Biodiversity and stakeholder participation

Consensus building through stakeholder participation is a promising new trend that takes into account the interactive character of the communication process. There is a growing realisation that stakeholder participation has a significant role to play in the development and delivery of biodiversity policy and practice. Experience and best practice from activities such as the designation and management of Natura 2000 and Integrated Coastal Zone Management shows that problem solving and conflict management are significantly enhanced through participative processes. There is therefore the potential for a change to take place in the way that biodiversity policy is developed and implemented. This brings challenges to the biodiversity community in terms of developing new skills and processes and in engaging with new agendas and sectors.     

Brazil cannot risk its environmental leadership

Brazil is an international environmental leader that has led important negotiations to set sustainable development targets over the last decade. However, in terms of national policies, Brazil is consistently making decisions that go against the global policies it ratifies. For instance, Brazilian governors have recently revised the Brazilian Forest Act ‐ its main environmental legislation on private land, reduced the area covered by some protected areas and allowed the creation of new hydropower plants on undisturbed Amazonian rivers, and have plans to open indigenous reserves to mining. Among other consequences, these controversial actions made by national leaders may increase CO₂ emissions and propel a massive loss of species, with irreversible consequences to the provision of ecosystem services and goods. In this paper, I present inconsistent actions made by policy and decision makers in Brazil and argue for a more focused environmental decision in Brazil, which matches the country's international position as a leader and that could help Brazil to achieve the status of a biodiversity superpower.     

Actions to alleviate the mental health impact of the economic crisis

The current global economic crisis is expected to produce adverse mental health effects that may increase suicide and alcohol-related death rates in affected countries. In nations with greater social safety nets, the health impacts of the economic downturn may be less pronounced. Research indicates that the mental health impact of the economic crisis can be offset by various policy measures. This paper aims to outline how countries can safeguard and support mental health in times of economic downturn. It indicates that good mental health cannot be achieved by the health sector alone. The determinants of mental health often lie outside of the remits of the health system, and all sectors of society have to be involved in the promotion of mental health. Accessible and responsive primary care services support people at risk and can prevent mental health consequences. Any austerity measures imposed on mental health services need to be geared to support the modernization of mental health care provision. Social welfare supports and active labour market programmes aiming at helping people retain or re-gain jobs can counteract the mental health effects of the economic crisis. Family support programmes can also make a difference. Alcohol pricing and restrictions of alcohol availability reduce alcohol harms and save lives. Support to tackle unmanageable debt will also help to reduce the mental health impact of the crisis. While the current economic crisis may have a major impact on mental health and increase mortality due to suicides and alcohol-related disorders, it is also a window of opportunity to reform mental health care and promote a mentally healthy lifestyle.     

California Porcini: Three New Taxa,Observations on Their Harvest,and the Tragedy of No Commons<Superscript>1</Superscript>

California Porcini: Three New Taxa, Observations on their Harvest, and the Tragedy of No Commons. Seven species of California porcini (Boletus, sect. Boletus) are recognized, including three new taxa that are culturally and economically significant: B. rex-veris sp. nov., B. regineus sp. nov., and B. edulis var. grandedulis var. nov. The three new taxa have been intensively gathered during the last century by Italian immigrants, and B. rex-veris sp. nov. more recently by southeast Asian immigrants as well as by long-time rural residents. B. rex-veris sp. nov. is restricted to inland mountains while the other two are widely distributed, and are abundant in California’s heavily populated coastal zone. In the 1990s, reflecting the preservationist policies of mainstream environmental organizations, many park authorities and land management agencies in coastal California closed public lands to mushroom gathering. Organized attempts to establish legal, limited gathering in a few parks were almost entirely unsuccessful. The result is that it is illegal to pick porcini on nearly all public lands over a 6,000-square-mile area, even though they grow prolifically in coastal California. Many of coastal California’s porcini are picked anyway by those willing to risk being apprehended and fined. In response to the official intolerance for mushroom gathering, an entire generation of mushroom hunters has grown up practicing the activity in secret.     

The dissection of a stick insect

The application of the carbon-14 ‘light and dark bottle’ technique for school or college use is described. Details are given for a simplified method suitable for a three-hour laboratory session. The method requires either a Geiger or liquid scintillation counter. Examples of class results are provided along with suggestions for further applications in an ecological context.     

Reducing soil erosion and the loss of soil fertility for environmentally-sustainable agricultural cropping and livestock production systems

My proposals for reducing soil erosion are based on my experience of assessing erosion, largely in Britain, both of cultivated land and of upland grazings. I have assessed the extent and rates of erosion in the field mostly by using easily‐ and rapidly‐used photographic and measurement techniques, rather than by using experimental plots set up either in the field or laboratory which overstate erosion. Policies which have governed the economics of agricultural production have also been examined. Much of the increase in occurrence of runoff and soil erosion in Britain is due to changes in land use and in intensity of use since the Agriculture Act was passed in 1947, and especially since joining the Common Market in 1973, with its even greater emphasis on paying for increased production. The increasing numbers of animals grazing the land, especially sheep, led to the initiation and erosion of bare soil in the uplands and to trampling and puddling of soils in lowland pastures. There is evidence that runoff from the land, and sedimentation of water courses have also increased. In the cultivated lowlands, the expansion in area of land drilled to winter cereals, the increase in area of land sown to maize or used to rear outdoor pigs, changes in farming techniques, and larger machines working in larger fields can explain much of the increase in erosion. Reversing some of these changes, for example by lowering the intensity of grazing and inserting grass (set‐aside) into the arable rotation will reduce the extent of erosion. Other techniques to reduce erosion are well‐known but need national and international agricultural policies that improve farmers' incomes to bring them into use. In developed countries, erosion need not reduce soil fertility, as nutrients removed from the soil by animals or crops can be affordably replaced. This may not be so in other parts of the world. Education of farmers also has a vital role to play in persuading them to use the land more sustainably, for many of the impacts of erosion such as flooding and pollution of water supplies bear on society as a whole, not just farmers who are themselves little affected. The principles devised to reduce erosion in developed countries are likely to be successful in developing countries. However, it may take many years for better and more sustainable agricultural policies at national and international level to be devised and brought into being.     

Slide Transparencies

Abstract

Ernest Pascarella and Patrick Terenzini. How College Affects Students. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1991. 792 pages. $75 hardback; $39.95 paperback.