Forest Management Policy, Amenity Migration, and Community Well-Being in the American West: Reflections from the Northwest Forest Plan

This paper examines the relation between public land management policy, amenity migration, and socioeconomic well-being using the case of the Northwest Forest Plan—a forest management policy that caused 11.6 million acres of federal land in the US Pacific Northwest to be reallocated from commodity production to biodiversity services. Our analysis focuses on three propositions implicit in much of the amenity migration literature in the USA: land management policies that reduce commodity production and/or increase environmental protection (1) improve the natural amenity values of public lands; (2) increase amenity migration to communities near public lands; and (3) stimulate economic development and increase socioeconomic well-being in these communities. Our findings indicate that all three propositions are problematic and demonstrate the importance of community-scale analysis for understanding the relation between land management policies, amenity migration, and community well-being. We discuss the implications of our findings for public land management and rural community development.

Information Networks in Amenity Transition Communities: A Comparative Case Study

Amenity transition, a major socio demographic trend in areas rich in natural resources, is characterized by economic and population growth as a result of retirement in-migration, increased rates of second home ownership, and increases in the number of industries that do not need to be proximate to a specific geographic location. Amenity transition is also characterized by increased intra-community conflict between long-term residents and in-migrants. This research analyzes whether the population growth accompanying amenity transition is associated with variations in the structure and characteristics of intra-community informational networks, as sociological theory would suggest. Methodologically, this is accomplished through a comparative analysis of the structure and characteristics of informational networks in three communities undergoing amenity transition. The analyses suggest population density is not related to either the structure of informational networks or the concentration of trust/distrust within them. When considered in conjunction with previous empirical work, these findings suggest the conflicts associated with amenity transition are more likely to arise because of conflicting value systems and ideologies as opposed to social structural changes in the communities themselves.     

南方丘陵山地生态系统服务与农村社区协同发展模式研究——以广东乐昌市8个乡村为例

生态系统服务是保障农村经济可持续发展和生态环境健康的重要基础,农村社区作为乡村社会经济的基本构成单位以及小尺度复合生态系统,其经济活动将直接扰动自然生态系统服务。南方丘陵山地是我国重要的生态屏障带,生态保护的意义重大。以该地带重要生态功能区的广东乐昌市的8个地形地貌相似、但发展存有较大差异的乡村为研究对象,利用遥感影像和实地调查数据,综合分析各村土地利用及经济发展状况;基于国际通用生态系统服务分类标准和评估方法,构建乡村生态系统服务指标体系,对各村生态系统服务进行价值评估,并探讨生态系统服务与农村社区协同发展的典型模式。研究表明：（1）从生态服务功能总价值来看,浆源村最高,为16585.173万元/a,前村次之,为13152.621万元/a,车头园村最低,为1611.611万元/a;单位面积生态系统服务价值量总体呈相似的格局,但局部略有差异。前村、上丛村较高,分别为8.739万元hm^-2 a^-1、8.080万元hm^-2 a^-1。（2）土地利用以及经济发展方式的差异,影响了生态系统服务的保持、维护及利用,各村农户经济收入与从生态系统服务获得的福利,以及乡村生态系统服务价值与经济发展水平呈现不均衡的特征。（3）基于发展基础、生态条件等,适度发展乡村特色种植和生态旅游等低影响经济发展模式,有利于降低对生态系统服务,尤其是调节、支持类等功能的影响,并促进生态系统服务非商业价值向商业价值转变,提升乡村经济发展水平。研究结果以期为维护重点生态功能区的生态安全,优化乡村经济结构与发展模式,推进生态服务功能提升及农村社区协同发展提供参考。     

Structural and Narrative Reconstruction of Rural Residents’ Representations of ‘Nature’, ‘Wildlife’, and ‘Landscape’

The objective of this paper is the structural and narrative reconstruction of representations of ‘nature’, ‘wildlife’ and ‘landscape’, held by rural residents of the Dadia Forest Reserve. Data collection involved in-depth interviews. Employing a social representations’ approach, we recovered representational elements that are expected in the case of rural belief systems, such as negative dispositions towards wolves and foxes, as well as elements of an urban adherence, such as nature’s independence. Representational elements refer to visual aspects of the countryside, which seem compatible with the figurative nucleus of the rural idyll. Concerning ‘wildlife’, residents focused on vultures, which comprise the main tourist attraction of the reserve. Scientific knowledge adds to the complexity of the narrative schema, which corresponds to the representation of ‘wildlife’. Interviewees perceived the rural landscape as an interface between the natural and the human-conditioned environment. Our study shows that interviewees make no reference to environmental conservation or quality of life issues, as it could be expected according to relatively wide definitions of the term ‘environmentalism’. Environmental messages reinforced by ecotourism development seem to be recalled primarily in terms of their compatibility with the perceived economic benefit of local people. Despite ecotourism development, representational elements that diverge from a tourist version of ‘nature’, ‘wildlife’ and ‘landscape’ were not pronounced within rural belief-systems. Further interventions within the study area are needed, in order to address a variety of topics under the environmental conservation discourse and raise the environmental awareness of rural residents.     

Forest recovery in an Australian amenity landscape: implications for biodiversity conservation on small-acreage properties

Some urbanising rural (i.e. ‘amenity’) landscapes have seen an increase in forest cover over recent decades. Small-acreage landowners are key stakeholders in this forest recovery and its future ecological trajectory. Using 17 qualitative case-studies of small-acreage properties located in the Noosa hinterland in south-east Queensland, this study explores the types and condition of forests on these properties, the landholder’s differing forest management perspectives, practices and outcomes, and the implications for local biodiversity conservation. The properties contained a diverse mix of managed and un-managed natural and planted forests. Invasive weed species were a common component. Protecting and enhancing the ecological values of amenity landscapes will require an increase in active, best-practice forest management on small-acreage properties. Small-acreage landowners will require greater access to labour support and other subsidised resources to implement recommended practices. Such practices include controlling and reducing the spread of invasive weeds and soil erosion, reducing fire hazards, and positively influencing the rate and pathway of succession in regrowth forests. Peer-mentoring programs incorporating guided tours of ‘model’ small-acreage forests, and supporting landowners to establish their own small native plant nurseries and engage with local community nurseries (i.e. supplying seeds, volunteering labour), could help to increase small-acreage landowners’ forest management interests, knowledge, skills and activity. Long-term cooperative, cross-boundary forest management projects with on-going monitoring and adaptive management guided or implemented by skilled professionals are needed in amenity landscapes, particularly to increase the success of restoration interventions in weed-dominated regrowth forests. There is also a need for long-term socio-ecological analyses of amenity landscapes’ diverse and evolving small-acreage forests to better inform their future management.     

The Importance of a Social Science Research Agenda in the Management of Protected Natural Areas,with Selected Examples

The advent of the modern protected area movement began in 1872 with the creation of Yellowstone National Park in the United States. For a century thereafter, as more nations began to set up protected area systems, the movement was largely western-dominated and adhered to ‘fences and fines’ forms of conservation. As many more developing nations gained independence in the latter half of the twentieth century, it was increasingly recognized that strict forms of conservation based on western ideals of nature could not be sustained in the long term. Specifically, many rural people in developing countries are dependent on local natural resources, and the conservation rules put into place in many protected areas frequently forbade all extraction and in many cases all entry except for tourism or research. This created a climate of increasing park-people conflicts that in many cases compromised conservation goals and led to a refocus in protected areas management and research in the social sciences worldwide. Here I describe survey and non-survey based protocols developed to study the effectiveness of protected areas in the societal realm. Policy gap analyses, rapid rural appraisals, key informant and focus group surveys and structured and semi-structured social surveys are described. Such studies can allow managers to plan for interventions where needed and can aid in designing appropriate local development projects in an effort to ameliorate park-people conflicts. I finish with a preliminary social research protocol, tested in May, 2009, for Yachang Orchid Reserve, Guangxi Province, the People’s Republic of China.     

Meaning Matters: The Biosemiotic Basis of Bioethics

If the central problem in philosophical ethics is determining and defining the scope of moral value, our normative ethical theories must be able to explain on what basis and to what extent entities have value. The scientific foundation of contemporary biosemiotic theory grounds a theory of moral value capable of addressing this problem. Namely, it suggests that what is morally relevant is semiosis. Within this framework, semiosis is a morally relevant and natural property of all living things thereby offering us an ecological, as opposed to merely environmental, ethic. A consequence of this semiotic theory is that living things are accorded inherent moral value based on their natural relational properties—their ability to signify. This consequence establishes a hierarchy of inherent moral value based on the scope of signification: the larger the Umwelten, the greater the value. This paper argues that a robust semiotic moral theory can take into account a much wider scope of inherent value.. These consequences have positive ramifications for environmental ethics in their recognition of the natural ecological networks in which each organism is bound. This presentation of a biosemiotic model of value offers a justificatory strategy for our contemporary moral intuitions concerning our semiotic/moral relationships with living things while also productively pushing our normative ethical boundaries.     

Urbanization and the temporal patterns of social networks and group foraging behaviors

Urbanization causes dramatic and rapid changes to natural environments, which can lead the animals inhabiting these habitats to adjust their behavioral responses. For social animals, urbanized environments may alter group social dynamics through modification of the external environment (e.g., resource distribution). This might lead to changes in how individuals associate or engage in group behaviors, which could alter the stability and characteristics of social groups. However, the potential impacts of urban habitat use, and of habitat characteristics in general, on the nature and stability of social associations remain poorly understood. Here, we quantify social networks and dynamics of group foraging behaviors of black‐capped chickadees (N = 82, Poecile atricapillus), at four urban and four rural sites weekly throughout the nonbreeding season using feeders with radio frequency identification of individual birds. Because anthropogenic food sources in urban habitats (e.g., bird feeders) provide abundant and reliable resources, we predicted that social foraging associations may be of less value in urban groups, and thus would be less consistent than in rural groups. Additionally, decreased variability of food resources in urban habitats could lead to more predictable foraging patterns (group size, foraging duration, and the distribution of foraging events) in contrast to rural habitats. Networks were found to be highly consistent through time in both urban and rural habitats. No significant difference was found in the temporal clumping of foraging events between habitats. However, as predicted, the repeatability of the clumping of foraging events in time was significantly higher in urban than rural habitats. Our results suggest that individuals living in urban areas have more consistent foraging behaviors throughout the nonbreeding season, whereas rural individuals adjust their tactics due to less predictable foraging conditions. This first examination of habitat‐related differences in the characteristics and consistency of social networks along an urbanization gradient suggests that anthropic habitat use results in subtle modifications in social foraging patterns. Future studies should examine potential implications of these differences for variation in predation risk, energy intake, and information flow.     

Amenity and ecological management: A framework for policy and practice

Amenity is a term that has re‐emerged within both public policy and environmental management organisations in response to an increasing emphasis on the human benefits derived from ecosystems. However, practical implementation of amenity management has been difficult due to a lack of definitional clarity within operational and academic literature. This article discusses the need for definitional clarity and understanding of the component elements of amenity that are integral to ecological management and reviews the literature on the perceptions and definitions of amenity in varied contexts. This study argues that positive perceptions of amenity benefits of a place are influenced by both physical elements such as sight, sound and smell and social elements such as age, education and cultural values. These elements should be considered by management agencies in a structured manner in order for the full potential of amenity to be realised. We present a conceptual framework to provide definitional clarity to the concept of amenity and highlight the interactions among its constituent elements. For the management of human‐dominated landscapes, considering the relationship between amenity and biodiversity may improve the integration of ecological and social goals.     

«Active» selection may participate in the evolution of primates

Selection pressures in the evolution of morphological characters which are exclusive to primates were discussed. While the evolutionary change in some morphological characters of primates can be explained by natural or sexual selection, there are also morphological characters of primates, such as some regions of neocortices, which are involved in social interactions and whose evolutionary changes can hardly be explained by natural or sexual selection alone. Furthermore, recent studies have demonstrated that relative sizes of brain, neocortex and some thalamic nuclei of brains differ significantly by social structure in primates. Based on these and other findings, we propose here that “active” selection pressures may have favored a variety of morphological characters related to social interactions, the selection pressures which are derived from social interactions and are operative within animals or troops. The introduction of concept of active selection will be useful in developing conceptual frameworks for understanding of the mechanism of evolution of primates, in particular, of hominids.     

Mobilizing for nature in southern African community-based conservation policies, or the death of the local

Community-based natural resource management policies have been seriously criticized in the last few years. Detractors have focused either on the lack of local participation, or on the lack of ecological results. Using two of the earliest and most studied community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) initiatives in Africa (ADMADE in Zambia and CAMPFIRE in Zimbabwe), the article argues that such critics miss the actual stakes of community-based policies. These policies bring local communities into a global world, both in terms of practice and narrative. From this point of view, community-based policies must be viewed as long-term approaches to change in rural Africa, which will progressively make the local/global partition fuse into processes of continual social “mobilization”.     

沿岸边生态系统恢复决策中的人文观问题

对沿岸边生态系统的自然资源,人们有着多元性的社会价值观,这种价值观反过来又影响自然资源的政策和管理。过去的沿岸边生态系统恢复项目较少考虑人文因子,该文讨论了根据人文观而制定的生态恢复目标,具体包括:发展沿岸休闲旅游业,增加公共投资,提高教育机会,保护或改善人类健康,保护传统文化和历史的价值,提高与市场无关的价值和改进景观价值,改进整体市场活动,减少财产损失和提高财产价值,提高运输和商务,改进商业鱼虾类渔场等内容。     

Understanding the Interaction of Rural People with Ecosystems: A Case Study in a Tropical Dry Forest of Mexico

The aim of this study was to help understand the interaction of rural people with tropical dry forests. It was based on social research conducted in the Chamela-Cuixmala region, on the Pacific coast of Mexico. The analytical tools used in the study included stakeholder identification, environmental history and social perceptions. The two main social groups in the study were ejidatarios, who own most of the territory, and avecindados, who possess no land but have high population numbers. Through an interpretative methodological approach we documented the vision and meaning that rural people give to their natural and social worlds. The agricultural development model promoted by the Mexican government for decades was identified as the main driver of ecosystem transformation. Rural people, who arrived recently in the region, were proud of the pasture-lands that were transformed from tropical forests. Conservation policies implemented during the last two decades were viewed as impositions although people recognized the value of services provided by ecosystems. This case study has helped to unravel the main dimensions of the human system and how it relates to structures of signification. The social panorama unveiled can be used as an initial basis to promote further research on the social-ecological system of the Chamela-Cuixmala region and to develop future participatory management schemes.     

The extent of shifts in vegetation phenology between rural and urban areas within a human‐dominated region

Urbanization is one of the major environmental challenges facing the world today. One of its particularly pressing effects is alterations to local and regional climate through, for example, the Urban Heat Island. Such changes in conditions are likely to have an impact on the phenology of urban vegetation, which will have knock‐on implications for the role that urban green infrastructure can play in delivering multiple ecosystem services. Here, in a human‐dominated region, we undertake an explicit comparison of vegetation phenology between urban and rural zones. Using satellite‐derived MODIS‐EVI data from the first decade of the 20th century, we extract metrics of vegetation phenology (date of start of growing season, date of end of growing season, and length of season) for Britain's 15 largest cities and their rural surrounds. On average, urban areas experienced a growing season 8.8 days longer than surrounding rural zones. As would be expected, there was a significant decline in growing season length with latitude (by 3.4 and 2.4 days/degree latitude in rural and urban areas respectively). Although there is considerable variability in how phenology in urban and rural areas differs across our study cities, we found no evidence that built urban form influences the start, end, or length of the growing season. However, the difference in the length of the growing season between rural and urban areas was significantly negatively associated with the mean disposable household income for a city. Vegetation in urban areas deliver many ecosystem services such as temperature mitigation, pollution removal, carbon uptake and storage, the provision of amenity value for humans and habitat for biodiversity. Given the rapid pace of urbanization and ongoing climate change, understanding how vegetation phenology will alter in the future is important if we wish to be able to manage urban greenspaces effectively.     

Linking land to ocean: feedbacks in the management of socio-ecological systems in the Great Barrier Reef catchments

The Great Barrier Reef (GBR) off Australia’s northeast coast is one of the natural wonders of the world. As a consequence it has high value, not only for biodiversity, but also for tourists who come to see the GBR and the biodiversity associated with it, bringing in over A$3.5B per annum to the Australian economy. However, there are a number of natural and anthropogenic factors that are threatening the health of the reef ecosystems. One of the major anthropogenic factors is the impact of sediments and nutrients that run off the land, via the rivers, into the lagoon of the reef. Extensive beef production is one of the major land uses of the GBR catchment, and brings in over $1B to the national economy annually and employs nearly 9,000 people, many of them in rural communities. Over 70% of terrestrial sediments and nutrients deposited in the GBR lagoon affecting the health of vulnerable reef ecosystems originate from the extensive grazing lands of Queensland’s interior. Recent research indicates that the quantity of sediments and nutrients lost from these grazing lands is strongly dependent upon grazing management practices; grazing leads to degradation of soil and vegetation resources, reduced infiltration and vegetation production. This has led to a growing concern amongst the Australian public about the environmental performance of the beef industry and increasing pressures on graziers to change their management practices to decrease the off-farm impacts. Given the constraints within the system improvements in water quality draining into the GBR lagoon can best be achieved by demonstrating the productivity and economic benefits of science-based improved grazing management practices for graziers, leading to “AllWin” outcomes for all concerned. In the longer term, only when the range of stakeholders involved approach catchments as linked biophysical, social and economic systems, will truly integrated adaptive catchment management be applied to the GBR.     

Biodiversity Conservation and Human Well-being: Challenges for the Populations and Protected Areas of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest

The Atlantic Forest (AF) of Brazil is a highly endangered natural ecosystem whose rural human inhabitant’s socioeconomic and health situation also is generally precarious. Using a transdisciplinary and participatory methodology, the different characteristics of rural populations living near three protected areas in Santa Teresa—ES, Brazil, were investigated in a pilot project examining the human groups and the biodiversity of the region. This article presents a general overview of the project, its bioanthropological methodology, socioeconomic, demographic, environmental perception, and sanitary findings, and their possible implications for the three protected areas. A total of 178 families, living in 119 properties participated in the research. The water and sanitation infrastructure of these properties is often poor, over 85% of the cultivated land is used for products which make heavy use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers, education levels are low, and two-thirds of the inhabitants do not perceive a value in the protected areas. Hunting and extraction of forest products in the areas is common and many local animal species are highly endangered. Considering that the AF protected areas are under intense anthropogenic pressure, it is imperative to study their surrounding populations in order to propose initiatives that can contribute simultaneously to environmental conservation and the improvement of their quality of life. The project is based on the participation of the local population with the aim of contributing to a better integration of the communities with the protected areas.     

Arapaima co-management through the lens of the Protected Areas Assets Framework

An extensive network of Protected Areas (PA) has been established across the Brazilian Amazon, but this PA system still suffers from a shortage of funding resources and environmental managers. New conservation strategies that successfully align social aspirations with biodiversity conservation are therefore imperative. Although approaches exist that demonstrate the value of biodiversity conservation for society and the local/national economy, these do not always manage to capture intrinsic values or local perspectives on natural resource conservation, and this can generate limitations in the use of these approaches as conservation tools. Here, we assessed the case of arapaima (Arapaima spp.) co-management, a well-consolidated community-based conservation initiative, through the lens of the Protected Areas Asset Framework (PAAF) to investigate the material and immaterial value of PA assets. Arapaima was clearly recognized as a key biophysical natural asset by local communities, with a significant role in terms of food, cultural, economic and conservation importance, in addition to its status as an iconic and emblematic species. This study reinforces the potential of the PAAF to identify the diverse range of values associated with PAs. Our results also encourage wider support to strengthen collaborative sustainable natural resource management programmes such as arapaima co-management, which is achieving remarkable social and ecological outcomes in rural Amazonia.     

Natural Signs and the Origin of Language

This article considers natural signs and their role in the origin of language. Natural signs, sometimes called primary signs, are connected with their signified by causal relationships, concomitance, or likeliness. And their acquisition is directed by both objective reality and past experience (memory). The discovery and use of natural signs is a required prerequisite of existence for any living systems because they are indispensable to movement, the search for food, regulation, communication, and many other information-related activities. It is argued that the birth of conventional signs, sometimes called secondary signs, was determined by a connotative use of natural signs and that, regulated and maintained by them, human language developed. At the same time, the origin and development of human language presupposes a ‘rational turn’ from the given and external reality of natural signs to the rationally constructed reality of artificial signs and rules that are internally maintained by the subjects’ deliberate activities, and actual and inherited social tradition (social memory). In view of this, language is defined as a dynamic system that must both be natural and artificial, empirical and a priori, inductive and deductive. This bilateral origin and regulation of language is the dual-inference of language.     

Ecology and welfare of aquatic animals in wild capture fisheries

The expansion of commercial aquaculture production has raised awareness of issues relating to the welfare of aquatic animals. The “Five Freedoms” approach to animal welfare was originally devised for farmed terrestrial animals, and has been applied in some countries to aquatic animals reared in aquaculture due to several commonalities inherent within food production systems. There are now moves towards assessing and addressing aquatic animal welfare issues that may arise in wild capture fisheries. However, all “five freedoms” are regularly contradicted in the natural environment, meaning this concept is inappropriate when considering the welfare of aquatic animals in their natural environments. The feelings-based approach to welfare relies on a suffering centered view that, when applied to the natural aquatic environment, requires use of value judgements, cannot encompass scientific uncertainty regarding awareness in fish, elasmobranchs and invertebrates (despite their unquestioned welfare needs), and cannot resolve the welfare conundrums posed by predator–prey interactions or anthropocentrically mediated environmental degradation. For these reasons, the feelings-based approach to welfare is inadequate, inappropriate and must be rejected if applied to aquatic animals in wild capture fisheries, because it demonstrably ignores empirical evidence and several realities apparent within the natural aquatic environment. Furthermore, application of the feelings-based approach is counterproductive as it can alienate key fisheries stakeholders, many of whom are working to address environmental issues of critical importance to the welfare, management and conservation of aquatic animal populations in their natural environment. In contrast, the function-based and nature-based approaches for defining animal welfare appear appropriate for application to the broad range of welfare issues (including emerging environmental issues such as endocrine disruption) that affect aquatic animals in their natural environment, without the need to selectively ignore groups such as elasmobranchs and invertebrates. We consider that the welfare needs of aquatic animals are inextricably entwined with the need for conservation of their populations, communities and their environment, an approach that is entirely consistent with the concept of ecosystem-based management.