Community discourse and the emerging amenity landscapes of the rural American West

We explore the construction of community meaning on an emerging amenity landscape in the western United States through in-depth interviews and ethnographic fieldwork with residents of rural Fremont County, Colorado. The meanings ascribed to community center on different interpretations of home, social interaction, and personal identity. Although in some cases these differences correspond to the conventional division between new and long-term residents, the more significant finding was a discourse of “co-opetition” that captures a broader countywide understanding of community as simultaneous cooperation and competition among local stakeholders. Ultimately, this conceptualization of rural community is a way of negotiating the form and function of the amenity landscape. The production of meaningful social interaction points to opportunities for engaging residents in land management as they interact with one another and the landscape.     

Re-thinking rural-amenity ecologies for environmental management in the Anthropocene

The migration of lifestyle-orientated landholders (amenity migrants) to rural landscapes is resulting in the production of new rural ecologies. To date, the future implications of these ecologies for environmental management have been framed largely in ‘traditional’ conservation biology terms, focusing on how we can conserve or restore natural environments to a past ecological benchmark. However, the Anthropocene provides an opportunity to critically examine how we can progress environmental management in a way that locates ecologies as emergent products of human–environment interaction through time. We extend from Tim Ingold’s work on wayfaring to position people and plants in environmental management as cohabitants who are traversing a world that is continually in the making. We conducted qualitative research in the hinterlands of Melbourne, Australia, involving narrative interviews with landholders and walking their property with them, using a form of participant observation called the ‘walkabout’ method. We found that the conservation aspirations of amenity migrants were mediated by the landscape histories that were embodied in the plants they engaged with on their property. These embodied landscape histories served to structure the trajectory of ecological emergence in which landholders were a part. We develop the concept of ‘landscape legacy’ to explain how past actions and future aspirations come together in management practice to produce novel and often unanticipated ecologies. Landscape legacy grounds the Anthropocene in everyday environments, capturing the need to progress environmental management as a wild experiment in rural-amenity landscapes, focusing on ecological form, function, relationship and process.     

Amenity migration: diverse conceptualizations of drivers,socioeconomic dimensions,and emerging challenges

Rural communities throughout the postindustrial world are in the midst of a significant transition, sometimes referred to as rural restructuring, as traditional land uses, economic activities, and social arrangements transition to those associated with “post-productivist” or “multifunctional” landscapes. Amenity migration, the movement of people based on the draw of natural and/or cultural amenities, can be thought of as both driver and implication of this transition, resulting in significant changes in the ownership, use, and governance of rural lands, as well as in the composition and socioeconomic dynamics of rural communities. In concert with other social, economic and political processes, amenity migration is contributing to the fundamental transformation of rural communities throughout the world. This paper presents a review of the social science literature related to the concept of amenity migration, focusing on the ways in which it has been conceptualized, theorized, and documented by different communities of scholars. We then profile and summarize diverse perspectives on drivers and socioeconomic impacts, highlighting emerging challenges and opportunities related to this type of migration occurring at multiple scales and in multiple sites. The paper also identifies and discusses particular areas where further research is needed.     

Amenity migration to the global south: Implications for community development

Despite a growing trend of migration to countries in the global South fueled by their natural amenities (i.e., natural amenity migration), research on this topic has predominantly been conducted in the global North. This is problematic given the notable socioeconomic, attitudinal, and behavioral differences between amenity migrants (often urbanites from developed countries) and local people (often rural residents of developing countries). Grounded in community field theory, this study begins to fill this gap in the literature by increasing our understanding of the ways in which local residents and amenity migrants interact in the amenity-rich community of Nuevo Arenal, Costa Rica. We found that linguistic, cultural, and spatial barriers (real and perceived) created a social climate in which the interaction between local residents and amenity migrants was primarily based on mundane interactions and did not lead to social integration. This proved to be a hindrance to the creation of the community field, which led to a lack of joint planning and participation in activities and projects that sought to improve the overall living conditions in the community. Explanations of these findings and the implications of such a divide are offered.     

Interpreting amenities,envisioning the future: common ground and conflict in North Carolina’s rural coastal communities

This paper contributes to ongoing discussions about the implications of rural change and amenity migration for members of diverse rural communities. We engage with recent amenity migration and political ecology literature that focuses on social constructions of nature and landscapes, and how these constructions affect the attitudes and opinions of community members. We use our case study of a mail-based survey in Down East, North Carolina to suggest that the ways in which people conceptualize the particular ‘natures’ and landscapes of a place matters in terms of shaping people’s attitudes with respect to ongoing processes of change. We find that people’s opinions about environment, culture, and land use are often superficially similar but that when conflicts arise or particular actions are considered, substantial differences in people’s underlying conceptual frameworks are revealed. In particular we find that despite widespread shared appreciation of the environment and culture Down East, differing interpretations of these key terms lead to potential misunderstandings and land use planning challenges.     

甘肃省地矿局“十三五”水文与环境地质成果及“十四五”发展设想综述

水文与环境地质专业服务对象涉及自然资源、生态环境、文化旅游、林业草原、水利水务、农业农村、应急管理、交通住建等政府职能管理部门,服务范围涵盖资源能源调查监测、水土污染评价防治、国土空间生态修复、旅游规划、生态环境保护与治理、防灾减灾、重大工程建设等社会经济领域,水工环队伍是资源、环境、生态、空间等国土要素调查评价、利用及保护和监测预警的重要专业技术力量。本文在总结甘肃省地矿局“十三五”期间的水文与环境地质工作在提供资源能源保障、地质技术服务方面的主要成就和支撑生态环境保护与修复方面成果的基础上,依托行业技术优势和发展基础,结合国家及省经济社会发展和生态文明建设等战略部署,面向政府需要和社会需求,分析提出了甘肃省地矿局“十四五”期间水文与环境地质业务转型升级与高质量发展的宏观设想和思路。对地勘单位适应新发展阶段的水文与环境地质工作新要求,规划部署和构建相应的新发展格局有一定的参考意义。     

论变化环境下流域管理的知识创新

提出全球气候变化与世界社会经济动荡等变化环境下流域可持续发展的科学内涵、制约因素以及解决途径。以自然与社会协同进化的复杂系统作为变化环境下流域概念的抽象表征,以科研能力与管理能力作为流域可持续发展的重要影响因素,以流域管理中科学研究与管理实践的相互作用机理为出发点,分析当前流域管理中科学研究与管理实践的种种错位,提出适应变化环境的流域管理知识创新机制,为提高流域科研水平、充分发挥科学在流域可持续发展中的作用提供理论支撑。     

Risk prediction of rural public security environmental carrying capacity based on the risk entropy

In order to achieve effective early warning and prediction for the risk of ecological environmental carrying capacity of rural public security, this paper put forward risk assessment indicators from the perspective of rural ecological, infrastructure, social, and population carrying capacity. And then, this paper constructs risk assessment model of rural ecological environment carrying capacity on the base of genetic projection pursuit model, information diffusion theory, and risk entropy method. First of all, the genetic projection pursuit model is introduced to perform one-dimensional projection for high-dimensional data according to optimal projection direction, and the projection value is fitted with time series together, thus, the risk of rural ecological environment carrying capacity could be divided into four risk levels according to established standard; secondly, we spread the one-dimensional projection value of each sample into four risk levels by information diffusion theory, and calculate the risk entropy of rural environmental carrying capacity by risk entropy method; at last, the empirical analysis shows that the model constructed in this paper is simple and effective, which could provide effective reference and suggestion for environmental protection and public safety department.     

平邑县矿山地质环境保护与治理机制探索

平邑县高度重视日益突出的矿山地质环境问题,不断加强矿山地质环境保护与治理工作力度,通过推进矿山公园建设、严格采矿权审批程序及开展矿山地质环境治理总体规划等,对保护矿业遗迹、保护矿山地质环境等工作起到积极作用,并取得了较好的社会效益、经济效益和环境效益。     

The role of women in environmental management: an overview of the rural Cameroonian situation

Rural Cameroonian women interact with the environment through their numerous daily chores, and so produce in each Cameroonian ecological zone specific problems which with time can no longer be managed. In cutting down and burning the vegetation so as to create farms, in fetching water, fuel wood and so on in order to satisfy the needs of each household, the Cameroonian rural woman is pushed into a situation where she devastates and accelerates environmental degradation.In any ecological, climatic, ethnic or cultural zone, in which she finds herself, she sets in motion the continuous natural resource consumption process. Unfortunately, she has no firm authority over the land, credit and decision-making where she can come in, interact and check some of these negative consequences. The men have also been identified as accomplices in this environmental degradation process since they push the women into taking much from the environment so as to satisfy men and general domestic needs.Since the rural Cameroonian women constitute a potential partner (56,6%) of the rural production force, this paper highlights the problems created in each zone with the view of awakening public opinion, and creating an awareness of the magnitude in each zone. Some proposals, through the discussion methodology are envisaged. This, through compensatory measures, exchanges in take and give, and in farm community actions to uphold any positive checks. When all these are properly focused and the women's right to land, credit, training and decision-making recognised, they can be brought to the forefront as partners in the better management of the environment.     

The local politics of the global countryside: boosterism,aspirational ruralism and the contested reconstitution of Queenstown,New Zealand

This paper examines the local politics through which the reconstitution of rural localities under globalization is advanced and contested, with particular reference to the impact of international amenity migration. It contends that as globalization proceeds not by domination but by hybridization and negotiation, local politics is critical as the sphere in which the outcomes of globalization processes are interpreted and contested. The paper examines the case study of Queenstown Lakes district in South Island, New Zealand, as a locality that has experienced significant transformation through engagement with globalization processes. These include high levels of international amenity in-migration, substantial overseas investment in property, commerce and construction projects, and an increasing volume of international tourists. Collectively, these processes have contributed to rapid population growth and intensive pressure for the development of rural land in the area. As detailed in the paper, land use planning became the dominant issue in local politics, with conflict between groups informed by ‘boosterist’ and ‘environmentalist’ stand-points, as well as the ‘aspirational ruralism’ of amenity in-migrants. Although locally-grounded, the conflict engaged trans-local actors and networks and transgressed space and scale, thus becoming itself an expression of globalization.     

论固体矿产绿色勘查的重要意义——以新民绿色勘查示范为例

固体矿产勘查为国民经济建设和社会发展提供了强有力的资源保障。传统固体矿产勘查因经常采用探槽、浅井、坑道、钻孔等探矿工程,对生态环境造成较大的负面影响。为深入探讨固体矿产绿色勘查在节能减排、环境保护、和谐勘查等方面的作用,以贵州省道真县新民铝土矿绿色勘查示范为例,详细介绍示范区的生态环境与资源情况,并将传统固体矿产勘查与绿色勘查对环境的影响程度进行分析对比。结果表明:通过科学的工程布置,调整对生态环境影响较大的勘查设备,运用先进的勘查技术手段,降低了能源消耗,减少了污染物排放,同时在很大程度上减少了地质勘查活动对生态环境的破坏;通过合理的钻机场地分区布置、建设,环保型冲洗液的应用,科学规范的钻孔封闭,可减少对环境的扰动,保护地下水环境。通过环境恢复治理,可短期内恢复破坏的生态环境,使地质勘查与生态环境保护相协调发展;绿色勘查实施可增加当地收入,助推脱贫攻坚战略,构建和谐地勘环境。综上所述,固体矿产绿色勘查能实现节能减排的良好效果,可在很大程度上减少对生态环境的扰动,能最大限度地恢复生态环境,构建和谐共赢的地勘环境,实现地质找矿和环境保护的双赢。     

Water scarcity problems in Israel

The demand for scarce fresh water requires Israel to cease squandering this limited resource on agriculture, at present consuming about 70% of the annual supply. Environmental pollution must cease as well, for untreated urban water effluent contaminates ground water. All Israel's 700 million cubic metres sewage water must be suitably purified to irrigate about one hundred thousand hectares. Climatically controlled greenhouses and advanced agricultural research will reduce the amount of water and land required for the cultivation of the fresh vegetables and fruit, and small proportion of the dry fodder needed for the country's consumption. Israeli agriculture's association with moral, ideological and social ideas obstructs meaningful reduction in the allocation of water to agriculture. The Zionist movement has always seen transforming land into a means of production as the index of its success. Failure in this would signify an inability to adapt to adverse environmental conditions and be a sweeping repudiation of Zionism. The protracted Israeli-Arab national conflict also affects water policy. Israeli Jewish society has always considered rural settlement, agricultural activity, as part of the substance of its national identity and power, bonding the people with the land and consolidating territorial sovereignty. Since the 1970s, capitalism, which has dominated Israeli ideology, has favoured the individual's interests over the community's. Thus agriculture is mobilized to accommodate the private struggle for the good of the farming sector against the needs of the national collective.     

临沂市节约集约利用土地思考

全面分析了当前临沂市建设用地利用中存在的主要问题和制约因素,结合临沂市作为全省＂两型＂社会建设改革试点城市这一背景,借鉴国内外土地节约集约利用方面好的做法,提出通过规划计划、城乡统筹、机制创新、舆论宣传4个方面共同推进,走出一条临沂特色的土地节约集约新路子。     

禹城市农村建设用地整理潜力分析

农村居民点的合理规划与布局,农村废弃建设用地的整理,以及农村建设用地的复垦,可相应增加一定数量的城镇建设用地,缓解因工业化发展造成的建设用地高度紧张的现象,同时改善农村面貌,提高人居环境质量。该文结合禹城市农村建设用地现状,对禹城市农村建设用地潜力进行了分析及评价,并提出了促进建设用地置换工作的对策和建议。     

A risk management interpretation of a series of studies of exposure to lead

The relationship between environmental contamination, human exposure and the risk to health is a complex and fascinating area of research. This paper reviews a number of earlier studies, which focussed on contamination by Pb and sought to address this complexity. It places them within an historical context of different stages of the evolution of the field of risk analysis as applied to environmental research. A risk framework permits these scientific studies to be discussed in relation to the complex social and political environment within which the risks associated with Pb-rich particulate matter were managed (and policy was developed). This paper undertakes this analysis through a risk governance framework, which allows the relationship between the various functions required for management of the risks to be evaluated. It shows ways that values (including stakeholder concerns and risk perceptions) need to be included along with the science that underpins risk analysis in order to make sustainable judgements. It is such judgements that lie at the heart of risk management decision making.     

新型农村社区建设与土地管理若干问题初探

积极推进农村社区建设,健全新型社区管理和服务体制,是中共中央关于构建社会主义和谐社会若干重大问题的决定。文章分析了农村新型社区的建设与土地管理的矛盾,建议必须处理好新型农村社区建设与城乡建设用地增减挂钩的关系,处理好土地权属等关系。     

莱芜市钢城区农村建设用地整治工作分析

农村土地整治挖潜是乡镇企业发展解决用地瓶颈的重要举措,是落实科学发展观的具体体现,对于统筹城乡经济社会发展,加速改善农村面貌,实现城乡经济、社会、环境协调发展具意义重要。通过分析莱芜市钢城区农村土地整治挖潜的现状与问题,就今后如何做好农村建设用地整理、复垦提出建议。     

Making the countryside more like the countryside? Rural planning and metropolitan visions in post-quake Chengdu

In 2008, an 8.0-magnitude earthquake struck southwest China less than 100 km north of Chengdu, the booming capital of Sichuan Province. The city government undertook a massive reconstruction project in its rural hinterlands that was guided by existing policies to develop rural areas through coordinated urban and rural planning. Planners sought to avoid replicating urban settlements in rural areas by developing recognizably “pastoral” villages, an approach that is being widely echoed in the relatively new discipline of rural spatial planning in China. This paper argues that such design concessions evade the key feature of the new villages: the concentration of rural residents. The Chengdu government, though this symbolic and actual de-peopling of rural landscapes, has recast rural space as an environmental amenity and an abstract stock of arable land. Drawing on interviews, site visits, and policy and media documents, the paper analyzes the metropolitan plans that provided the framework for rural reconstruction in post-quake Chengdu, and connects these to a model village site in Chengdu’s rural periphery. The case illustrates the need to understand site-level village planning in the context of regional political economies of land, and highlights the new role that metropolitan governments are playing in rural development strategies.     

Population pressure, agricultural intensification and changes in rural systems in Bangladesh

Sustainable agricultural growth is the key to rural system changes that include changes in rural bio-physical environment, economic infrastructure and social conditions. The present study has examined the temporal changes in 18 selected indicators of rural systems in Bangladesh during the period 1975-2000, and explored the influences of demographic, market forces, environmental, institutional and technological factors inducing and mediating such changes. An analysis of 64 district level published census data showed significant increase in agricultural intensity, cropping patterns, land productivity and farm income; decline in labor and technological productivities; and major improvement in rural housing, economic and social conditions during this period. Spatially, major agricultural growth and rural development were observed in districts with high population density, less constrained environments, and better access to markets, irrigation canals, and capital loans.