Trends,transitions, and events in cryptozoic history and their calibration: apropos recommendations by the subcommission on precambrian stratigraphy

Here I examine the semifinal recommendations of the Subcommission on Precambrian Stratigraphy of the International Union of Geological Sciences (Plumb and James). Although stratigraphy is the subject, the stated objective is ‘subdivision of geologic time’. From that the Subcommission derives a potentially workable set of eons, eras, and Proterozoic systems, arbitrarily separated by radiometric numbers seen as having the virtues of objectivity and stability. The time-transgressive transitions that actually separate the broad succession of prevailing stratigraphic and historical modes thereby become fixed, globally synchronous ‘boundaries’ by decree. What kind of stratigraphy is that?Apart from its essential role in calibration, what does geochronometry have to do with stratigraphy and historical geology? How do practices proposed reconcile with those heretofore applied? Given radiometric ‘boundaries’, are the numbers chosen the most appropriate? Just how is the system recommended to become ‘useful…to working geologists’?Such reflections lead me to conclude that the proposed ‘geochronometric subdivision’ is mistaken in principle, confining in application, and self-contradictory — particularly as concerns the grossly discordant but historically illuminating transition from the mantle-dominated Archean Eon to continent-dominated Proterozoic history. Such matters are the foci of this brief paper.     

The impact of severe natural disasters on the livelihoods of farmers in mountainous areas: a case study of Qingping Township,Mianzhu City

The ‘5.12’ earthquake in 2008 and the ‘8.13’ debris flow in 2010 brought huge losses of life and property to Qingping Township. Farmers’ livelihoods assets were also seriously affected and damaged. These led to a change in farmers’ livelihood styles and reduction in their income. A study of the impact of natural disasters on farmers’ livelihoods in mountainous areas would have significant importance for policy making. Based on field survey data from sample households, this study comparatively analyzed the assets, livelihood styles and income of farmers over three periods—2007, 2009 after the ‘5.12’ earthquake, and 2 months after ‘8.13’ debris flows. It presents the following findings: (1) livelihood assets suffered heavy losses; (2) livelihood styles were significantly changed; and (3) the sustainability of farmer income was adversely influenced. These results suggest that, during the process of post-disaster reconstruction work, affected farmers’ security, the carrying capacity of livelihood assets, and the enhancement of employment and livelihood choice are worthy of much attention from policy makers.     

Resource degradation and livelihood in the coastal region of Bangladesh

A study was conducted in four selected upazilas under four coastal districts through participatory rural appraisal (PRA), household survey and monitoring, sampling, focal group discussions, personal interview, onfarm field visits, institutional consultations, and secondary information. The investigation revealed that the valuable natural resources of the whole region are at the verge of serious degradation. Various causes have been identified, which are responsible for degradation of both resources and production environments. These causes include human population growth, coastal embankment, upstream withdrawal of Ganges water, brackish water shrimp farming, salt production, use of agro-chemicals, industrial activities, commercial activities, over-exploitation, etc. The study also showed that the degradation of natural resources is the reason behind the squeezing of historically dominant livelihood opportunities of the coastal communities. The current scenarios of the coastal ecosystem urge necessary steps to be taken for sustainable management of valuable resources and to create alternative livelihood opportunities for the coastal communities.     

Building sustainable livelihoods in Laos: untangling farm from non-farm, progress from distress

Laos is one of the poorest countries in the world. The majority of households continue to rely on farming to meet their needs. However the country is also going through an important transition as the market extends into formerly remote rural areas. Drawing on surveys of nine villages in three districts, the paper elucidates how households are managing the transition from subsistence to market. Agriculturally resilient communities with considerable potential are contrasted with villages where the scope for increases in farm output are sharply constrained. The growing role of non-farm activities is highlighted and a distinction drawn between `distress' and `progressive' diversification. The paper argues that diversification is propelled by very different forces and has markedly different implications in livelihood terms. It is also suggested that while general statements can be made about livelihood transitions in the country, and the production and reproduction of poverty, at a household level it is often not possible to `read-off' likely livelihood conditions from a mere assessment of resources.     

Non-DRR NGOs strategies for livelihood development in the coastal communities of Bangladesh: a case study

Natural Hazards - This study aimed to assess the effectiveness of non-DRR NGOs’ programs focusing on their contribution to the uplift livelihood of the disaster-affected coastal communities....     

The governance of nature as development and the erasure of the Pygmies of Cameroon

The Pygmies are among the remaining ‘savages’ in West and Central Africa. This paper demonstrates how the governance of nature through sedentarization, the creation of national parks as a mechanism of forestry conservation and the failure to endorse standard environmental safeguards in the creation of the Tchad-Cameroon pipeline project have led to the devastation of the livelihood of the indigenous pygmies. Simultaneously, by categorizing the Pygmies as a ‘primitive other’ despite the very dynamism of the concept of culture, the state of Cameroon has excluded them from the benefits of postmodernist development. I demonstrate that projects aimed at modernizing them, and achieving sustainability have instead accentuated their exclusion because of their presumed cultural isolation, led to their deep entrenchment in poverty and resulted in complete erasure. The failure of these projects is due to the clash between global and local perspectives and interests over the Western protectionism and nature aesthetics that underpin conservation and development schemes, and the government’s failure to ensure that developers fulfill their obligations to affected communities, as well as the non-recognition of the multiplex relationships between hunter-gatherers and farmers that is based on cultural, historical and political ecology. Against this backdrop, development has thus, become a process of erasure in which the livelihood of the Pygmies has been balkanized and their cultural existence and identity, negated.     

Of yield gaps and yield ceilings: Making plants grow in particular places

The System of Rice Intensification (SRI) and rice genetic improvement are proposed as two approaches to improving and increasing rice production. In recent exchanges, they have been represented by their respective supporters as starkly contrasting, almost mutually incompatible alternatives. However, advocates on both sides of this argument have tended to stress the genetic and physiological characteristics of rice plants and place less emphasis on the spatially and temporally situated knowledge and management skills of farmers, which are the means by which any agricultural technology is locally adapted and integrated into livelihood strategies, and technological potential is translated into real outcomes in specific settings. Taking this proposition seriously would entail a substantial reorganisation of agricultural research and extension, bridging the historical divide between these two wings of professional agronomy. It would require agronomists of both types to work more collaboratively with farmers. It would also require scientists to produce new kinds of outputs, such as analytical frameworks, heuristics and decision-making tools to help farmers apply scientific insights to their own constrained circumstances. This argument is made with reference to the cases of SRI (a cultivation system that is said to boost farm yields without the need for genetically improved germplasm) and C4 rice (a crop-improvement project intending to ‘supercharge’ rice photosynthesis to increase rice yields). The paper uses the agronomic concepts of the ‘yield gap’ and the ‘yield ceiling’ to offer a perspective on strategic questions about the goals and organisation of agricultural research and extension.     

Responsible adults-in-the-making: Intergenerational impact of parental migration on Indonesian young women’s aspirational capacity

In the developing economies in Southeast Asia, labour migration is increasingly seen not simply to generate income to meet short-term livelihood needs but to secure the family’s future, often by investing in children’s education. While much work has been done studying the impact of parents’ remittances on children’s wellbeing including education access, the impact of parental migration on children’s (educational) aspirations has received less attention. Viewing youth as social actors, this paper interrogates how they make meaning of their parents’ migration, and how this consequently influences their decisions to activate, delay or reshape their hopes and plans for their own educational and work trajectories. With the increasing feminisation of labour migration in Southeast Asia where gendered regimes in care and domestic work make it easier for women to work overseas, this paper focuses attention on the aspirations of young women at the cusp of adulthood from a migrant-sending area in rural East Java, Indonesia. These young women’s ‘navigational capacity’ (Appadurai, 2004) is not only shaped by tangible obstacles such as the lack of sufficient resources, but is also more subtly moulded by an emerging discourse of self-responsibilisation in the making of ‘dutiful daughters’. Drawing on conceptualisations of multiple ‘logics of aspiring’ operating within spatial contexts (Zipin et al., 2015), we show how young women unsettle, inflect and challenge the normative linear education-work transitions by expressing their desire to replace their parents in accessing labour migration as a livelihood option, and reflect on the dialectical relationship between agency and aspirations.     

Community resilience,globalization, and transitional pathways of decision-making

This article investigates the impacts of globalization processes on community resilience. It argues that theoretical concepts such as transition theory can provide a lens through which resilience pathways at community level can be better understood, and proposes a framework focused on a social resilience approach for understanding community resilience as the conceptual space at the intersection between economic, social and environmental capital. It argues that certain types of communities are losing resilience through increased embeddedness into globalized pathways of decision-making, while other communities may be gaining resilience, although not one system is either totally resilient or totally vulnerable. Striking the right ‘balance’ between communities and their scalar interactions with the global level is key for maximization of community resilience: while too much isolation of a community may be bad in light of over-dependency on local resources, skills and people, ‘over-globalization’, with possible loss of autonomy and identity, may be equally fraught with problems. In particular, relocalized communities have, so far, not shown much tangible success, as almost all members of the relocalization process at community level are simultaneously embedded within the global capitalist system through their dependencies on global economic processes.     

What is the ‘Just Transition’?

The ‘just transition’ is a concept receiving more attention in the literature to-date. This critical review discusses this and how there are overlaps with literature on energy, environmental and climate justice. Within the separate energy, environment and climate change scholar communities, there is too much distortion of what the ‘transition’ means and what ‘justice’ means, and they all should be understood within the just transition concept. To increase public understanding and public acceptance of a just transition, these research communities need to unite rather than continue alone.     

Institutional change and natural resource use in coastal Vietnam

Vietnam is currently undergoing a rapid economic and social transition involving the dismantling of the co-operative system and the official embracing of a market economy. The paper uses an institutional approach to examine adaptation to such changes in two coastal communes in mangrove forest areas. Having provided the historical and policy context of reforms which have taken place in Vietnam in the area of resource management, the paper goes on to discuss changes currently taking place in access to resources. The complexity of property rights regimes are then examined in the light of such changes, with particular focus on the effects of privatisation and the increased effects of integration with external markets. Using livelihood diversification as a key concept for understanding local adaptation to such changes, the paper concludes with discussion of the socially differentiated impacts of the process and the implications for future livelihoods. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Flood hazard in Wadi Rahbaa area, Egypt

In the last decade, attention has been devoted to the southern part of the Egyptian Red Sea coast due to the large touristic and mining activities. Egypt spares no effort to develop it, to build new urban communities, and to create new job opportunities. Many comprehensive planning studies have been conducted. Many luxurious tourist spots, airports, and harbors have been constructed. These areas are subjected to flash floods, which represent a frequent threat to these urbanization activities that may cause losses in livelihood. By analyzing the geomorphologic features of the study area, intense stream networks are detected that, with the available metrological data, require flood management and analysis to mitigate the possible negative effects and to benefit from the estimation of flood water. Rahbaa basin is a sub-catchment of wadi Hodin. Flash floods within this area threaten the Red Sea coastal plain as well as the main coastal roads. It also directly drained out to the sea, which leads to a loss of huge amounts of flood water that is useful for arid regions. Using geographic information system and remote-sensing tools with the application of a comprehensive graphical modeling (watershed modeling system) supports the hydrological modeling of HEC-1. The total amount of runoff is calculated and the hydrograph of the 50-year return period is computed using rainfall historical data.     

The council vs the common people: the case of street trading in Johannesburg

Set against the general literature of the ‘informal sector’ and more particularly that of street trading, an historical study of on-going struggles between Johannesburg's communities of street traders and the municipal authorities over the legal conditions of such trading is presented. The study is set against the backdrop of a racially segregated urban environment and of the imposition of increasingly tight regulations on ‘non-White’ South Africans living and working in a nominally ‘white’ city. Two interlinked case studies are reported in order to illuminate the complex pattern of interplay between local authorities and the coffee-cart traders and the flower sellers over some sixty years. The demise of some 2000 coffee-cart traders is reported and linked to the ‘war’ on street traders ‘waged’ by the municipal authorities, a campaign that also resulted in severe restrictions and considerable financial costs for the flower sellers. Particular attention is paid to the manner in which the street traders resisted the local authorities by contesting matters in Courts of Law. The study illustrates the theme of disadvantaged communities fighting a struggle for survival against the will of the local State and poses a cautionary note on the prospects for an about-face in the attitudes of the local authorities.     

Multiple states in the sea-level induced transition from terrestrial forest to estuary

In this paper we provide a conceptual model to examine changes in ecosystem state during the transition from terrestrial forest to shallow estuarine environments for coastal mainland marshes at the Virginia Coast Reserve (VCR), United States of America. Ecosystem states are characterized by plant community dominants and soil/sediment characteristics. The five states considered are upland or wetland forest, organic high marsh, intertidal mineral low marsh, autotrophic benthic with or without submersed aquatic vascular plants, and heterotrophic benthic (estuarine bottom). Transitions between states are described from the perspective of a fixed forest location undergoing transition from one ecosystem state to another. Rising sea level is acknowledged as the master variable that forces the process of change overall. Each state is hypothesized to have self-maintaining properties and thus is resistant to change from rising sea level; alternatively, transitions between states are facilitated by disturbance or exposure to acute stress. For change to occur, resistance must be overcome by events that are more abrupt than rising sea level and that appear as accentuated pulsings, which result in another self-maintaining and resistnnt state. Such events facilitate plant species replacement and alter sediment conditions. Mechanisms responsible for causing a state to cross a threshold are unique for each transition type and include brackish-water intrusion (osmotic stress and sulfide toxicity), tidal creek encroachment (redistribution of sediments), erosive currents and waves (resuspension of sediments, which increases light extinction), and increasing water depth (leads to greater bottom shading). Field experiments relevant to scales at which pulsings occur are not abundant in coastal marshes.     

Addressing the impacts of large-scale land investments: Re-engaging with livelihood research

What started as a media-driven hype about the global land rush has developed into a well-established academic debate on land governance and an important domain for policy intervention. Research over the past decade has deepened our understanding of how land, water and forests, which were once considered to be local assets and the sources of livelihoods, are transformed into global goods and the focus of capital investments. We are now clearly aware that such transformation generates significant impacts on the livelihood security of vulnerable groups. In response to this, a variety of policy interventions have been devised to minimize the negative impacts (‘do not harm’) and create new opportunities (‘do good’). Yet, it is still unclear how actual policy implementations play out on the ground, what the real impacts are at the local level and whether these interventions help people to improve their livelihoods. In this paper, we present an overview of the existing intervention approaches and their theoretical underpinnings, and discuss how to optimize the developmental outcomes. We argue that the once popular livelihood research framework should be revised and then incorporated more robustly in the existing intervention approaches, as it could help investors and governmental actors to engage in making their investments more relevant to local development.     

Policy responses to informality in urban Africa: the example of Maputo,Mozambique

In the global South informality constitutes one of the leading issues for urban policy makers. The planning challenges around informality are particularly relevant in urban Africa as most Africans make their livelihoods in the informal economy. This paper examines issues of state policy responses to informality through the lens of street traders. Under scrutiny are policy responses towards street trading in Mozambique’s capital, Maputo, a city that has experienced the advance of informalization. It is argued that the dominant approach towards informal trading across urban Africa is of a ‘sanitising’ policy response by the local state which is rooted upon traditions of modernist urban planning in search of ‘ordered development’. The research discloses that in Maputo national and municipal authorities have adopted a more tolerant approach to the informal economy, mainly because it provides a livelihood to so many of the city’s poor and because of potential social unrest likely to be triggered by a repressive approach. In Maputo the core narrative is of an urban informal economy viewed by officials as an important livelihood for the city’s poor, albeit one which is subject both to periodic harassment and encouragement to ‘formalize’. The analysis represents a contribution to the expanding corpus of writings on Africa’s informalising cities and specifically concerning policy responses towards street trading.     

Detection of large,Holocene earthquakes using diatom analysis of coastal sedimentary sequences,Wellington, New Zealand

Paleoenvironmental reconstructions of three coastal waterbodies in Wellington, New Zealand, reveal that sites were isolated from the sea within the last 7500 years through coseismic uplift and barrier growth. Evidence for coseismic uplift consists of distinct transitions in diatom assemblages representing large changes in relative sea-level or water-table level, commonly in association with sedimentological evidence for catchment disturbance or marine influx. Transitions are abrupt, laterally extensive and synchronous within each waterbody. Amount of change across transition horizons is assessed using quantitative estimates of paleosalinity and waterbody type as proxies for relative sea-level change. Seven transitions involve large paleoenvironmental changes and provide evidence for earthquakes occurring at approximately 5100, 3200 (recorded at two sites), 2300 (recorded at two sites), 1000 cal years BP and 1855 AD. Five other transitions involve smaller paleoenvironmental changes and are considered to be consistent with effects of earthquakes but do not provide independent evidence for earthquake occurrence. These smaller transitions occur at approximately 6800, 3600, 2200, 1000 (coincident with a large transition) and 500 cal years BP. The data refine ages and provide information about the extent and effects of past large earthquakes in the region. These are the first paleoecologically derived earthquake signatures for Wellington and they contribute to the sparse collection worldwide of off-fault sedimentary earthquake records for predominantly strike-slip faults.     

Flood disaster subcultures in The Netherlands: the parishes of Borgharen and Itteren

The Netherlands knows a persistent threat of flooding. To adapt to this dangerous reality, the Dutch have cultivated what disaster research literature has labeled ‘disaster subcultures’ or a set of cultural (tangible and intangible) tools to deal with the recurrent hazard. While there is abundant attention for the way the Dutch ‘coastal’ and ‘low-lying’ communities deal with the recurrent threat of (coastal) flooding, less is known about the way the Dutch ‘high-lands’ deal with the yearly threat of (fluvial) flooding. This article presents the findings of an explorative research endeavor (2011–2013) aimed at discerning if the disaster subculture concept has contemporary relevance in the Netherlands, particularly with respect to flooding, and if so, whether applying this lens would reveal more about the nature of existing disaster subcultures. Because less is known about the Dutch ‘high-lands,’ we chose to look into the existence and attributes of disaster subcultures in the parishes Borgharen and Itteren, which experience a systematic threat of flooding. Our findings suggest that the disaster subculture lens is valuable as it enables the empirical appreciation of disaster subcultures, even in a small country like the Netherlands, and it unveiled elements of these neighboring parishes’ flood reality that otherwise might have gone unnoticed and that seem central to understanding these two parishes’ levels of vulnerability and resilience. It is our contention that the concept ‘disaster subculture’ makes a greater understanding possible of the cultural context from which vulnerability and resilience to specific and recurrent threats emerge.     

生计资本对农户参与耕地保护意愿的影响——以成都市永安镇、金桥镇, 崇州市江源镇为例

耕地效益比较低下导致兼业农户数量增多, 生计资本发生转变. 农户作为耕地的直接使用者, 生计资本转变不仅带动农村社会经济的发展, 更影响农户参与耕地保护的意愿. 以最早实行耕地保护政策的四川省成都市永安镇、金桥镇和崇州市江源镇为例, 构建农户生计资本与耕地保护参与意愿的结构方程模型, 定量刻画生计资本对于农户参与耕地保护意愿的影响. 结果表明: 生计资本对于农户参与耕地保护的意愿具有显著影响, 其中, 自然资本对耕地保护意愿的正向影响最显著, 高于社会资本; 物质资本对耕地保护意愿的负向影响最显著, 高于金融资本和人力资本. 生计资本中自然资本和社会资本每增加一个单位, 农户耕地保护意愿将提高0.071和0.011个单位; 物质资本、金融资本和人力资本每增加一个单位, 农户耕地保护意愿对应减少1.231个单位、1.030个单位和0.232个单位. 所以, 生计资本差异会直接影响农户参与耕地保护的意愿. 政府应从不同生计资本农户的诉求出发, 寻找农户经济利益与参与耕地保护政策的切合点, 根据农户不同生计资本情况制定相应的补偿政策和扶持策略, 从根本上激发农户参与耕地保护的积极性, 确保耕地保护政策实施的持续性和有效性.     

Informality and the state’s ambivalence in the regulation of street vending in transforming Guangzhou,China

Street vending faces uncertain state responses in contemporary Chinese cities, though it plays an important role in sustaining the livelihood of urban migrants. Building on the critical perspective that understands informality as a production of the state, this paper explores the nature of the regulation of street vending in Guangzhou since 1949. The state’s regulatory practices are characterized by what we call historical ambivalence and geographical ambivalence, which refer to the inconsistency in policies, which fluctuate between soft and hard approaches over time, and the mix of contradictory regulatory measures applied in different urban spaces, respectively. Ambivalence is generated because the state addresses street vending in ways that attain the overarching objective of urban policies. In particular, the exclusion of street vendors in present-day China is not historically natural but driven and sustained by the government’s pursuit of a good city image favorable for attracting capital in the context of intensifying inter-urban competition. The definition of informality is not a neutral classification. Rather, declaring when and to what extent an informal practice is tolerable depends on what the state desires in a specific historical circumstance.