Balancing Conservation with Development in Small-Scale Fisheries: Is Ecotourism an Empty Promise?

This paper uses a political ecology approach to examine whether ecotourism along the Pacific Coast of the Baja California peninsula in Mexico promotes stewardship of marine resources, which have been devastated in recent years by uncontrolled commercial harvesting. This case illustrates how conflicts over access to common-pool resources that fueled the demise of area fisheries are now emerging in the rapidly growing industry of recreational whale watching. Even if ecotourism provides a significant new source of income through environmentally friendly, nonconsumptive resource use, it may not be sufficient to discouragelocal people from engaging in other, more destructive forms of consumptive resource use. But resource conflicts may not preclude efforts to promote conservation through ecotourism. Along the shores of Baja's gray whale calving lagoons there are nascent, community-based organizations that could serve as vehicles for mobilizing local people into conservation efforts, if local access rights to marine resources were both secure and accorded preference over outside claims to the same.     

Structure and dynamics of helix-0 of the N-BAR domain in lipid micelles and bilayers

Bin/Amphiphysin/Rvs-homology (BAR) domains generate and sense membrane curvature by binding the negatively charged membrane to their positively charged concave surfaces. N-BAR domains contain an N-terminal extension (helix-0) predicted to form an amphipathic helix upon membrane binding. We determined the NMR structure and nano-to-picosecond dynamics of helix-0 of the human Bin1/Amphiphysin II BAR domain in sodium dodecyl sulfate and dodecylphosphocholine micelles. Molecular dynamics simulations of this 34-amino acid peptide revealed electrostatic and hydrophobic interactions with the detergent molecules that induce helical structure formation from residues 8-10 toward the C-terminus. The orientation in the micelles was experimentally confirmed by backbone amide proton exchange. The simulation and the experiment indicated that the N-terminal region is disordered, and the peptide curves to adopted the micelle shape. Deletion of helix-0 reduced tubulation of liposomes by the BAR domain, whereas the helix-0 peptide itself was fusogenic. These findings support models for membrane curving by BAR domains in which helix-0 increases the binding affinity to the membrane and enhances curvature generation.     

Yucatec Maya Medicinal Plants Versus Nonmedicinal Plants: Indigenous Characterization and Selection

Medicinal plants are an important part of the environment as it is perceived by Mexican indigenous groups. The aim of this study, which was conducted over a period of 18 months in three Yucatec Mayan communities, is to better understand the selection criteria for medicinal plants. An important group of selection criteria are the flavor and aroma of plants. The absence of smell or taste indicates that the taxon has no potential medical value. Medicinal plants are more often considered to be sweet or aromatic (to smell good) or astringent, while a similar percentage of medicinal and nonmedicinal plants are considered bitter, spicy, acidic, or bad smelling. The relationship between the ethnobotanical data obtained for the individual plants and the secondary plant products (natural products) prominent in each species is specifically addressed in this paper. It shows that an understanding of the indigenous concepts used to distinguish medicinal from nonmedicinal species has considerable heuristic value.