Where Forest Carbon Meets Its Maker: Forestry-Based Offsetting as the Subsumption of Nature

ABSTRACT

The “subsumption of nature” framework focuses on productivity increases and extractive innovations in nature-based industries. In this article, we argue that it can also be employed beyond that context in order to capture the convoluted dynamics of market environmentalism. To substantiate our argument, we draw on recent fieldwork on “Trees for Global Benefits,” a forestry-based offsetting project in western Uganda. Like industrial tree plantations, this project relies on the subsumption of carbon sequestration to market imperatives in order to guarantee the quality of its carbon credits. The ecological and socioeconomic difficulties this process engenders give rise to unintended consequences and set in motion the disciplining of the carbon offset producers themselves. The application of the subsumption framework to nonindustrial sectors in this way calls attention to the interlinked socioecological dynamics involved in the subsumption of nature, and highlights potential synergies with previous work on the subsumption of labor.     

The ambivalent nature of biodiversity: Scientists' perspectives on the Norwegian Nature Index

The Norwegian Nature Index is intended to provide an overview of the state of biodiversity in Norway. From the perspective of the sociology of knowledge, the author explores how biologists make sense of biodiversity and how they identify scientific uncertainty in the context of the Nature Index. Anchoring and themata are employed as tools for analysis in the investigation of scientists' representation of the Nature Index and its subject matter, namely biodiversity. In-depth interviews indicated that most of the scientists perceived the results as intuitively sound, but they also revealed an outspoken ambivalence about compressing complex ecological relationships into standardized numbers. In covering both natural and cultural landscapes as habitats for biodiversity, there seems to be a symbolic mismatch between the operationalization of biodiversity in the index and the intuitive anchoring of biodiversity as ‘untouched’ nature. Hence, the thematizing of the divide between the untouched and what is human may be seen as a form of conceptual uncertainty underlying the Nature Index.     

"The Same But Not the Same": The Discursive Constitution of Large Housing Estates in Germany,France, and Poland

Since the 1960s, large housing estates have shaped the geography of suburbia in many Western and Eastern European cities. This paper examines the constitution of the social and spatial meanings of large housing estates within three different national contexts: in Germany, Poland, and France. Employing discourse theory and an empirical analysis of the coverage of major national newspapers, we identify cross-national and specific national patterns of discourses that (re)produce particular social spaces and distinct social orders. Quantitative discourse analysis reveals differences, similarities, and ruptures in various constructions of the meaning of large housing estates. We find that large housing estates in France and Germany are constituted in print media as threatening places and as places of foreignness located "outside" the "proper society." In contrast, Polish large housing estates are framed discursively as threatened places located in the social "inside."     

The Discursive Regime of the "American Dream" and the New Suburban Frontier: The Case of Kendall County,Illinois

This study examines the current role of ideology in maintaining and reproducing consumer demand for residential suburban spaces in the outer ring of American metropolitan regions. It highlights the contradiction between the promises that are made through the ideology and discourse of the American Dream and the inherent limits of those promises within the realities of a highly dynamic capitalist society. It is argued that this powerful discursive formation has evolved through recent neoliberal times, and is manifest in the suburban landscape in new ways. It must continue to produce simulated images that signify mythologized narratives of the past that cater to sentiments of hope and a better life in the future. At the same time, it works through existing fears and anxieties in order to secure the progressive accumulation of capital in the suburban built environment. Evidence will be provided from the ongoing suburbanization of Kendall County, Illinois at the southwestern edge of metropolitan Chicago.     

科学地理学的理论基础及其研究内容与学科性质

在科学与技术是不同的知识形态,科学史研究的地理思潮转向,地理学向“软”的一面转向并关注社会,科学史研究的地理思潮倾向于关注“社会→地理→科学”关系的历史解释,地理学家在科学史的地理解释思想上的贡献等理论基础上,拙文主要阐述科学地理学这一新学科在建构“科学—地理—社会”关系体系上的独特性:①建构关注过去的、现在的及未来的“社会→地理→科学”关系;②践行“以任务带动学科”和“任务学科并重”的地理学发展方略,主要建构“科学→地理→社会”关系;③聚焦于科学活动因素的区域性,注重区域相关性分析方法论。基于这种独特性和地理学方法论精髓,科学地理学研究的内容体系包括:①科学研究及其组织与传播的时空结构;②科学研究及其组织与传播的时空结构与地理环境、经济、技术、社会、文化等结构要素的时空结构及其相互关系;③科学研究及其组织与传播对自然景观、社会景观、文化景观等的影响;④科学研究及其组织与传播对“人地关系地域系统”演进的影响。科学地理学的理论基础、建构“科学—地理—社会”关系的独特性和研究内容决定了科学地理学的交叉性、综合性和区域性,这与地理学特征是一致的,促进着现代地理学微观上的“深”化发展和宏观上的“综合”发展。     

From Wetland to Saltland: Natural Obstacles and Socioecological Consequences in the Production of Solar Salt in Venezuela

ABSTRACT

This article provides a critical analysis of the process involved in transforming small-scale artisanal production of solar salt into large-scale industrial production by Produsal in Los Olivitos Wildlife Refuge and Fishing Reserve in Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela. In doing so, it highlights the socioecological impacts resulting from this process in the wetland and the fishing community of Ancón de Iturre. Using political economy of nature as a theoretical framework, especially notions of the formal subsumption of nature, materiality of natural resources, and the commodification of nature, this article explores how the biophysical characteristic of salt and the ecosystem where it is contained present a specific set of natural obstacles for its production; the different strategies used by Produsal to overcome these obstacles; and the social and ecological contradictions embedded in the process.     

Colonial transformations: Nature, progress and science in the Christchurch Botanic Gardens

Abstract:   The Christchurch Botanic Gardens are popularly portrayed, both positively and negatively, as an icon of colonial heritage. This paper explores the cultural, social and scientific functions of the Gardens in the 19th century, and argues that they did not simply support colonization. Rather, the Gardens were a site of negotiation, conflict and contradictory meaning. The aim is to show the colonial project, embodied in the space of the Botanic Gardens, as fraught and vulnerable, rather than as the extension of panoptic European power.     

Constructing the Klamath: Nature,Culture, and the Management of a Western River

Despite decades of scientific research, stakeholder negotiations, and policy proposals, management of the Klamath River in southern Oregon and northern California remains hotly contested. This research examines the sociocultural dimensions of proposed removal of four Klamath River dams. Using a social constructivist approach to analyze the discourse of public comments regarding dam removal, I find commenters rely on diverse ideas of nature and divergent problem framings, contest the role of science, and draw on embedded and meaningful sociocultural narratives to legitimize their management preferences. These discourses shape the terrain upon which management actions are perceived, valued, and contested, and make management actions meaningful beyond their immediate spatial and temporal context. Dam removal on the Klamath River is far more than an ecological problem amenable to a scientific or technical approach; instead, it is a complex project shot through with the sociocultural identities, visions, and narratives of all involved.     

基于生活实践的人与自然生命共同体构建——西藏夏乌村案例

人与自然的关系是地理学的核心话题。以西藏夏乌村为研究案例地,基于半结构化访谈、参与式观察等质性方法,从日常生活实践视角,透视地方社会与自然的关系,剖析人与自然生命共同体何以构建。经研究发现：① 藏族村民与青稞（Hordeum vulgare var. coeleste ）、耕牛互动时,借助物质、情感、空间以及身份转型等多重生活实践策略与后者联结,经由人的自然化实践,建构起表征型人与自然的生命共同体。此时,青稞和耕牛作为工具化的自然,是村民的身体表征,在人类行动者缺场或受限时,扮演为日常生活叙事的角色。② 藏族村民与虫草（Cordyceps）、猕猴（Macaca）互动时,借助意义、制度、空间协商等生活实践策略与后者建立联系,经由自然的人化实践,建构起链接型人与自然生命共同体。此时,虫草和猕猴作为对象化的自然,被社会所建构,并赋予社会生命,逐渐嵌入日常生活。     

Griffith Taylor Lecture,Geographical Society of New South Wales, 2004: Australia and the ‘State of Nature/Native’

This account sets itself against the binarism of physical versus cultural determinism that drives population–environment debate over people's place on the Australian continent. In reading back into colonial times, it evokes ‘our’ unresolved sense of relation to nature on a continent that has pressed awkward buttons since the time the botanist on Cook's Endeavour, Joseph Banks, first mused over the apparent contradiction on the east coast of human presence and uncultivated land. Australia's ‘state of nature’, including its inhabitants, elicited tensions in Anglo-Celtic peoples’ ambiguous relation with nature that have never gone away or been resolved. Indeed, I argue, against the background of what was considered in eighteenth-century Enlightenment thought to be a distinctly human separation from, and capacity to rise above, nature, that the Australian state of nature/native precipitated a crisis in prevailing ideas of ‘the human’. As consternation grew into the nineteenth century about the very capacity of Aboriginal people for improvement, and particularly for cultivation, I argue they challenged the basis upon which the unity of humankind had been assumed in Enlightenment thought. They could not be comprehended, according to the prevailing conception of racial difference, as a mere variety of the human. The radical idea of innate human difference may thus be understood as arising out of this incomprehension, as an attempt to account for the ontologically inexplicable difference of the Australian Aborigine. This lecture's excursion into the origins of ‘race’ is by way of highlighting the uncertainty of the divide between the human and non-human worlds. Imagining an entangled world of living things may help to craft fresh lines of debate about modes of environmental belonging and becoming on this continent that overcome the stale binaries and blind spots of Australia's population–environment debate.     

九寨沟自然保护区景观变化与保护

立足于景观尺度,基于RS和GIS技术及景观生态学原理,使用巢式分析法研究了1975-2007年九寨沟自然保护区景观变化,包括景观格局、景观过程,讨论了景观变化的驱动因素.结果表明:1.最近30多年来,九寨沟自然保护区及外围圈层各类景观都发生了不同程度的变化:自保护区建立以来,林地、水域分别净增899.56 hm2、7.06 hm2,疏林/灌丛、草地分别减少440.52 hm2、970.60 hm2,耕地已全部实现退耕;而同期外围2个圈层的林地却分别减少9 012.23 hm2、25 975.28 hm2,水域减少16.89 hm2、0.83 hm2,建设用地增加376.58 hm2、1 340.35 hm2.草地增加4 883.18 hm2、56 462.11 hm2.在景观水平上,保护区破碎化程度最低,而多样性程度最高,但在类型水平上,保护区2007年的林地却仍然比1975年破碎.2.各种宏观政策,包括保护政策、旅游发展及其所引发的人类活动是九寨沟自然保护区及其外围2个圈层林地、建设用地、耕地景观变化的驱动因素,而自然地理过程是九寨沟自然保护区及其外围2个圈层冰雪/裸岩、水域景观变化的驱动因素.针对景观变化和未来面临的挑战提出了保护建议.     

中国北方半干旱农牧交错带小区域人地关系演变模式初探--以内蒙古奈曼旗尧勒甸子村为例

通过对内蒙古奈曼旗尧勒甸子村的微观研究,得出北方半干旱农牧交错带小区域人地关系演变的模式及原因,并在近年来这一地区实施"多元系统"整治的基础上,综合运用环境科学与经济学的理论,提出这一地带建设小区域高效经济生态系统的宏观发展模式.     

Ruralness,development and democracy: media,myths and the creation of meaning at Lake Cowal,New South Wales

The media play a vital role in translating new events and experiences into the textual forms that are communicated to the public. As a result, media narratives have become sites of contestation with opposing groups attempting to frame them in a way that suits their political purposes. When a gold mining proposal to be based at Lake Cowal was rejected by the NSW government for ‘environmental reasons’, the reaction of newspapers circulated in townships near the proposed mine site was analysed for the month following the announcement. A pro‐mining regional hegemony dominated the newspaper texts and drew on three powerful myths prevalent in Australian rural society: ‘the rural identity’, ‘the glory of development’, and ‘the duties of democracy’. The pro‐mining groups use these myths to make their interests appear the same as community interests in an effort to silence opposing views and obtain total community support. The manner in which powerful members of the pro‐mining group were permitted to use the newspapers for their own ends brings forth questions of power and objectivity in the media of contemporary society.     

中国西北干旱区自然保护区生态脆弱性评价——以甘肃西湖、苏干湖自然保护区为例

依据中国西北干旱区生态环境的特性和演化规律,从气候条件、土地资源、生境状态及人为干预4方面筛选12个指标,构建西北干旱区自然保护区生态脆弱性评价指标体系,并对各指标进行分级.采用层次分析法确定指标权重,建立生态脆弱性综合评价模型.在甘肃敦煌西湖自然保护区和苏干湖自然保护区应用表明,指标体系合理,模型适用.评价认为,西湖自然保护区目前总体状态为中,高度脆弱,苏干湖自然保护区为轻,中度脆弱.在原生脆弱性方面,两者等级相当,但西湖更脆弱;在次生脆弱性方面,西湖已受到显著影响,次生脆弱性严重.     

城市化水平增长曲线的类型、分段和研究方法

城市化水平增长曲线可以分为S形和J形2大类别,其变化特征、动力学背景及研究方法也不尽相同。城市化曲线研究可以分为唯象分析和唯理分析2大途径,唯理研究包括城一乡人口异速生长、城一乡人口替代以及城乡人口迁移和转换3种路径,目前这些方法主要用于S形曲线研究,对J形曲线的探索不够深入。S形曲线是一种奇对称曲线,其模型导数却是一...     

中国农业产业集群演化过程及创新发展机制——以“寿光模式”蔬菜产业集群为例

在对农业产业集群理论探讨的基础上,以山东寿光蔬菜产业集群为例,分析中国农业产业集群形成演化的"四阶段"模型及可持续创新发展的内在机制,并挖掘了"寿光模式"的"集群"本质。结论表明:①中国农业产业集群的形成与创新发展:首先是从农业产业集聚开始,并经由专业村到产业集群,再到乡村创新极演化;②促进农户的企业化演变是农业集群及其创新体系形成的第一步。创建产业网络是农业产业集聚和专业村向农业产业集群升级的必备步骤,农业创新体系的形成标志着农业集群走向成熟;③山东寿光蔬菜产业集群的形成演化也经历了这4个阶段。各类各层主体通过知识增长、知识流动和知识采纳提高自己的内生能力和外部契约关系,并通过知识和创新网络实现五大维度上的协同创新,一起促进企业(农户)、产业(网络)、技术、制度和空间"五位一体"的协同演化,是农业集群可持续创新发展的内在机制。     

利用红外相机监测新疆天池博格达峰自然保护区鸟兽资源

红外相机技术目前已成为监测陆栖哺乳动物和地栖鸟类的常用技术手段。为监测新疆天池博格达峰自然保护区内鸟类和兽类资源,于2019年7月—2020年9月,在保护区内选取30个红外相机位点共布设58台红外相机,累积工作29730个工作日,共获得99850份图像及视频数据,采集独立有效照片5744张;共观测到野生陆生脊椎动物9目19科29种,其中兽类5目10科15种,鸟类4目9科14种。观测到的动物中有国家I级重点保护野生动物雪豹（Panthera uncia）,国家II级重点保护野生动物6种,分别为北山羊（Capra sibirica）、马鹿（Cervus canadensis）、猞猁（Lynx lynx）、赤狐（Vulpes vulpes）、黑鸢（Milvus migrans）以及暗腹雪鸡（Tetraogallus himalayensis）。森林生境中,兽类相对多度指数最高的是马鹿（RAI=60.569）,鸟类相对多度指数最高的是山斑鸠（Streptopelia orientalis,RAI=0.854）;高山草甸及裸岩生境中,兽类相对多度指数最高的是马鹿（RAI=18.693）,鸟类相对多度指数最高的是暗腹雪鸡（RAI=0.316）和黄嘴山鸦（Pyrrhocorax graculus,RAI=0.854）。物种累积曲线结果显示：兽类物种数在200 d之后几乎不再增长,而鸟类物种数在100 d之后增速放缓但一直持续增长,表明时长450 d的红外相机监测力度对保护区中的兽类而言较为充分,对鸟类而言还不够充分。研究结果可为新疆天池博格达峰自然保护区野生陆生脊椎动物多样性监测与评估提供数据参考,为该保护区的保护管理工作提供科学依据。     

北京汉石桥湿地自然保护区植被分类与2003～2006年植被格局变化

采用样线法结合样方法对北京汉石桥湿地自然保护区的湿地植被进行调查和分类研究。汉石桥湿地共有湿地植被2个植被型组、4个植被型、22个群系组、31个群系。对研究区主要植物群系进行多样性分析发现,莲(Nelumbo nucifera)群系的Simpson多样性指数最高,而芦苇(Phragmites australis)群系的Shannon-Wiener多样性指数和群系物种数最高。并对该湿地核心区2003年和2006年的主要湿地植被分布情况进行分析,结果表明,该湿地在2004年进行恢复工程的前后各区域土地利用和植被分布有较大变化,人为干扰及恢复工程是汉石桥湿地植被的分布变化的主要原因。针对目前的状况,保护区应该采取保障水源,营造不同的生境类型和保护湿地动植物资源等方法,维持湿地物种多样性和生态功能的稳定。     

Discourse,representation and urban planning: How a critical approach to discourse helps reveal the spatial re-ordering of street sex work1

This paper shows how a critical approach to discourse sheds light on processes of spatial re-orderings. It uses a case study of urban planning in an area of street sex work to explore the ways in which various representations of prostitution can be used to inform planning decisions. Representations of sex worker identity also expose complex spatial and social geographies and evolving processes of marginalisation and exclusion.     

地理学本体论：内涵、性质与理论价值

科学哲学研究表明,本体论问题的探讨对于具体学科的科学哲学研究和理论研究都具有重要意义。本文界定了地理学本体论的内涵,讨论了地理学方法论、本体论和地理学哲学的关系,比较和分析了哲学本体论与地理学本体论之间的联系和区别,阐述了地理学本体论的性质,概括了地理学本体论的理论价值。地理学本体论包括两个层面：地理学家和地理学流派的哲学本体论观念、地理学理论的本体论承诺,地理学家的本体论影响和决定着地理学家的认识论、方法论和价值论选择,而某个地理学理论的本体论承诺则是该理论得以成立的前提和基础。