Population,poverty and economic development

Economists, demographers and other social scientists have long debated the relationship between demographic change and economic outcomes. In recent years, general agreement has emerged to the effect that improving economic conditions for individuals generally lead to lower birth rates. But, there is much less agreement about the proposition that lower birth rates contribute to economic development and help individuals and families to escape from poverty. The paper examines recent evidence on this aspect of the debate, concludes that the burden of evidence now increasingly supports a positive conclusion, examines recent trends in demographic change and economic development and argues that the countries representing the last development frontier, those of Sub-Saharan Africa, would be well advised to incorporate policies and programmes to reduce high fertility in their economic development strategies.     

杭州市区土生苔藓植物分布与生态因子的关系

在杭州市区设立的21个样点中,记录到土生苔藓植物22科31属47种.基于样点中苔藓植物种类的生态重要值和样点生态因子数据进行典范对应分析.结果表明:人为干扰和土壤pH是影响杭州市区土生苔藓植物分布的主要生态因子.在市区平原地势的公园和绿地,人为干扰较大,土壤呈碱性,苔藓植物种类以小羽藓属、真藓属和丛藓科为主;而在海拔较高的丘陵地区,人为干扰较小,土壤呈酸性,苔藓植物种类相对丰富,侧蒴藓类和苔类较多.对47种土生苔藓植物进行生态位宽度计测,多数苔藓植物的生态位宽度较窄.其中,东亚拟鳞叶藓的生态位宽度最大(0.3510),广泛分布在西湖西南的丘陵地区;平叶毛口藓和细叶小羽藓的生态位宽度次之,分别为0.2239和0.2185,是市区平原地势的公园和绿地中的常见种.     

Public support for invasive alien species eradication programs: insights from the Netherlands

Over the last few decades, the number of invasive alien species (IAS) has increased worldwide. IAS can have negative impacts on biodiversity, human health, and the economy. For a number of reasons, IAS policies and management schemes that have been implemented have not been sufficient to tackle the problem. In this article, we focus on IAS eradication and a main obstacle to eradication, namely a lack of public support. By analyzing three specific cases of IAS eradication in the Netherlands (Indian house crow; Pallas's squirrel; and American bullfrog), we show how factors initially affecting public support for eradication interact with each other and influence the effectiveness of the measures that IAS eradication managers implement in order to achieve support for their eradication programs. Our analysis provides a better understanding of the manipulability of factors affecting public support. Finally, it reveals concrete measures that IAS managers can implement in order to gain public support. A lesson for IAS eradication managers is that they can effectively aim for support for eradication, even if low public support for eradication is to be expected in first instance. In addition, this article provides insight into practical measures that IAS eradication managers can implement.     

Books received

In this article I discuss the major arguments in three of my books that are the focus of attention in this special issue. The Declining Significance of Race (1978, 2nd edn 1980), The Truly Disadvantaged (1987), and When Work Disappears (1996). This discussion serves as the backdrop for my rejoinder to the points made in the preceding articles, including those on the relative significance of race and class, social isolation, the concept ‘ghetto’, complexity of inner-city family life, and affirmative action. I conclude this article with some reflections on the plight of poor blacks and social policy in the United States.     

Patriotic Appetites and Gnawing Hungers: Food and the Paradox of Nation-building in Uzbekistan

Nations reverberate with the conundrums of unity and difference. Studies of food provide an effective way to understand this paradox as food indexes both rituals of the nation as national cuisine yet links with myriad and variable performances as it is grown, cooked and eaten. National foods enhance ethnic nationality in newly independent, increasingly authoritarian Uzbekistan where the focus is on national cuisine in part because of deprivation, rather than abundance. National cuisine is vulnerable to differences within a nation, because in the shared and embodied practices surrounding food, people make emotion-based evaluations of the nation-state. Uzbek governmental policies result in poverty, limited food production, little global food, and repression of pure Islamic practices, regions, and minority ethnic groups.     

基于社会网络分析的全球自然保护地治理模式研究

治理模式的选择在自然保护地有效治理过程中起着关键作用,适宜的治理模式是实现保护地生态、社会、经济和文化效益最大化的重要途径。但是,目前国内外保护地体制机制研究大多集中在保护地治理模式的理论体系分析、体制机制构建与经验总结等方面,缺乏对全球尺度上自然保护地治理模式的系统分析,尤其是对于目前全球保护地网络的治理模式呈现何种结构,以及各类治理模式之间是否存在关联性等更未涉及。为弥补此短板,对IUCN全球保护地数据库中全球保护地的治理模式进行统计分析,结果表明:全球自然保护地治理模式主要呈现以"政府治理"为主,其他治理模式为辅的多样化状态,并且治理模式随保护地的空间分布及保护地类型的不同呈现差异性;进一步,利用社会网络分析法对全球保护地治理模式结构进行定量与定性相结合的系统分析,分析结果表明:目前全球自然保护地治理模式呈现一个较明显的双中心"核心-边缘"网络结构特征,形成以"联邦政府或国家部门/机构"、"地方政府部门/机构"为主要治理模式,"合作管理"为次要治理模式的核心圈,在边缘处形成以"通过社区建立和管理"的治理模式为主的独立中心,说明保护地社区治理模式的重要性不容忽视;并且通过研究发现"地方政府部门/机构"与"通过非营利组织",以及"通过社区"、"通过个人土地所有者"、"政府授权管理"这两组治理模式内部的治理模式间呈现较强的关联性,这表明同一国家/地区倾向于同时采用有关联的保护地治理模式。     

基于承灾脆弱性与生态系统服务供需匹配的城市空间治理分区

城市空间普遍面临抵御灾害能力不足的问题。构建承灾脆弱性视角下的城市生态系统服务供需分析框架对提升国土空间抵御灾害的能力具有重要意义。以珠海市为例,选择与提升区域抵御自然灾害能力高度相关的生态系统服务类型,运用InVEST模型及遥感信息模型评估生态系统服务供给,构建承灾脆弱性评价模型评估需求,利用供需匹配分析识别亟需治理的风险区。研究结果表明：（1）珠海市生态系统服务有高供给高需求、高供给低需求、低供给高需求和低供给低需求4种供需匹配类型,各项服务供需失衡程度为土壤保持服务>水源涵养服务>台风灾害防护服务;（2）基于供需匹配类型和主导风险类型划分了四大类风险区,高危、中危、低危风险区和安全区面积占比为29.23%、21.70%、33.06%、16.01%,风险区等级与建设用地面积占比之间存在较好的对应关系;（3）根据风险区类别提出了多项风险综合治理区、双项风险复合治理区、主导风险专项治理区3种治理策略分区。生态系统服务供需匹配分析通过识别承灾脆弱性与承灾能力不匹配的热点区域,为区域/城市国土空间治理和增强国土空间抵御灾害的能力提供参考。     

Beyond hectares: four principles to guide reforestation in the context of tropical forest and landscape restoration

New climate change agreements emerging from the 21st Conference of the Parties and ambitious international commitments to implement forest and landscape restoration (FLR) are generating unprecedented political awareness and financial mobilization to restore forests at large scales on deforested or degraded land. Restoration interventions aim to increase functionality and resilience of landscapes, conserve biodiversity, store carbon, and mitigate effects of global climate change. We propose four principles to guide tree planting schemes focused on carbon storage and commercial forestry in the tropics in the context of FLR. These principles support activities and land uses that increase tree cover in human‐modified landscapes, while also achieving positive socioecological outcomes at local scales, in an appropriate contextualization: (1) restoration interventions should enhance and diversify local livelihoods; (2) afforestation should not replace native tropical grasslands or savanna ecosystems; (3) reforestation approaches should promote landscape heterogeneity and biological diversity; and (4) residual carbon stocks should be quantitatively and qualitatively distinguished from newly established carbon stocks. The emerging global restoration movement and its growing international support provide strong momentum for increasing tree and forest cover in mosaic landscapes. The proposed principles help to establish a platform for FLR implementation and monitoring based on a broad set of socioenvironmental benefits including, but not solely restricted, to carbon mitigation and wood production.     

Reflooding the Faguibine floodplain system,northern Mali: potential benefits and challenges

The Faguibine system, northern Mali, consists of a series of interconnected floodplains of which the flooded surface area declined from about 1 000 km² in the late 19th century to only some 90 km² in 2010. Flood extent depends on the height of the Niger River flood peak at Diré. Satellite imagery analysis indicated that a phase shift may have occurred in the year 2000, probably as a delayed consequence of the Sahelian drought of the 1970s compounded by the collapse of societal controls on water use during recent civil conflict. An economic evaluation of the system in 2011 showed US$100 000 per year of net income per flooded km² in Lake Faguibine, allowing vulnerable people to practise recession agriculture, to fish and to graze livestock. An intensive investment phase, combined with an approach of rebuilding local governance systems and environmental management capacity, could yield net benefits to the user communities of the order of ten times the maintenance costs, contributing to human well-being. The system is currently threatened by the building of the Fomi Dam in Guinea and by the planned expansion of irrigation upstream. There is also a risk of the return of a prolonged drought linked to the Atlantic multi-decadal oscillation index.     

公立医院治理公法人化刍议

公立医院公法人是一项重要的组织手段与法律制度,其目的在于通过法人的身份独立与行为自主,实现公立医院的自治与绩效,使公立医院由官僚化的单位治理模式向自主化的法人治理模式的演变;使公立医院在以法人化的方式应对行政科层制的弊端的同时,须强化对公立医院的监督,实现公益性。介绍了公立医院事业法人的弊端、公立医院治理公法人化的时代背景及意义,构建了我国公立医院公法人化的基本框架。