查看更多>>摘要：? 2022 Elsevier LtdMost studies and influential agencies propose a shift to sustainability thinking and regard it as an important means of coordinating economic, social and environmental development. However, much less research focusses on conflicts over resources, the issue of asymmetrical power, and value-and-cultural conflicts behind the trajectories of sustainable development. For countries speeding up transitions such as China, it can be asked how and why might accelerating sustainability transitions through resettlement become a new utopia or a poverty trap? To examine the significance of this question for sustainability, we explore three development-induced displacement and resettlement (DIDR) programs in China: dam-induced resettlement, poverty-alleviation oriented relocation (including ecological migration) and agglomeration of villages. This research examines normative issues of Chinese policies for sustainability. We find that building sustainability via DIDR will not be as easy as projected and could lead to new poverty traps that disadvantage some groups of people, such as resettlees. We highlight three themes, the change of resettlees’ financial conditions, land access and local governance, to explore how competition is skewed between resettlees and local governments while speeding up to pursue more ambitious goals. We find that with the increased pace of implementation of quick sustainability policies that power lies with local governments to the detriment of resettlees. DIDR can become a just governance tool to build sustainability, but only if there is sufficient agreement among all stakeholders on a transparent, accountable and collaborative approach. Without inclusion and equality in transitions, potential risks and challenges can eclipse sustainable development.
查看更多>>摘要：? 2022 Elsevier LtdOn the basis of the conceptual framework of the new economics of labour migration (NELM), this paper demonstrates the effects of rural–urban migration and migrant earnings on land efficiency supported by household-based survey data in six Chinese provinces. Unlike existing literature, we differentiated the effects according to the type of migration and household wealth concurrently. By adopting a two-stage least squares (2SLS) estimator and a recursive mixed-process model, we provide evidence that seasonal and permanent migration negatively affects land efficiency but with no significant difference between the two effects. Migrant earnings results in higher land efficiency, but the compensating effects fall with an increase in household wealth. Interactive analysis on the basis of three wealth groups also illustrates the large compensating effect in the group with less wealth and a descending trend in face of increase in household wealth, which further confirms the robustness of the results.
查看更多>>摘要：? 2022 Elsevier LtdThe quality of water entering the coastal waters of the Great Barrier Reef continues to be of urgent concern for policy makers. Beef grazing and sugarcane cultivation pose special threats at the catchment scale, and past policy approaches and millions in investment have largely proved insufficient to reverse the associated decline in water quality. In this paper, we examine the role of regulation - as one tool of governance - in addressing threats to water quality to the Great Barrier Reef. By adopting a focused study of sugarcane and cattle grazing, and by drawing upon recent developments in regulatory theory, we evaluate the approaches adopted by government, including the recent re-introduction of legislative measures targeting nutrient and sediment loads. Scientific and government consensus appears to be that regulation should form part of a functioning environmental governance system, but it must also be supported by other measures such as economic incentives, education and outreach. Where regulation of land use is required, best practice suggests it should be risk-based, responsive, and cognisant of the regulated industry's attitudinal settings.
查看更多>>摘要：? 2022 Elsevier LtdThis study examines an emerging urban development practice in China, urban comprehensive development (UCD). Often entailing public-private partnerships (PPP) between local governments and private enterprises, UCDs have been increasingly used as an instrument to finance new towns and industrial development. In 2019, the volume of UCD project investment had reached 1.86 trillion RMB, which was about 24% of local tax revenue for the same year. This paper characterizes the spatial distribution of UCDs, identifies underlying socioeconomic correlates, and compares the locational strategies of UCDs and other non-UCD types of PPP projects with regression models. In particular, it finds that both UCD and other PPP investments have inverted U-curve correlations with local economic development. UCDs concentrate in more developed urban regions and may function as a supplement of land-based finance.
查看更多>>摘要：? 2022 Elsevier LtdThe Poloniny National Park (Poloniny) is a forest/grassland-dominated ecosystem, peripherally located on the Slovakian border with Ukraine and Poland, with low population density, economic insufficiency and high natural and cultural values. Three different scenarios for agricultural landscape development were outlined for Poloniny in 2005 under the BioScene project and their likely contributions to achieving participatory-selected sustainability objectives were assessed. Our current research aims to evaluate the recent trends in achieving these sustainability objectives in a socio-ecological context and within the scope of the 2005 scenarios. In addition, we searched for generic and site-specific interventions that could halt the collapse of the socio-ecological system of such landscapes, paying attention to tourism which has appeared to be a promising factor in the region's socio-economic progress in recent times. We employed information from key planning documents, statistical data on demography, changes in agricultural land use, changes seen from geo-tagged photos, and two questionnaire surveys with local stakeholders. The first survey included feedback on achieving the 2005 sustainability objectives and perceived changes in land use and management; the second aimed to find out the number of accommodated visitors in recent years. Based on sustainability appraisal, we conclude that there has been a mixed impact on biodiversity and natural resources, and a negative or stagnating trend for most social and economic aspects, especially social infrastructure for promotion of local job creation and maintaining the local population. Furthermore, changes in agricultural land use reflect farming activities optimised to local biophysical conditions and toward reaching farm efficiency under the conditions set by the Common Agricultural Policy. Nevertheless, ecotourism was found to be an opportunity in stimulating multi-functional and sustainable landscape management: ecotourism has significantly expanded in the last few years, especially due to local initiatives, and has been further accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, its long-term maintenance is uncertain since its linkage to the well-being of the local community is absent. For achieving this objective, we recommend systematic design of targeted rural policy which respects the needs and character of peripheral mountain regions, provides better conditions for sustainable farming, especially in connection with nonproduction benefits from agricultural landscape such as recreation and biodiversity, and considers local actions and knowledge.
查看更多>>摘要：? 2022 Elsevier LtdConservation practices are heavily promoted in agriculture, yet adoption rates remain low and relatively stagnant. We conducted a panel study of reported farmer subsurface placement and cover crop adoption in the Western Lake Erie Basin to assess (1) if reported adoption is changing over time, and (2) what is driving this change. Our results indicate that similar numbers of farmers are adding (~12%) and discontinuing use of (~14%) these practices. We find no evidence that prior intention increases the likelihood of future practice use, suggesting that intentions do not necessarily translate into behavior. We also examined self-efficacy (i.e., perceived control) and response efficacy (i.e., beliefs about practice effectiveness) but find limited evidence that these are changing over time and increasing adoption. The results suggest that increases in critical conservation practice adoption is not occurring, potentially because farmer efficacy, which might build stronger intentions and lead to change over time, is not increasing.
查看更多>>摘要：? 2022 Elsevier LtdThe increasing incidence of forest and land degradation is affecting billions of people, and causing loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Realizing the importance of forest restoration in moderating those impacts, various global and regional forest restoration initiatives (including Bonn Challenge 2011 and UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021–2030) have been launched. But the gap between restoration commitments and their ground realities is becoming a huge challenge because of the limited knowledge on forest restoration approach as well as underlying socio-economic and ecological factors impacting the restoration undertaking. Moreover, few studies have comprehensively looked at institutional, socio-economic, and ecological aspects of forest restoration in a common framework. By employing a systematic review of the literature (n = 64), review of policies, plans and project reports (n = 58) and expert survey (n = 22), this study has navigated the rise and fall of Nepal's 65 years of forest restoration practices. Our study found that Nepal's forest restoration interventions from 1956 to the early 1980s got mixed results because of the limited integration of socio-economic and ecological concerns in restoration programs. However, forest restoration works after the mid-1980 s charted a more successful pathway because of (1) policies favouring decentralized decision making and local institutions; (2) devolution of rights and responsibilities; (3) firmed commitment for and adoption of multistakeholder partnership for the forest and landscape restoration; (4) recognition of multifunctionality of forest ecosystems; (5) accommodation of socio-economic and ecological concerns in restoration program; 6) adoption of multiple restoration approaches at multiple scales; and 7) capacity development and extension services. As institutional, socio-economic, and ecological factors are often been overlooked in forest and landscape restoration initiatives, the inferences we made and suggestions we provided can inform the policymakers and practitioners (of Nepal and other countries) in translating regional and global restoration commitments into action.
查看更多>>摘要：? 2022 Elsevier LtdThe debate on urban agriculture in African cities has focused on the environmental consequences and the livelihood support to the urban poor. These debates are primarily centered on the urban policies and plans that largely fail to integrate urban agriculture, albeit its importance. This study expands on this scholarship but focuses on the interplay of urban agriculture and spatial justice in Harare. We argue that urban planning in Harare is premised on classism and perpetuates spatial segregation, which manifests through different land uses in residential suburbs for the low- and high-income suburbs. Using an exploratory phenomenological approach, we interrogate the interplay through in-depth interviews with respondents from three study contexts: Hopley Farm Settlement and two suburbs, Hatfield and Glen-View. The primary data were triangulated with secondary data to increase the validity of the study. The findings challenge the common assumption that urban agriculture is essentially a survival strategy that the urban poor engage in to support their livelihoods. Rather, beyond the subsistence nature of urban agriculture practices among the poor, the current practice in Harare is characterized by a new group of elites who have commodified urban agriculture. Unlike the authorities' restrictive policies and strategies in poor neighborhoods, urban agriculture has been integrated into the official land use plans, becoming an integral land use activity in the affluent suburbs. This study draws attention to a largely overlooked aspect in literature on spatial (in) justice in the Zimbabwean context.
查看更多>>摘要：? 2022 The AuthorsThe Science of Cities seeks to understand how urban areas function in an effort to shape sustainable and equitable development. This research introduces the concept of perfusion dynamics as an underpinning theory to explain urban growth. We suggest that there is a maximum distance from the urban edge beyond which goods and services no longer evenly permeate interior urban neighborhoods. We draw from concepts of perfusion in the biological and ecological sciences for support. Reconsidering urban form with perfusion dynamics helps explain the fractal, branching pattern of urban growth and dynamics at play in studies on urban scale. To provide proof of concept, we demonstrate how to measure the urban thickness with geoprocessing tools using a dataset of 13,561 Urban Areas in the United States. We show that as urban areas approach a threshold of 10 km in thickness, they tend to elongate. Over a third of US urban areas are within 0.5 km of the urban interface. Only 4% of all urban areas have grown beyond the perfusion constraint of 5 km from the urban interface. Because the urban interface is socially governed, our exploratory research points out practical considerations for urban planning and future research.
查看更多>>摘要：? 2022 Elsevier LtdSince the 1970s, the Sahel region has been struck by severe droughts that has brought suffering to human populations. Scientists also observed declining rainfall leading to desertification in the zone. Against this backdrop, in 2007, several African states launched the international Great Green Wall (GGW) project that aimed to create a strip of forest from Senegal to Djibouti, crossing areas mostly devoted to pastoralism. We examined the social, land tenure and environmental implications of the GGW in Senegal, in the light of policies for pastoral intensification of the zone. The colonial heritage of the foresters from the Senegalese National Green Wall Agency who implement the project on the ground influences how reforestation is managed today. To understand how local populations relate to the space affected by the project and their resources, we organized participatory workshops in four contrasted study sites along the Senegalese portion of the GGW path. Our results show that trees are of great importance for local populations, whether agricultural or pastoral, but even more so in pastoral areas. Despite this, the national and international narrative considers Sahelian pastoralism and overgrazing as strong drivers of desertification. The paradox is that overgrazing is linked to the public policy of boreholes densification. Taking a Commons approach, we show the current and past role played by water in pasture management, and how water accessed by boreholes no longer regulates grazing practices. A Commons approach would pave the way for assisting stakeholders at different levels to favor regreening the Sahel.
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