A rural development strategy for the Apuseni Mountains, Romania

The Apuseni Mountains, part of the Western Carpathians, are distinctive in cultural terms because of the highly dispersed settlement patterns that have developed on the high erosion surfaces where the Moti people cleared the forests to allow for an expansion of family farming in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These small ‘crang’ settlements remain, but the population is declining in the face of limited employment opportunities and poor services. The question arises as to the most appropriate rural development strategy for the region, following the communist period which encouraged centralisation through the provision of housing and industry in key villages and new towns. The emphasis on private farming and the expansion of tourism could protect the inherited cultural landscape but money must be found to improve rural services. There is also a strong conservation movement which supports the establishment of a national park, but this could constrain development through controls on grazing and woodcutting. Hence the dialogue continues to find the best compromise and the concept of a ‘natural park’ is being discussed with such a reconciliation in mind. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Water resources and the political geography of development in Southern Africa: The case of Swaziland

In Africa, the development of water resources for irrigation is seen as crucial for the recovery from current crises. This paper examines two issues generated by the geography of river systems which pose political as well as technical and economic questions. First is the problem of inter-state cooperation, where river systems cross political boundaries. Second is the domestic debate that arises from the differential access to water supply through the pattern of water rights. These issues are illustrated with material from Swaziland, a small landlocked state in southern Africa. Here, regional political tensions exacerbate the problems of long-term water development.     

织金区块煤层气合采生产特征及开发策略

针对南方煤层层数多、单层薄,煤层气有效开发难度大的问题,以贵州织金区块煤层气井实际生产数据为基础,分析定向井不同煤组合采、薄煤层水平井生产特征及产气影响因素,并提出相应开发建议。分析表明,不同煤组合采产气差异较大,受地层供液能力、解吸液面高度及合采跨度影响,中、下煤组合采效果好于上、中、下煤组合采效果,其中16/17/20/23/27/30号煤层合采是区块最优合采层位;压裂规模显著影响煤层气井产气效果,压裂规模越大产气效果越好,增大压裂规模,提高压裂改造效果是多煤层煤层气有效开发的重要手段之一;水平井产气效果是定向井3~4倍,薄煤层水平井适应性得到证实,根据地质及地表条件采用水平井、定向井组合开发,可提高多煤层煤层气开发效果。综合认为,在地质条件有利的区域优选合采层位,增大压裂规模,优选实施水平井,可提高多薄煤层煤层气开发效果。     

Skills development in tourism: South Africa's tourism-led development strategy

Skills development for tourism has attracted only a limited scholarship in the developing world. In this paper the role of skills development in advancing South Africa's tourism-led development strategy is investigated. Skills development has a central role to play in ensuring the effective and sustainable transformation and development of the tourism industry in developing countries and, in the case of South Africa, in ensuring that poorer South Africans begin to benefit from this industry. It is argued that the current lack of an integrated and co-ordinated approach to tourism skills development seriously limits the potential of skills development to impact positively on tourism transformation and development in South Africa. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Tropical sugar beet land evaluation scheme: development, validation and application under Kenyan conditions

In Kenya the government is promoting diversification of crops to embrace high value crops and drought resistant crop varieties in efforts to reduce poverty in rural areas. Sugar beet is one of the crops considered as an option in this context and it is therefore important to increase knowledge about the potentials in the country for cultivating this crop. Sugar beet trials conducted in Nyandarua and Butere Mumias Districts of Kenya have shown that the crop yields are comparable to those obtained in traditional sugar-beet cultivation regions of Europe. Since sugar beet yield is affected by climate and soils, the results of Nyandarua and Butere Mumias sugar beet trials are not adequate to propose that comparable yields can be obtained elsewhere in the country and other tropical regions. Physical land evaluations assessing the potentials and constraints for sugar beet production are therefore essential. The objectives of this study was to develop a Tropical Sugar Beet Land Evaluation Scheme (TSBLES) that can aid assessment of the suitability of different areas in the tropics for sugar beet cultivation; and to test this scheme for an assessment of suitable sugar beet zones and land areas in Kenya. The development of the scheme was based on various literature sources and expert judgment on sugar beet requirements, and a Tropical Sugar Beet yield prediction Model. The TSBLES accounts for physical conditions of land i.e. climatic, edaphic and topographic conditions. According to the assessment results 27% of the land area in Kenya is suitable for sugar beet cultivation. Of this area, 5% is highly suitable, another 5% is moderately suitable and 17% is marginally suitable. Most of the highly suitable land area is concentrated in Rift Valley, Central and Nyanza provinces. The Rift Valley has the highest share of the suitable land area.     

Carbon and sulfur in the Swaziland sequence

Sedimentary and igneous rocks of the Swaziland Sequence of South Africa (>3,200 my. old) contain total carbon (0.09–8.28%), organic carbon (0.04–1.95%) and sulfur (9–53,000 ppm). Amounts of organic carbon are generally high in the lower part of the Sequence (based on two samples from the Theespruit Formation). Sulfur content varies widely with no obvious correlations or trends. These rocks may contain clues to the early carbon and sulfur cycles on earth.     

Inequality and development in rural West Africa

Inequality seems to be a feature of all societies, but some are probably more equal than others. It is in Third World countries however where inequalities between particular areas, groups and individuals are most marked. The paper first traces the growing interest in both the study of inequality and the rural household as a focus of analysis. Some of the problems of measuring inequality are then considered and various indicators of inequality are examined with reference to empirical evidence from rural W Africa. The paper concludes that recent development strategies have often directly or indirectly led to greater rural inequality and makes suggestions as to how future projects might achieve greater impact in reducing the gap between rich and poor. Paper presented at Commonwealth Geographical Bureau, Workshop on Spatial Inequalities in the Developing World, Kano, Nigeria 16–20 September 1985     

非传统矿产资源与可持续发展战略的哲学思考

阐述了发现和开发非传统矿产资源的紧迫性和重要性;给出了非传统矿产资源的概念和非传统矿产资源的分类;论述了非传统矿产资源与可持续发展战略。     

Industrial strategy and rural development in Africa with special reference to Ghana: A review of current trends and suggestions for a plan of action

Africa is a late comer in the field of industrial development and, today, trails considerably behind even developing Asia and Latin America in the contribution of manufacturing to GDP. At independence, African countries inherited a structural and spatial pattern of industries incapable of contributing to rural development and nationally integrated economies. The principal weaknesses of the structural and spatial patterns of industries are the predominance of first-stage processing and consumption goods industries and the lack of basic capital goods industries, the high degree of metropolitan concentration, the low and sometimes insignificant development of intersectoral and interregional linkages, the high capital-labor ratios, the growing balance of payments' problems caused by the heavy reliance on imported materials and equipment and the monopolistic control of output and markets fostering rising domestic prices. These limitations are discussed and the main ingredients of an alternative industrial allocation pattern outlined. The sustaining thesis is that any African country seeking alternative industrial allocation patterns calibrated to stimulating rural development and the integration of the space economy must initiate critical changes in the inherited structural and spatial patterns.     

我国煤炭资源与煤炭资源勘探开发战略

煤炭是我国的基础能源,不仅资源丰富,而且煤类齐全,煤质优良.但是,我国煤炭资源地域分布不均衡,复杂的煤矿开采技术条件和生态环境制约着我国能源基地煤炭资源的开发.当前我国煤炭资源勘探开发中的突出问题是,地质勘探工作滞后,资源接替问题突出,资源浪费严重,煤矿环境压力大,煤炭洁净生产利用发展缓慢.为适应我国经济社会发展的需要,煤炭资源勘探开发必须坚定不移地实施可持续发展战略、资源保护战略和科技发展战略.     

The role of tourism in rural development: Evidence from Iran

GeoJournal - Tourism can play an important role in diversifying the rural economy and its expanding in rural areas contributes to the sustainability of the population and the economy of these areas...     

Protected geographical indications: Institutional roles in food systems governance and rural development

This paper examines the importance of national-level institutional arrangements for promoting the EU’s Protected Geographic Indication scheme (PGI). Taking the example of Ireland, for which PGI designations remain comparatively low, it explores whether the approach to providing institutional supports to the PGI scheme is influenced by top-down technocratic governance structures that pertain to food safety and quality certification that encompass the broader operating environment for food production in Ireland. Although the regulation of food safety and quality certification are distinct remits to the administration of the PGI scheme, in the Irish context the same institutional bodies are involved in governance of both. Using a discourse analysis interpretative framework, this paper draws on interviews with Irish producer group members and institutional representatives to examine how governance of the PGI scheme reflects management perspectives and practices more in keeping with a regulatory environment for food safety and quality than with development of place-based food product links. It suggests that incentives to avail of the PGI scheme as a means of realising value-added for producers are not well established because they require the development of more subjective, context-dependent processes and practices linked to geographical place and place identity. These are not easily accommodated under current institutional arrangements that also incorporate food safety and quality remits because these are in turn strongly established through nationally and internationally recognised systems of regulation and benchmarking. The findings point to the benefits to be gained from a more layered governance structure for PGI; devolving operation of the scheme to relevant regional and local development organisations that possess the expertise and relevant local knowledge to (a) incentivise the formation of producer groups, and (b) prioritise mentoring and support for PGI concept development as a clearer reflection of bottom-up rural sustainability policy.     

城乡统筹发展中的土地利用问题探讨

城乡统筹中的土地开发利用,应当体现整体化、融合化、动态化的配置原则。要调整传统的城市规划化、土地国有化、农民市民化的城市化发展演进模式,改变目前城乡社会资源要素不均,衡配置和土地开发利用的双轨制,应当在发展思路、发展方式和发展机制上予以完善、改革和创新,可将统筹“两规”、统筹基础设施和公共服务用地,统筹农村低效土地利用作为切入口。     

Handicrafts in Oman and their role in rural community development

Oman has a long tradition of practising handicrafts, though few are of high aesthetic value. Omani handicrafts have always been functional, made for a rural population which has valued the artefacts for what they do but much less for their appearance. Nevertheless, handicraft skills are very widespread throughout the rural population. In the past they have been used to process raw materials of agricultural origin, notably from the date palm and from livestock, and also from wild trees and minerals. In addition to local resources, Omani craftsmen have worked imported cotton yarn and imported precious and semi-precious metals. The craftsmen not only provided equipment for rural producers and finished goods for domestic use but they also performed the important community roles of linking primary producer with primary producer and consumer, and making both more aware of the raw materials of the environment in which they lived. In doing this, craftsmen, with their mutually respected skills, played a vital role in creating the complex network of interdependencies from which a community is built. However, the Omani and other regional oil industries put great pressure on all rural activities, and particularly on the highly labour-intensive crafts. People sought work in the urban centres and in the armed forces at the same time as a flood of cheap imports prevented craftsmen from raising their prices to keep abreast of inflation and of heightened personal material aspirations. The impact of oil was so rapid that the craftsmen had no time to adapt their techniques or their products to meet the new circumstances. Craft growth and change needed government support to see it through a difficult transitional period. Unfortunately, however, the government of Oman has only played a small and somewhat confused role in the crafts. Many people can no longer practise their inherited skills and the role that they played in maintaining the community has been largely destroyed. Concentrated effort needs to be made, craft by craft, initially at a village scale, to train and to modify techniques where necessary and to expand market openings. Success in a single village can then form the basis of expanded regional or national projects, drawing in other resources such as credit from the Agricultural Bank and using the marketing networks of the Central Marketing Authority. An approach which has been used to redevelop spinning and weaving and to introduce irrigation channel manufacture in a coastal village in northern Oman is providing valuable information that could be used as the basis of other craft projects in Oman and in countries with comparable craft development problems.     

老挝万象平原盐丘发育程度与钾盐找矿策略

老挝万象平原不同矿区盐丘构造发育程度不同。由于盐丘控制了钾盐矿层的分布,因此研究盐丘及其发育程度并对其分级,对万象平原及其周边地区的钾盐找矿具有重要参考意义。通过对万象平原大量的钾盐勘查资料研究,将该区域内盐丘构造按发育程度不同分为Ⅲ级(较发育)、Ⅱ级(发育)和Ⅰ级(极发育)三个级别。属Ⅲ级的有通芒盐丘和班海盐丘,属Ⅱ级的有农刀及塔贡盐丘,属Ⅰ级的为农哈湖盐丘。在万象平原进行钾盐勘查时,发育程度不同的盐丘及盐丘的不同部位的工程布设不同,找矿效果也不同。     

Geochemical investigation of Archaean Bimodal and Dwalile metamorphic suites,Ancient Gneiss Complex,Swaziland

The bimodal suite (BMS) comprises leucotonalitic and trondhjemitic gneisses interlayered with amphibolites. Based on geochemical parameters three main groups of siliceous gneiss are recognized: (i) SiO₂ < 73%, Al₂O₃ > 14%, and fractionated light rare-earth element (REE) and flat heavy REE patterns; (ii) SiO₂ and Al₂O₃ contents similar to (i) but with strongly fractionated REE patterns with steep heavy REE slopes; (iii) SiO₂ > 73%, Al₂O₃ < 14%, Zr ～ 500 ppm and high contents of total REE having fractionated light REE and flat heavy REE patterns with large negative Eu anomalies. The interlayered amphibolites have major element abundances similar to those of basaltic komatiites, Mg-tholeiites and Fe-rich tholeiites. The former have gently sloping REE patterns, whereas the Mg-tholeiites have non-uniform REE patterns ranging from flat (～ 10 times chondrite) to strongly light REE-enriched. The Fe-rich amphibolites have flat REE patterns at 20–30 times chondrite.The Dwalile metamorphic suite, which is preserved in the keels of synforms within the BMS, includes peridotitic komatiites that have depleted light REE patterns similar to those of compositionally similar volcanics in the Onverwacht Group, Barberton, basaltic komatiites and tholeiites. The basaltic komatiites have REE patterns parallel to those of the BMS basaltic komatiites but with lower total REE contents. The Dwalile tholeiites have flat REE patterns.The basic and ultrabasic liquids were derived by partial melting of a mantle source which may have been heterogeneous or the heterogeneity may have resulted from sequential melting of the mantle source. The Fe-rich amphibolites were derived either from liquids generated at shallow levels or from liquids generated at depth which subsequently underwent extensive fractionation.     

The strategy of territorial integration in regional development: Defining territoriality

The idea of territorial integration can be seen as a basic concept in the recent, loosely defined ‘neoregionalist’ approach to spatial policy and planning. Lying between a social Utopia and various methods or doctrines of regional science, this idea has no coherent theoretical basis at all. This problem will be approached here from the geographical viewpoint, i.e. from the point of view of the concept of territoriality. This aim is to avoid abstract conceptualization and instead to arrive at a concrete reality, primarily the reality of the Scandinavian countries (as one of the intellectual contexts of neoregionalism). Instead of physical unit, i.e. territory, a more interesting starting point is to consider territoriality as a socio-spatial concept. Thus, instead of the abstraction of region, the focal point would be the locality as a basic element of the multi-level settlement and community structure, i.e. as the arena for everyday life (way of life) of a community. Problems of local interest may then be discussed in relation to national and/or class interests. Thus the basic dialectic opposition can be seen to exist between the structural realities of the global economy and local action. The essential intermediate level between them is the nation-state, while the region as a kind of subnational level is conceptually and strategically a problematic unit.     

Integrated development in a Nigerian rural environment: Issues of inter-disciplinary co-operation

This paper attempts a conceptual clarification of the term development in a national or regional context. It emphasizes the integrative and systemic nature of, as well as the underlying principle of social justice in, meaningful development efforts. Illustrating with a part of the Nigerian rural environment, the paper shows how certain problems of the rural communities can have region-wide, if not nation-wide, implications. The policy issues for effective remedial measures are outlined, and their effective implementation is shown to depend very much on carefully undertaken problem and resource evaluation and streamlined inter-disciplinary co-operation.