Methodological Reflections on the Use of Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Science in Human Ecological Research

Environmental analysts increasingly utilize remote sensing (RS) and geographic information science (GIS) techniques to study the relationship between human societies and their biophysical environment. This paper considers the influence these techniques have had on environmental research. Using the case of the Sahel, the paper first relates contemporary applications of RS/GIS to the history of the environmental scientific practice in the region. While facilitating an expansion of spatiotemporal scales, applications of these new techniques continue the methodological failings of the past by relying on visual measures of environmental change and problematic indicators of human land-use pressures. The human ecology fields (human, cultural, and political ecologies), by emphasizing the causal connections between local management and environmental change, can address the problems inherent with the spatial analytical turn in environmental science. Using the author's experience with the use of GIS in a political ecology study of grazing management in western Niger, ways of more closely integrating RS/GIS techniques into human ecological research are discussed.     

Conservation of arboreal herbivores: The Australian scene

Abstract A common global issue in biological conservation, that of land use allocation and subsequent management practice, is also at the core of the problem of conserving arboreal herbivores in Australia. The problem is caused by a number of biological and cultural factors. Many populations of Australia's terrestrial vertebrate fauna species of forest and woodland environments, including notably the arboreal herbivores, are concentrated in habitats on soils relatively rich in nutrients. Such habitats are limited due to (i) Australia's general aridity and its naturally poor endowment of soils of reasonable quality, and (ii) the extent to which habitats on the better soils have been cleared to service Australia's social and economic development. Land clearing has focused on these better soils because of cultural traditions in agriculture, and society's recognition of the importance of ‘good’ soils to a nation's development. As a result, Australia has legislation and numerous government policies and programmes that aim to identify and make maximum use of the productive potential of Australia's land. For example, the Crown Lands Alienation Act of 1861 was enacted expressly to transfer land from public to private or leasehold tenure and to develop those lands best suited for agriculture and pastoralism. As a result, from 1861 to the end of the nineteenth century, large areas were extensively cleared and potentially commercial forests were destroyed. The remaining uncleared land in private tenure today carries a major part of the woodland and forest resource on the better soils. Woodland and forest associations on these soils are generally poorly represented in reserves. Furthermore, the Australian constitution, and laws concerning the rights of the private landholder and the use of forest resources on leasehold land, indirectly or implicitly encourage or otherwise act to minimize the constraints on continued land clearing. From the above facts and because human populations are expected to increase, the prognosis for Australia's woodland and forest fauna, including the arboreal herbivores, is one of ongoing loss of important habitats. This paper suggests the following measures for ameliorating this loss: identify strategically important habitats, and encourage private philanthropic purchase or government purchase of timber rights, or subsidize the management of these habitats; examine possible trade-offs in public expenditures on forest administration and management in return for public purchase of privately held forests; establish educational programmes that encourage a conservation ethic and a better community understanding of the realities and the extent of the difficulties to be addressed.     

In the Time of Frost: El Niño and the Political Ecology of Vulnerability in Papua New Guinea

ABSTRACT

Climatic anomalies associated with El Niño bring prolonged droughts and night-time frosts that devastate subsistence gardens in the Papua New Guinea highlands. As a customary process of adaptation to the subsequent food insecurity caused by crop-destroying frosts, people migrate to lower altitude areas where kin and friends provide sustenance and social support. However, with increasing economic development and the demise of collective kin endeavours in the region, long-distance migration networks no longer appear to offer people respite from food insecurity. In this paper, I examine the changes in social responses to El Niño-caused food shortages at varying scales – from subsistence farmers to international aid agencies – over the past several El Niño events. The paper explores the production of vulnerability when customary social-ecological systems of adaptation intersect with regional and national politics, development efforts, and humanitarian aid agencies.     

Warfare,terrain, and political expansion

Very little explicit attention has been paid to the determinants of political borders and why they form at one location rather than another. With a statistically significant frequency, the political borders on the island of Tahiti at contact coincided with ridge formations that radiated from the island's interior and crossed the coastal plain to meet the sea in steep cliffs or bluffs. Since warfare had become the primary means of political expansion by contact, the determinants of this striking correlation appear to have been the strategic problems these features posed to the extension of armed might. These same processes were at work on many other Polynesian islands with the result that contactera variations in the degree of political unification and even sociopolitical development can be traced in considerable part to variations in island topography.     

“金课”背景下生物化学课程教学的创新与实践

传统课程教学存在教学理念与目标陈旧、教学能力与资源不足、信息化融合程度低、局限课堂有限时空和教材有限内容、忽略学生思政素养与综合能力培养等问题,不适于新时代高素质人才培养。生物化学课程团队从理念目标、魅力能力、平台资源、知识体系、教学时空、教学模式、思政育人、评价体系等方面推进了课程的全方位系统性改革,通过树立“全面育人、学生中心、产出导向、开放共享”教学理念,提升团队教学能力与课程优质平台资源,构建“教学+科研+实践”融合式新育人模式、“3+X”复合型新知识体系,教学与育人相融相促新教学模式、多维度过程式新评价体系,使课程凸显出新时代“金课”特征,提升了学生思政素养、课程成绩、综合能力,实现了价值塑造、知识传授、能力培养的有机协同,并成为国家级一流课程、省级课程思政示范课程。     

HOW WILL THE ECONOMIC DOWNTURN AFFECT ACADEMIC BIOETHICS?

An educated guess about the future of academic bioethics can only be made on the basis of the historical conditions of its success. According to its official history, which attributes its success primarily to the service it has done for the patient, it should be safe at least as long as the patient still needs its service. Like many other academic disciplines, it might suffer under the present economic downturn. However, in the plausible assumption that its social role has not been exhausted yet, it should recover as soon as the economy does. But if, as this paper tries to argue, the success of academic bioethics should be attributed first and foremost to the service it has done for the neoliberal agenda, then its future would have to depend on the fate of the latter. The exact implications of the downturn for the neoliberal agenda are obviously impossible to predict. Among the various options, however, the one of going back to ‘normal’ seems to be the least likely. The other options suggest that the future of academic bioethics, as we have known it, is bleak.     

Settlement Hierarchies and Political Complexity in Nonmarket Societies: The Formative Period of the Valley of Mexico

Archaeologists have long recognized that increases in political centralization often coincide with the growth of regional settlement hierarchies. Here I develop a theoretical model which explicitly relates certain aspects of political complexity to variation in settlement size. This model applies specifically to hierarchical societies without well-developed market economies—societies which Service would classify as chiefdoms and (perhaps) simple states. Using settlement data from the Formative Period Valley of Mexico, I show how this model is useful in measuring (1) the number of levels in a regional hierarchy, (2) the degree of political centralization, and (3) the relative amount of surplus food mobilized to support the political establishment.     

The Soviet Sausage Renaissance

ABSTRACT  In Lithuania, the first country to secede from the Soviet Union, the term Soviet has been used in public space to refer to the vanished Soviet empire and to experiences of colonization and resistance. However, in 1998, the "Soviet" symbol was successfully revived in the Lithuanian consumer food market as a brand name for meat products—primarily sausages. In this article, I argue that the market is a political arena in which values, ideologies, identities, and history are being shaped. The marketing and consumption of "Soviet" sausages is a form of political engagement that negotiates current power relations and inequalities. The meanings and practices surrounding "Soviet" sausages tell an intriguing story about broader processes of change. The "Soviet" sausage renaissance in Lithuania implies a critique of the postsocialist neoliberal state and constitutes an attempt to create an alternative modernity that is both post-Soviet and European.     

强化能力培养的微生物学混合式教学实践

微生物学课程强调实践和应用性,在重视以传统教学方式进行知识体系讲授的基础上,需加强并有效考核学生实践创新能力培养,从而服务于本专业人才培养需求。本教学改革从多个方面探索实践：明确课程能力培养目标,树立以学生为中心,全课程贯穿课程思政,重视科教融合的教学理念;充分利用信息化教学手段,系统采用“教师讲授LBL+团队学习TBL+案例教学PBL”多种方式打造高效教学课堂;以项目式综合实验优化实践教学,培养学生实践能力和创新能力;构建多元化考评体系量化学生高阶能力的培养。通过教学实践,显著提高了教学效果,激发了学生的学习兴趣,实践创新能力得到明显提高,在学科竞赛和论文发表中取得了较好成绩,为培养具有专业特色的人才奠定了良好的基础。     

Village division in lowland South America: The case of the Bakairí Indians of central Brazil

A Brazilian Indian village divided into several settlements during the 1980s. In this article, the political ecology approach is used to account for the process whereby this occurred. Data on ecology, subsistence practices, demography, and regional dynamics are presented. Analysis of results explores the articulation between shifts in population levels both in the region and in the Indian reservation, on one hand, with environmental stresses on reservation resources. The effects on national economic development programs on the regional and local levels are also discussed. The relationship between these policies and programs, on one hand, and alterations in local production systems are made explicit.