mali suggest that CHWs can collect complete and high-quality vital events data useful for monitoring annual changes in under-five mortality rates. Both the supervision of CHWs in Mali and the rigor of the associated field-based data quality checks were of a high standard, and the size of the pilot area in Mali was small (comprising of approximately 53,205 residents in 4,200 households). Hence, there are remaining questions about whether this level of vital events reporting completeness and data quality could be maintained if the approach was implemented at scale. Our experience in Malawi and Ethiopia suggests that, in some settings, establishing and maintaining the completeness and quality of vital events reporting by CHWs over time is challenging. In this sense, our evaluation in Mali falls closer to that of an efficacy study, whereas our evaluations in Ethiopia and Malawi are more akin to an effectiveness study. Our overall findings suggest that no one-size-fits-all approach will be successful in guaranteeing complete and accurate reporting of vital events by CHWs.     

Urban Sheep Keeping in West Africa: Can Socioeconomic Household Profiles Explain Management and Productivity?

Rapid urbanization in Africa leads to a spatial concentration of people with different cultural origins and socioeconomic backgrounds resulting in a great diversity of life styles and livelihood strategies. One common strategy in Maroua/Cameroon and Bobo-Dioulasso/Burkina Faso is urban sheep keeping. Cluster analyses identified distinct socioeconomic groups with similarities between the towns: traditional livestock keepers, households headed by well educated government employees or traders, and more vulnerable groups formed of households headed by females, retired people or people with limited formal education. The household types in Bobo varied in their perception of the importance and the development of urban sheep keeping and their future plans. Those in Maroua differed in management intensity and in the potential to adapt their practices to the urban environment. Development interventions to reduce environmental pollution and risks for human health associated with urban sheep keeping need to account for these differences in the target group.     

Dog Obesity: Can Dog Caregivers' (Owners') Feeding and Exercise Intentions and Behaviors Be Predicted From Attitudes?

Dog obesity is a common nutritional disorder affecting up to 40% of the companion animal (pet) dog population in Australia and other developed nations. A clear understanding of factors determining relevant caregiver (owner) behaviors underpins effective treatment for this disorder. The theory of planned behavior can be used to understand factors contributing to human behavior. This article describes research informed by this theory. The research examined relationships between owners' behavioral beliefs and barriers, normative beliefs and perceptions of control, owners' feeding and exercise behaviors toward their dogs, and the body condition scores (BCSs) of dogs. The study recruited a sample of 182 dog and owner dyads. The researcher independently assessed BCSs. Owners completed a questionnaire measuring relevant feeding and exercise beliefs and behaviors. This revealed significant correlations between many psychological variables and BCSs and between psychological variables and specific owner behaviors: for example, the relationship of low levels of intentions to feed appropriately to ambivalent beliefs toward feeding appropriately and low perceived control. Careful consideration of the specific variables identified will permit the development of more effective interventions.     

Modelling Coral Reef Futures to Inform Management: Can Reducing Local-Scale Stressors Conserve Reefs under Climate Change?

Climate change has emerged as a principal threat to coral reefs, and is expected to exacerbate coral reef degradation caused by more localised stressors. Management of local stressors is widely advocated to bolster coral reef resilience, but the extent to which management of local stressors might affect future trajectories of reef state remains unclear. This is in part because of limited understanding of the cumulative impact of multiple stressors. Models are ideal tools to aid understanding of future reef state under alternative management and climatic scenarios, but to date few have been sufficiently developed to be useful as decision support tools for local management of coral reefs subject to multiple stressors. We used a simulation model of coral reefs to investigate the extent to which the management of local stressors (namely poor water quality and fishing) might influence future reef state under varying climatic scenarios relating to coral bleaching. We parameterised the model for Bolinao, the Philippines, and explored how simulation modelling can be used to provide decision support for local management. We found that management of water quality, and to a lesser extent fishing, can have a significant impact on future reef state, including coral recovery following bleaching-induced mortality. The stressors we examined interacted antagonistically to affect reef state, highlighting the importance of considering the combined impact of multiple stressors rather than considering them individually. Further, by providing explicit guidance for management of Bolinao''s reef system, such as which course of management action will most likely to be effective over what time scales and at which sites, we demonstrated the utility of simulation models for supporting management. Aside from providing explicit guidance for management of Bolinao''s reef system, our study offers insights which could inform reef management more broadly, as well as general understanding of reef systems.     

Can Boreal and Temperate Forest Management be Adapted to the Uncertainties of 21st Century Climate Change?

Considerable uncertainties remain about magnitude and character, if not general direction of anthropogenic climate change. Global mean temperature could increase by 1.5–4.5°C or more over historic levels, and extreme weather events—drought, storms, and flooding—are likely to increase greatly in frequency. Although ecologists and foresters agree that the practice of forestry will be transformed under climate change, these uncertainties compound the challenge of achieving sustainable, adaptive forest management. In this aritcle, we (i) present a multidisciplinary synthesis of current knowledge of responses of temperate and boreal tree species and forest communities to climate change, and (ii) outline silvicultural strategies for adapting temperate and boreal forests to confront climate change. Our knowledge synthesis proceeds through critical appraisals of efforts to model future tree distributions and responses to climate change, and reviews physiological, phenological, acclimation, and epigenetic responses to climate. As is the case of climate change itself, there are numerous uncertainties about tree species and provenance responses to climate change. For example, acclimation of respiration and epigenetic conditioning of seed embryos has the potential to buffer species against limited warming. Provenances within species also display idiosyncratic responses to altered climates, implying that soemm varieties will be more resilient or resistant to climate change than others. Genetically determined limits to climatic tolerance, and the limits of tree community resistance and resilience (speed of recovery from disturbance) in the face of climate-related disturbances are largely unknown. These unknowns require managers to adopt a portfolio of silvicultural strategies, which may range from minor modifications of current practices to design of novel multi-species stands that may have no historical analogue. Forest managers must be prepared to respond nimbly as they develop, incorporate new insights about climate change and species responses to warming into their practices. Marshalling all strategies and sources of knowledge should enable forest managers to mount (at least) a partially successful response to the challenges of climate change.     

To Burn or Not to Burn? Effect of Management Strategy on North American Prairie Vegetation for Public Urban Areas in Germany

North American prairie vegetation has been a role model for designing highly attractive plantings for German urban green spaces for the past decade. In combination with gravel mulch top layers on planting sites and non-selective maintenance techniques like mowing or burning, prairie plantings are considered to be cost-effective and low-maintenance. This study was undertaken to assess the impact of different maintenance strategies and especially the necessity of fire management on the development success of ornamental prairie plantings in central Europe. A four factorial split-plot-block design was set up for investigation of different mixtures of prairie species under varying management conditions (mow-only, mowing plus selective weeding, mowing plus weeding and burning) on two differing soil types (in-situ topsoil and in-situ topsoil with a graywacke gravel mulch top layer) over three years. Significant effects of maintenance strategy on mortality rates and vitality were documented for a number of target species, which responded species specifically, either being slightly affected by the burning or thriving on it. Those effects were mostly restricted to topsoil sites. A strong impact on weed species presence and abundance and resulting maintenance times was found on both soil types. On topsoil sites, mow-only treatment resulted in a short-term loss of the original planting due to extensive weed growth. Corresponding gravel mulch sites were generally less colonised and visually dominated by weeds. Differences between weeded and weeded plus burned sites were minor. Unexpectedly, weed species populations were mostly unaffected by the additional burning treatment, while maintenance times and costs increased. No overall benefit of fire management for the establishment of prairie plantings was documented. The most effective management combination proved to be mowing plus regular selective weeding measures on gravel mulched planting sites.     

Can Mass Trapping Reduce Thrips Damage and Is It Economically Viable? Management of the Western Flower Thrips in Strawberry

The western flower thrips Frankliniella occidentalis (Pergande) (Thysanoptera: Thripidae) is a cosmopolitan, polyphagous insect pest that causes bronzing to fruit of strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa). The main aim of this study was to test whether mass trapping could reduce damage and to predict whether this approach would be economically viable. In semi-protected strawberry crops, mass trapping of F. occidentalis using blue sticky roller traps reduced adult thrips numbers per flower by 61% and fruit bronzing by 55%. The addition of the F. occidentalis aggregation pheromone, neryl (S)-2-methylbutanoate, to the traps doubled the trap catch, reduced adult thrips numbers per flower by 73% and fruit bronzing by 68%. The factors affecting trapping efficiency through the season are discussed. Damage that would result in downgrading of fruit to a cheaper price occurred when bronzing affected about 10% of the red fruit surface. Cost-benefit analysis using this threshold showed that mass trapping of thrips using blue sticky roller traps can be cost-effective in high-value crops. The addition of blue sticky roller traps to an integrated pest management programme maintained thrips numbers below the damage threshold and increased grower returns by a conservative estimate of £2.2k per hectare. Further work is required to develop the F. occidentalis aggregation pheromone for mass trapping and to determine the best timing for trap deployment. Mass trapping of thrips is likely to be cost-effective in other countries and other high-value crops affected by F. occidentalis damage, such as cucumber and cut flowers.