Conservation and community in the new South Africa: A case study of the Mahushe Shongwe Game Reserve

The idealization of natural landscapes and peoples during colonialism, coupled with the popularity of sustainable development in the postcolonial era, has contributed to the expansion of conservation planning throughout the African continent. Concerns surrounding the promotion of national and international conservation agendas at the expense of local livelihood needs have generated interest in community conservation projects that attempt to include local participation and knowledge in natural resource management. The early excitement associated with community conservation has waned in light of recent assessments that it has been unsuccessful in meeting its ecological and social goals. This parallels other research that suggests communities are understood in generic or homogenous ways that influence how these initiatives are understood. Using a case study of the Mahushe Shongwe Game Reserve, this paper evaluates how rural households access environmental and economic resources to produce livelihoods, and how these access patterns impact their views of the project. It is argued that there are significant livelihood variations within the community that shape the ways households engage with, and benefit from, conservation planning. Rather than strictly viewing Mahushe Shongwe as a constraint to environmental resource access or site for limited employment, community members identify a number of benefits from its existence including education and development opportunities. Additionally, transformations in governance systems in the region impact community views of the project since younger residents are less likely to engage with the Matsamo Tribal Authority, which participates in managing the reserve. The consequence is that conservation has various impacts and meanings within a specific community that remain tied to the livelihood and governance systems being renegotiated in the post-apartheid era.     

The contested spaces of Cuban development: Post-socialism, post-colonialism and the geography of transition

The experience of the (post)socialist South has been marginal to the study of transition, despite the many similarities between processes of transition and development. This paper tries to better understand this overlap by exploring some empirical and conceptual connections between processes of development and processes of transition in Cuba. In doing so it makes two sets of arguments. The first set of arguments concerns the nature of ‘transition’ itself. I use the ‘contested spaces’ of the Cuban (socialist) biotech sector, and specifically its attempts to attract foreign (capitalist) investment as a case study. As a high profile industry, biotechnology functioned in Cuba as a political space within which questions of transition and development could be reconfigured by blurring the boundaries between them. In turn, this has enabled the Cuban State to legitimise responses to transition that would otherwise have appeared contradictory. The second set of arguments try to explain how this was possible. I argue that the slippage between nationalist and socialist visions of development allowed biotechnology (as a specifically developmentalist project) to be variously understood as, for example, a post-colonial socialist, or anti-colonial nationalist project in ways that suited the needs of transition at any one time. Such recombinations in many ways account for the non-linear and reversible nature of transition in Cuba. I speculate as to whether Bruno Latour’s work on the way capitalist societies understand themselves to be ‘modern’, helps explain how, in (post)socialist countries, processees of transition can be shaped through different historical constructions of modernisation and development.     

玉溪市萝卜子地水源地地下水允许开采量评价

萝卜子地供水水源地,水文地质条件较复杂。利用多年地下水动态及抽水试验资料上,进行基岩富水地段地下水的补给量计算,以补给量作为该水源地的允许开采量合理。     

北方落叶果树嫁接适宜气象条件调查与研究

本文介绍了山西省气象局气象科技数字图书馆的构架及服务功能，从数字图书馆技术方面分析了气象科技图书馆的主要特点，同时对数字图书馆开通以来的使用情况进行了统计分析，为数字图书馆的进一步完善和发展提出构想。     

浅析房产面积测算的工作程序和技术要领

房产面积测量环节多、要求高、政策性强。如何正确地理解《规范》的原则,细化成具有可操作性的工作细则,形成连贯、协调的程序,提高工作效率,保证测绘质量,完善房产管理,是测绘学科中的一项重要课题。本文在这方面进行了一些探讨和总结。     

近年来我国文化地理学研究的进展

作为人文地理学重要分支之一的文化地理学,在我国出现晚但发展快。纵观十余年来的发展情况,可大致概括为：（１）文化地理学理论从引进到消化进而有了较大的发展,（２）区域文化地理的研究从宏观走向微观,（３）历史文化地理的研究从断代走向区域,（４）专题性文化地理的研究从单一走向多元,（５）综合性文化地理的研究从核心扩展到边缘。其总趋势是逐渐走向具体化、区域化、综合化。     

镁资源研究与开发述评之一──镁水泥的研究与盐湖的开发

简单概括了镁资源研究开发的状况,评述镁水泥研究的主要理论成果。指出以镁水泥为途径开发盐湖资源的重要性。同时表述了镁水泥研究领域的最新动态,指出当前镁水泥研究需要考虑的几个重大问题。     

从对立统一观论人—地关系动力学

人－地关系动力学将成为新工纪的地球科学的前沿学科。环境与发展已成为今日国际社会的共识。从对立统一观分析,人－地关系动力学具有整体性与局部性、缓变性与突发性、可再生性与不可再生性、因果性、不可逆性与避防性、线性变化与指数变化等特性。人类社会经济发展与资源、生态环境之间相互制约,要在现代科学技术的有效支持下,保持、发扬优化条件,减少、防止恶化条件,使人类社会经济保持健康的持续发展。     

1997年广东台山小震群特征

分析了１９９７年１１～１２月在广东台山市三合镇附近发生的最大震级为４１级小震群的活动特征、地质构造背景和震源机制解,并将其与１９７０年７～１２月发生的最大震级为４０级的台山震群进行了对比,计算了两次小震群的序列特征参数,结果表明,１９９７年震群具有前兆震群的某些特征。     

西部大开发中地理信息产业发展刍议

中国西部开发对西部地理信息基础设施建设提出了迫切要求。优先发展在西部大开发中具有关键作用的地理信息系统，积极培育地理信息技术市场，建设一支服务于西部大开发地理信息产业化队伍，尽快制定适应西部大开发的地理信息产业发展规划，协调解决地理信息的标准化，对发展西部地理信息产业、促进西部大开发具有战略意义。