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Journal Article Impact of Cropping Methods on Biodiversity in Coffee Agroecosystems in Sumatra, Indonesia(2004) Gillison, Andrew N.; Liswanti, Nining; Budidarsono, Suseno; van Noordwijk, Meine; Tomich, Thomas V."The sustainable management of biodiversity and productivity in forested lands requires an understanding of key interactions between socioeconomic and biophysical factors and their response to environmental change. Appropriate baseline data are rarely available. As part of a broader study on biodiversity and profitability, we examined the impact of different cropping methods on biodiversity (plant species richness) along a subjectively determined land-use intensity gradient in southern Sumatra, ranging from primary and secondary forest to coffee-farming systems (simple, complex, with and without shade crops) and smallholder coffee plantings, at increasing levels of intensity. We used 24 (40 x 5 m) plots to record site physical data, including soil nutrients and soil texture together with vegetation structure, all vascular plant species, and plant functional types (PFT's readily observable, adaptive, morphological features). Biodiversity was lowest under simple, intensive, non-shaded farming systems and increased progressively through shaded and more complex agroforests to late secondary and closed-canopy forests. The most efficient single indicators of biodiversity and soil nutrient status were PFT richness and a derived measure of plant functional complexity. Vegetation structure, tree dry weight, and duration of the land-use type, to a lesser degree, were also highly correlated with biodiversity. Together with a vegetation, or V index, the close correspondence between these variables and soil nutrients suggests they are potentially useful indicators of coffee production and profitability across different farming systems. These findings provide a unique quantitative basis for a subsequent study of the nexus between biodiversity and profitability."Journal Article The Primacy of Authors in Achieving Open Access(2004) Suber, Peter"Of all the groups that want open access to scientific and scholarly research literature, only one is in a position to deliver it: authors. There are three reasons why: 1) authors decide whether to submit their work to OA journals; 2) authors decide whether to deposit their work in OA archives; 3) authors decide whether to transfer copyright. "If you support OA, then the good news is that authors don't need anyone else's permission or cooperation to provide OA to their own work. The bad news is that research authors are notoriously anarchical and do not act as a bloc. If you oppose OA, then simply switch the good news and the bad."Journal Article Clinician or Meta-Theorist? About Eclecticism and Consistency in Contemporary CPR Studies(2004) Marin, Andrei"Professor Poteete’s commentary describes some of the mechanisms and sources of conceptual inconsistency in the study of common property and underlines the importance of consistency in order to both communicate effectively and make our research more relevant. While the analysis provides a valuable perspective on disciplinary division, politics and conceptual evolution as sources of conceptual inconsistency in the CPR research, some additional points might prove helpful."Journal Article Learning from Traditional Knowledge of Non-Timber Forest Products: Penan Benalui and the Autecology of Aquilaria in Indonesian Borneo(2004) Donovan, D. G.; Puri, R. K."Traditional knowledge, promoted to make conservation and development more relevant and socially acceptable, is shown to have an important role in identifying critical research needs in tropical ecology. Botanists, foresters, and phytochemists, among others, from many countries have sought for decades to understand the process of resin formation in the genus Aquilaria, a tropical forest tree of South and Southeast Asia. Not every tree develops the resin and, despite extensive scientific research, this process remains poorly understood. Attempts at cultivating the valuable aromatic resin, gaharu, have been uneven at best. Thus, gaharu remains largely a natural forest product, increasingly under threat as the trees are overexploited and forest is cleared. In this paper, we compare scientific knowledge and traditional knowledge of the Penan Benalui and other forest product collectors of Indonesian Borneo. Although limited management of wildlings failed to bring the resin-producing species under cultivation, we found that the Penan recognize the complex ecology of resin formation involving two, or maybe three, living organisms--the tree, one or more fungi, and possibly an insect intermediary. Developing a sustainable production system for this resource will require a clear understanding of how these various natural elements function, separately and synergistically. Traditional knowledge can help fill gaps in our information base and identify promising areas for future research. Both correspondence and gaps in knowledge support the call for a greater role for ethnobiological research and interdisciplinary cooperation, especially between ethnobiologists and foresters, in developing sustainable management systems for this traditional resource and its natural habitat."Journal Article Sustaining Livelihoods on Mongolia's Pastoral Commons: Insights from a Participatory Poverty Assessment(2004) Mearns, Robin"Under the socialist regime that prevailed until the start of the 1990s, Mongolia made great progress in improving human development indicators, and poverty was virtually unknown. Political and economic transition in the 1990s ushered in a rapid rise in asset and income inequality, and at least a third of the population has been living in poverty since 1995. Many workers made redundant from uneconomic state-owned enterprises were absorbed into the extensive livestock sector in rural areas and by the growing informal economy in urban areas. The livestock sector grew dramatically, with herders accounting for over a third of the total population and half of the active labour force by the late 1990s. Three consecutive years of drought and harsh winters in 1999-2002 then drastically reduced the national herd. These trends are viewed against a backdrop of relative neglect of the livestock sector in development priorities and a concomitant decline in agricultural productivity. Pressures on common pasture have mounted, and conflict over grazing is becoming endemic. In such a context, sustainable management of Mongolia's pastoral commons should be central to the country's economic development agenda in general, and to its poverty reduction strategy in particular. This article draws on the findings of a country-wide participatory poverty assessment conducted in 2000. Blending quantitative and qualitative data, these findings help to bring into sharper relief the broad outlines of an integrated approach to building secure and sustainable livelihoods both on and off the pastoral commons."Journal Article Forest Product Use, Conservation and Livelihoods: The Case of Uppage Fruit Harvest in the Western Ghats, India(2004) Rai, Nitin D.; Uhl, Christopher F."The harvest and sale of non-timber forest products (NTFP) by local communities has been suggested as a possible solution to the often observed conflict between forest use and forest conservation. Recent studies have, however, suggested that the economic rewards might be constant, and that ecological effects of harvest might be higher than previously believed. In India trade in NTFP has a long history, but few studies have explored both the ecological and socio-economic aspects of harvest. We report here the results of a socio-economic and ecological study on the harvest of fruits from the rainforest tree uppage (Garcinia gummigutta), which occurs in the tropical forests of the Western Ghats. We studied the characteristics of uppage fruit harvest, socio-economic factors that influence harvest, and the ecological effect of fruit harvest under differing tenurial regimes. Our findings suggest that dependence on NTFP harvest by local communities might be problematic due to market instability, patchy resource distribution, inequitable access to forest resources within the village and lack of security of tenure."Journal Article Un Semillero de Ideas: Congresso Mundial en Oaxaca(2004) Gijsbers, WimIssue entitled Gobiernos de Bienes Comunes (En Una Era de Globalizacion). "Del 9 a 13 de agosto se llevara cabo un congreso mundial de suma importancia para Oaxaca, no solo por la participacion de personas de todo el mundo, sino tambien por el tema tan actual para nuestro estado: 'Los Recursos de Uso Comun en una Era de Transicion Global; retos, riesgos y oportunidades', auspiciado por la Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. "Se trata del decimo congreso bienal de la Asociacion Internacional para el Estudio de la Propiedad Colectiva (IASCP, por sus siglas en ingles), fundada en los Estados Unidos en los ochentas con la intencion de profundizar la comprension de los recursos que son utilizados simultaneamente por grupos, sea pequenos -en el caso de comunidades locales- o grandes, en el caso de sociedades nacionales."Journal Article Ecological Criteria and Indicators for Tropical Forest Landscapes: Challenges in the Search for Progress(2004) Sheil, Douglas; Nasi, Robert; Johnson, Brook"In the quest for global standards, 'Criteria and Indicators' (C&I) are among the foremost mechanisms for defining and promoting sustainable tropical forest management. Here we examine some challenges posed by this approach, focusing on examples that reflect the ecological aspects of tropical forests at a management-unit level and assessments such as those required in timber certification. "C&I can foster better forest management. However, there are confusions and tensions to reconcile between general and local applications, between the ideal and the pragmatic, and between the scientific and the democratic. To overcome this requires a sober appraisal of what can realistically be achieved in each location and how this can best be promoted. Good judgment remains the foundation of competent management. Data can inform this judgment, but an over-reliance on data collection and top-down bureaucratic interventions can add to problems rather than solving them. "Our arguments stress compromise, planning, guided implementation, and threat preparedness. Importance is also placed on skills and institutions: the building blocks of effective forest management. We suggest some options for improving forest management. Although a wider discussion of these issues is necessary, procrastination is harmful. Action is needed."Journal Article Combining Science and Traditional Ecological Knowledge: Monitoring Populations for Co-Management(2004) Moller, Henrik; Berkes, Fikret; O'Brian Lyver, Philip; Kislalioglu, Mina"Using a combination of traditional ecological knowledge and science to monitor populations can greatly assist co-management for sustainable customary wildlife harvests by indigenous peoples. Case studies from Canada and New Zealand emphasize that, although traditional monitoring methods may often be imprecise and qualitative, they are nevertheless valuable because they are based on observations over long time periods, incorporate large sample sizes, are inexpensive, invite the participation of harvesters as researchers, and sometimes incorporate subtle multivariate cross checks for environmental change. A few simple rules suggested by traditional knowledge may produce good management outcomes consistent with fuzzy logic thinking. Science can sometimes offer better tests of potential causes of population change by research on larger spatial scales, precise quantification, and evaluation of population change where no harvest occurs. However, science is expensive and may not always be trusted or welcomed by customary users of wildlife. Short scientific studies in which traditional monitoring methods are calibrated against population abundance could make it possible to mesh traditional ecological knowledge with scientific inferences of prey population dynamics. This paper analyzes the traditional monitoring techniques of catch per unit effort and body condition. Combining scientific and traditional monitoring methods can not only build partnership and community consensus, but also, and more importantly, allow indigenous wildlife users to critically evaluate scientific predictions on their own terms and test sustainability using their own forms of adaptive management."Journal Article The Quest for Meaning in Public Choice(2004) Ostrom, Elinor; Ostrom, Vincent"The logical foundations of constitutional government are of basic importance if people are to be self-governing. All forms of political order are Faustian bargains subject to numerous risks. If constitutional choice applies to all patterns of human association, the complexity of associated relationships and the potential threats to the viability of associated relationships in the aggregate exceed the limits of human cognition. The development of analytical capabilities depends on using frameworks, theories, and models for formulating hypotheses about conditions and consequences, undertaking diagnostic assessments, and conceptualizing and designing alternative possibilities. The relationship of ideas to deeds in an experimental epistemology is necessary to achieve a warrantable art and science of association."