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Journal Article Plantations in the Sahel(1981) Keita, J. D."The Sahel is threatened with a medium-term ecological crisis that stems mainly from bad agricultural and pastoral practices. Faced with this crisis - which includes serious shortages of fuelwood for household needs - foresters have reacted by establishing plantations of exotic species of trees for fuelwood needs. These plantations are designed to be set up and maintained with machinery for clearing land and working the soil. Machinery will have to be imported and the machines in turn will require imported fuel, all to be paid for with scarce foreign exchange. The question is, will not Sahelian forestry consume too much energy for the sake of creating energy? It is not a simple question to answer. Its answer, which this article attempts to give, may also be useful beyond the Sahel, anywhere in the world where similar ecological, economic and human factors exist in combination."Journal Article Local Practices and the Decentralization and Devolution of Natural Resource Management in French-speaking West Africa(1994) Onibon, Alain; Dabiré, Bernard; Ferroukhi, Lyés"This article reflects on local practices and the decentralization and devolution of natural resource management in French-speaking West Africa. The term 'local practices' means not only local approaches, methods and techniques for managing natural resources but also, and more significantly, the roles and functions of local institutions and structures - non-governmental organizations (NGOs), small farmers' associations, youth associations, local administrative units, traditional and local chiefs, decentralized technical and administrative structures, etc. - that are actively involved in managing the resources. The article does not dwell on the context of natural resource management or on how devolution is proceeding in the countries of the subregion; rather, it concentrates on identifying the main questions that challenge the various actors."Journal Article Silviculture's Role in Managing Boreal Forests(1998) Graham, Russell T.; Jain, Theresa B."Boreal forests, which are often undeveloped, are a major source of raw materials for many countries. They are circumpolar in extent and occupy a belt to a width of 1000 km in certain regions. Various conifer and hardwood species ranging from true firs to poplars grow in boreal forests. These species exhibit a wide range of shade tolerance and growth characteristics, and occupy different successional positions. The climate is subarctic, with short growing seasons, and the soils are shallow. Both wildfires and timber harvesting play an important role in shaping the structure and composition of boreal forests. Both uneven-aged and even-aged silvicultural systems can be used to produce commercial harvests, but systems can also be designed to meet a variety of other forest management objectives. Wildlife habitat maintenance, water production or conservation, and fire hazard reduction are only some of the objectives for which silvicultural systems can be designed. Coarse wood debris, snags, shrubs, canopy layers, and species composition are examples of forest attributes that can be managed using silvicultural systems. Systems can be designed to sustain predator habitat, yet provide a continual production of wood products. Uneven-aged systems tend to favor the regeneration and development of shade-tolerant species, whereas even-aged systems tend to favor shade-intolerant species. These systems and all of their permutations can create and maintain a suite of different stand compositions and structures that can be used to meet a wide variety of management objectives."Journal Article Native People and the Environmental Regime in the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement(1999) Peters, Evelyn J."A major objective of the Cree and Inuit in signing the 1975 James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement was to protect the environment and thus secure their way of life based on harvesting activities. The main elements of the federal, provincial, and Agreement environmental protection regimes are compared with respect to principles derived from the growing literature on indigenous peoples and environmental assessment. The Agreement contained pioneering provisions for environmental assessment; yet those provisions have not met many of the expectations of the Native people. Part of the dissatisfaction derives from the Agreement itself: some sections are vague and difficult to translate into practices; the advisory committee structures are not well suited to Native cultures; and the right to develop is woven throughout the sections on environmental protection. However, failures and delays in implementing the Agreement have also contributed to this dissatisfaction. These issues have implications for the negotiation strategies of other groups."Journal Article Managing Science/Management Partnerships: A Challenge of Adaptive Management: A response to: Walters. 1997. 'Challenges in Adaptive Management of Riparian and Coastal Ecosystems'(1998) Rogers, Kevin"Although Walters' synthesis was not encouraging for those embarking on programs of adaptive management, it is good to see the sorts of problems many of us experience emerging from unpublished practice. This can only lead to increased implementation of adaptive management."Journal Article Tropical Forest Management Options, Social Diversity and Extension in Eastern Amazonia(1996) May, Peter H.; Pastuk, Marilia"This article describes two recent experiences in forestry extension that have accommodated diverse local perceptions and interests in Paragominas, a municipality in Brazil's eastern Amazonia."Journal Article Winter Responses of Forest Birds to Habitat Corridors and Gaps(1998) St. Clair, Colleen Cassady; Belisle, Marc; Desrochers, Andre; Hannon, Susan"Forest fragmentation and habitat loss may disrupt the movement or dispersal of forest-dwelling birds. Despite much interest in the severity of these effects and ways of mitigating them, little is known about actual movement patterns in different habitat types. We studied the movement of wintering resident birds, lured by playbacks of mobbing calls, to compare the willingness of forest birds to travel various distances in continuous forest, along narrow corridors (fencerows), and across gaps in forest cover. We also quantified the willingness of Black-capped Chickadees (Poecile atricapillus) to cross gaps when alternative forested detour routes were available. All species were less likely to respond to the calls as distance increased to 200 m, although White-breasted Nuthatches (Sitta carolinensis) and Hairy Woodpeckers (Picoides villosus) were generally less likely to respond than chickadees and Downy Woodpeckers (P. pubescens). Chickadees were as likely to travel in corridors as in continuous forest, but were less likely to cross gaps as the gap distance increased. The other species were less willing to travel in corridors and gaps relative to forest, and the differences among habitats also increased with distance. For chickadees, gap-crossing decisions in the presence of forested detours varied over the range of distances that we tested, and were primarily influenced by detour efficiency (the length of the shortcut relative to the available detour). Over short distances, birds used forested detours, regardless of their efficiency. As absolute distances increased, birds tended to employ larger shortcuts in the open when detour efficiency was low or initial distance in the open was high, but they limited their distance from the nearest forest edge to 25 m. Thus, chickadees were unwilling to cross gaps of > 50 m when they had forested alternatives, yet they sometimes crossed gaps as large as 200 m when no such choice existed. Our results suggest that the presence of corridors enhanced the movement of some, but not all, forest birds, and that even chickadees, which were less sensitive to gap width, preferred not to venture far from forest cover."Journal Article New Markets and New Commons: Opportunities in the global casino(1995) Henderson, Hazel"The United Nations is well positioned for the global changes of the information age now engulfing nation-states. The UN role and tasks--as global norm setter, broker, networker, convener, and peacekeeper--are ideally suited to today's world of linked 'infostructures' and distributed power, influence, and knowledge typified by the emerging global civil society. The UN can serve all these emerging infostructures--and be compensated by fostering debates and convening parties to design the needed agreements for operating the emerging 'electronic commons' including today's global financial casino. Technological, social, and some market opportunities in new public/private partnerships to serve the global commons."Journal Article Marisquadoras of the Shellfish Revolution: The Rise of Women in Co-management on Illa de Arousa, Galicia(1995) Meltzoff, Sarah Keene"Organized along two story lines, this paper threads both together in order to understand the political ecology of Illa. The first line is that of the macrostructural changes that made up the shellfish revolution. Outside Illa's fishing culture, these political economic events are categorized by EC involvement in Galician fisheries and post-Franco infrastructure development. The second line is that of the local culture of the marisquadoras. Political ecology calls for such a multilevel, historical approach that links the local culture to macrostructural changes (R. Bryant 1992, R.Neumann 1992). In Illa, the macro and the local converge when the cofradia is in the unique social situation of hiring a local professional director who is able to initiate progressive shellfish comanagement. The marisquadoras are empowered in the process, joining in comanagement and attaining a new community status. This paper examines the convergence that facilitates change. It explores how women's new political status is not invented by an outsider, but rather is built upon existing values, deriving from the cultural roles of the marisquadoras, the sexual division of labor in shellfishing and the position of women as family bankers."Journal Article Uses of Wood and Non-wood Forest Products by Amazon Forest Dwellers(1996) Dubois, Jean C.L."Some observations on the use of wood and non-wood forest products by Indians and riverain populations in the Amazon region. For centuries, Amazonian Indians have lived from shifting agriculture, fishing, hunting and harvesting forest products. In the transition region between the Amazon forest and the cerrado (savannah) some afforestation, using native species, has even been performed by the Kayapó Indians, with the objective, among others, of increasing their sources of wood and non-wood products."