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| 2. |
- Bommarco, Riccardo
(författare)
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Rapid assessment of historic, current and future habitat quality for biodiversity around UK Natura 2000 sites
- 2015
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Ingår i: Environmental Conservation. - 0376-8929 .- 1469-4387. ; 42, s. 31-40
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Changes in landscape composition and structure may impact the conservation and management of protected areas. Species that depend on specific habitats are at risk of extinction when these habitats are degraded or lost. Designing robust methods to evaluate landscape composition will assist decision-and policy-making in emerging landscapes. This paper describes a rapid assessment methodology aimed at evaluating land-cover quality for birds, plants, butterflies and bees around seven UK Natura 2000 sites. An expert panel assigned quality values to standard Coordination of Information on the Environment (CORINE) land-cover classes for each taxonomic group. Quality was assessed based on historical (1950, 1990), current (2000) and future (2030) land-cover data, the last projected using three alternative scenarios: a growth-applied strategy (GRAS), a business-as-might-beusual (BAMBU) scenario, and sustainable European development goal (SEDG) scenario. A quantitative quality index weighted the area of each land-cover parcel with a taxa-specific quality measure. Land parcels with high quality for all taxonomic groups were evaluated for temporal changes in area, size and adjacency. For all sites and taxonomic groups, the rate of deterioration of land-cover quality was greater between 1950 and 1990 than current rates or as modelled using the alternative future scenarios (20002030). Model predictions indicated land-cover quality stabilized over time under the GRAS scenario, and was close to stable for the BAMBU scenario. The SEDG scenario suggested an ongoing loss of quality, though this was lower than the historical rate of c. 1% loss per decade. None of the future scenarios showed accelerated fragmentation, but rather increases in the area, adjacency and diversity of high quality land parcels in the landscape.
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| 3. |
- Brönmark, Christer, et al.
(författare)
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Environmental issues in lakes and ponds: current state and perspectives
- 2002
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Ingår i: Environmental Conservation. - 0376-8929. ; 29:3, s. 290-307
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Lakes and ponds are habitats of great human importance as they provide water for domestic, industrial and agricultural use as well as providing food. In spite of their fundamental importance to humans, freshwater systems have been severely affected by a multitude of anthropogenic disturbances, which have led to serious negative effects on the structure and function of these ecosystems. The aim of the present study is to review the current state of lake and pond ecosystems and to present a likely scenario for threats against these ecosystems for the time horizon of the year 2025. Predictions are based on a review of the current state, projections of long-term trends, for example in population and global climate, and an analysis of the trends in publications in the scientific literature during the past 25 years (1975-2000). The biodiversity of lake and pond ecosystems is currently threatened by a number of human disturbances, of which the most important include increased nutrient load, contamination, acid rain and invasion of exotic species. Analysis of trends suggests that older, well known threats to biodiversity such as eutrophication, acidification and contamination by heavy metals and organochlorines may become less of a problem in developed countries in the future. New threats such as global warming, ultraviolet radiation, endocrine disruptors and, especially, invasion by exotic species including transgenic organisms will most likely increase in importance. However, in developing countries where priorities other than environmental conservation exist, the threat of eutrophication, acidification and contamination by toxic substances is predicted to continue to increase. Although the future of biodiversity in lakes and ponds is seriously threatened, growing concern for environmental problems, implementation of new environmental strategies and administrations, and international agreements, are positive signs of changes that should improve the ability to manage old as well as new, yet undiscovered, threats.
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| 4. |
- Daw, Tim, et al.
(författare)
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Applying the ecosystem services concept to poverty alleviation : the need to disaggregate human well-being
- 2011
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Ingår i: Environmental Conservation. - 0376-8929 .- 1469-4387. ; 38:04, s. 370-379
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The concept of ecosystem services (ES), the benefits humans derive from ecosystems, is increasingly applied to environmental conservation, human well-being and poverty alleviation, and to inform the development of interventions. Payments for ecosystem services (PES) implicitly recognize the unequal distribution of the costs and benefits of maintaining ES, through monetary compensation from ‘winners’ to ‘losers’. Some research into PES has examined how such schemes affect poverty, while other literature addresses trade-offs between different ES. However, much evolving ES literature adopts an aggregated perspective of humans and their well-being, which can disregard critical issues for poverty alleviation. This paper identifies four issues with examples from coastal ES in developing countries. First, different groups derive well-being benefits from different ES, creating winners and losers as ES, change. Second, dynamic mechanisms of access determine who can benefit. Third, individuals' contexts and needs determine how ES contribute to well-being. Fourth, aggregated analyses may neglect crucial poverty alleviation mechanisms such as cash-based livelihoods. To inform the development of ES interventions that contribute to poverty alleviation, disaggregated analysis is needed that focuses on who derives which benefits from ecosystems, and how such benefits contribute to the well-being of the poor. These issues present challenges in data availability and selection of how and at which scales to disaggregate. Disaggregation can be applied spatially, but should also include social groupings, such as gender, age and ethnicity, and is most important where inequality is greatest. Existing tools, such as stakeholder analysis and equity weights, can improve the relevance of ES research to poverty alleviation.
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| 5. |
- Daw, Tim, et al.
(författare)
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Perceptions of trends in Seychelles artisanal trap fisheries : comparing catch monitoring, underwater visual census and fishers’ knowledge
- 2011
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Ingår i: Environmental Conservation. - 0376-8929 .- 1469-4387. ; 38, s. 75-88
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Fisheries scientists and managers are increasingly engaging with fishers' knowledge (FK) to provide novel information and improve the legitimacy of fisheries governance. Disputes between the perceptions of fishers and scientists can generate conflicts for governance, but can also be a source of new perspectives or understandings. This paper compares artisanal trap fishers' reported current catch rates with landings data and underwater visual census (UVC). Fishers' reports of contemporary 'normal' catch per day tended to be higher than recent median landings records. However, fishers' reports of 'normal' catch per trap were not significantly different from the median CPUE calculated from landings data, and reports of 'good' and 'poor' catch rates were indicative of variability observed in landings data. FK, landings and UVC data all gave different perspectives of trends over a ten-year period. Fishers' perceptions indicated greater declines than statistical models fitted to landings data, while UVC evidence for trends varied between sites and according to the fish assemblage considered. Divergence in trend perceptions may have resulted from differences in the spatial, temporal or taxonomic focus of each dataset. Fishers may have experienced and understood behavioural changes and increased fishing power, which may have obscured declines from landings data. Various psychological factors affect memory and recall, and may have affected these memory-based estimates of trends, while different assumptions underlying the analysis of both interview data and conventional scientific data could also have led to qualitatively different trend perceptions. Differing perspectives from these three data sources illustrate both the potential for 'cognitive conflicts' between stakeholders who do not rely on the same data sources, as well as the importance of multiple information sources to understand dynamics of fisheries. Collaborative investigation of such divergence may facilitate learning and improve fisheries governance.
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| 6. |
- Elbakidze, Marine, et al.
(författare)
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Biosphere Reserves for conservation and development in Ukraine? : Legal recognition and establishment of the Roztochya initiative
- 2013
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Ingår i: Environmental Conservation. - 0376-8929 .- 1469-4387. ; 40:2, s. 157-166
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Biosphere Reserve (BR) concept is an approach that simultaneously reconciles and promotes conservation of natural and cultural diversity, environmentally and socioculturally sustainable economic development, and research. This study focuses on the legal recognition of the BR concept as a tool for sustainable development (SD) in Ukraine, and what impact legislation has had on BR implementation. The BR concept has been incorporated into Ukrainian nature conservation legislation. However, interviews with locals engaged with the Roztochya BR initiative revealed that the aim to promote sustainability through stakeholder collaboration was poorly implemented. Legislative misplacement of the BR concept created misunderstandings among local people during the emergence of the Roztochya BR initiative. BR implementation may be improved by (1) choosing national terminology describing the concept carefully, because this affects stakeholder perceptions, (2) ensuring that legislation for BRs has a multi-sectoral character, and (3) ensuring that those who implement BR initiatives have the understanding, knowledge and will to lead and facilitate SD as a collaborative social learning process towards ecological, economic, social and cultural sustainability.
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| 7. |
- Gustafsson, Karin M, 1983-, et al.
(författare)
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IPBES as a transformative agent : opportunities and risks
- 2023
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Ingår i: Environmental Conservation. - : Cambridge University Press. - 0376-8929 .- 1469-4387. ; 50:1, s. 7-11
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Intergovernmental Science–Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has played an important role in assessing knowledge and raising awareness of biodiversity loss, and it is now also mandated to assess and support processes of transformative change. This perspective paper argues that the transformative change assessment entails key elements of transformative agency, which, along with the performative role of IPBES, makes it relevant to re-conceptualize the organization as a transformative agent. This new role will change IPBES and brings attention to risks related to undermining the credibility, relevance and legitimacy of IPBES, but it also brings opportunities for innovations that may strengthen the organization, including furthering public reasoning, acknowledging ambiguities and disagreements, ensuring scientific autonomy and balancing governmental power in the organization. As IPBES takes on the fundamental challenge of transformative change, critical scrutiny and democratic debate regarding its function as a political actor are more important than ever.
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| 8. |
- Gössling, Stefan
(författare)
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Funds for Biodiversity
- 2002
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Ingår i: Environmental Conservation. - 0376-8929. ; 29:4, s. 411-413
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)
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| 9. |
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| 10. |
- Hartig, Terry, et al.
(författare)
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Psychological restoration in nature as a source of motivation for ecological behaviour
- 2007
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Ingår i: Environmental Conservation. - 0376-8929 .- 1469-4387. ; 34:4, s. 291-299
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- People may behave in environmentally friendly ways because they gain psychologically from their experiences in natural environments. Psychological benefits of nature experience may also underlie concerns about personally harmful effects of environmental problems. Cross-sectional survey data from 1413 Norwegian adults were used to assess the relationship between use of natural environments for psychological restoration and ecological behaviour, as mediated by personal environmental concern. Mediation tests with hierarchical regression analyses provided evidence of partial mediation; the use of natural environments for restoration remained a significant predictor of ecological behaviour after the entry of environmental concern into the analysis. These associations held independently of age, gender, education, household income, size of community of upbringing, size of community of current residence and distance of current residence from an outdoor recreation area. Among sociodemographic variables, only gender had a significant association with the use of natural environments for restoration, suggesting that their use transcends several important social categories in Norway. In short, positive experiences in natural environments may promote ecological behaviour.
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