Nature–society and development: social, cultural and ecological change in Nepal

This paper presents a theoretical framework for analyzing human–environment issues that examines shifting, dialectical relationships between social and power relations, cultural beliefs and practices, and ecological processes to allow an interdisciplinary, complex assessment of social and environmental change in Nepal. The purpose of this analysis is to capture the complexity and non-static nature of environmental and social change in the context of uneven development. Drawing from political ecology and feminist geography, this framework brings together scholarship on aspects of human–environment issues that are often pursued in isolation, yet all three processes, social–political relations, cultural practices and ecological conditions, have been acknowledged as important in shaping the trajectory of social and ecological change. I argue that a consideration of the articulations between them is necessary to understand first, how specific land management regimes arise and are dominant over time in specific places. And second, I examine the extent to which these regimes distribute resources equitably within communities, promote economic development and sustain ecological resilience. In this analysis, ecological processes are conceptualised as co-productive of social and cultural processes to explore their role in land management regimes without resorting to environmental determinist or similarly reductive paradigms. I present this framework through the example of natural resource management, specifically community forestry in Nepal, as it offers a rich case study of the relationships between the political economy of land use and the ecological effects of natural resource extraction.     

Power,perception, and adaptation: Exploring gender and social–environmental risk perception in northern Guanajuato,Mexico

This paper examines how gender relations within rural communities in north-central Mexico affect women’s perceptions of and responses to environmental and social risks. Several studies currently exist which suggest various reasons as to how people especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change perceive their risks, and how this influences their responses. In this paper, I take a feminist approach to questions of social–environmental risks and adaptation to argue that risk perception is tightly linked to knowledge production, and knowledge production is a power-laden process involving the constant negotiation of resources, responsibilities and knowledge. I base this argument on the results of fieldwork conducted from September 2009 to May 2010 with women residents of two ejidos in northern Guanajuato, Mexico. In drawing from feminist political ecology studies, I intend to show how gender, environmental knowledge, risk perception and thus, adaptation are constituted by and embedded in social relations of power.     

Assessment of land-use change and its impact on the environment using GIS techniques: a case of Kolkata Municipal Corporation,West Bengal,India

It is axiomatically true that urbanization in India's metropolises and large cities has been exacerbated since the beginning of the millennium, consuming the natural and semi-natural ecosystem on the outskirts of the city, resulting in a zone with a distinct climate known as urban climate. Such a climate—the result of a built-up environment is distinctly different from the natural climate as the paved surface and concrete skyscrapers not only destroy the natural ecosystem, it peculiarly induce a different kind of insolation, cooling and air drainage were lacking in green space, water bodies and open space cannot accommodate with environmental rhythm properly, resulting into the accumulation of heat, ecological derangement of subsurface soil which can easily be predicted by GIS analysis. This paper is an attempt to measure urban growth and its impact on the environment in the metropolitan city Kolkata. The use of satellite data and GIS techniques to detect urban expansion is a highly scientific strategy. Using geospatial techniques, the current study attempts to examine major urban changes in Kolkata and its surroundings from 1988 to 2021. Landsat 5 TM and Landsat 8 OLI temporal data are used to identify land-use change through unsupervised classification; Spectral Radiance Model and Split Window Algorithm method are used for identifying land surface temperature change. SRTM DEM (30 m) has been used to identify flood risk zones and several spectral indices like Normalized Difference Vegetation Index and Modified Normalized Difference Water Index are a further extension for environmental assessment. By all such suitable methods, a clearer change in an urban environment is detected within the period of 33 years (1988–2021). The result shows that the population changes, vegetation cover and built-up area, and accessibility are at a rapid rate. These changes are causing major environmental degradation in the city. The classification result indicates that appropriate land use planning and environmental monitoring are required for the long-term exploitation of these resources.

     

Negotiating through nature: The resistant materiality and materiality of resistance in Bolivia’s natural gas sector

Over the past two decades, the natural gas of Bolivia has been a point of international interest and internal contention. Materially and discursively using Bolivia’s natural gas to express their demands, transnational energy firms, the Bolivian state, and Bolivia’s social movements have made the country’s natural gas into an object of profit and protest. In this paper, I examine how these actors have used the country’s natural gas to both secure and disrupt processes of capital accumulation. Extending regulation approaches that take into account the materiality of nature, I argue that the differential abilities of transnational energy firms, the Bolivian state, and the country’s social movements to materially and discursively use Bolivia’s natural gas have provided each of these actors with differential mediums through which to express their often times contradictory interests, and thus to the challenge or stabilize existing regulatory frameworks. Within this context, the Bolivian state has been forced to continually balance the tensions surrounding its natural gas in an attempt to secure a stable regime of accumulation.     

A study of housing typology and perceived age-friendliness in an established Hong Kong new town: A person-environment perspective

Our study examines older people’s perceptions towards the urban environment and their spatial experiences through a person-environment perspective. We argue that Person-Environment (P-E) fit is critical to older people’s quality of life: positive environmental stimuli and personal adaptation competence have been held to influence this fit, and quality of fit will eventually affect interactions between older people and place. In a mixed-methods study, a context sensitive place audit was applied to a new town in Hong Kong, with a view to identifying strengths and weaknesses in the built environment and older people’s own strategies of living. Through 302 questionnaires and three focus groups with older participants, the results revealed high appreciation of outdoor spaces, transportation and social participation. The findings also indicate a strong association between housing typology and perceived age-friendliness. People accommodated in public housing estates tended to accord higher scores to their living environment although social exclusion was identified among oldest-old respondents in particular. Older people’s affective links with their living environment across time and their unique life-course experiences may help to explain their relatively relaxed attitudes when they face changes and hardships.     

Ecological modernisation and policy learning in Hong Kong

Whilst ecological modernisation theory emphasizes the potential for modern societies to recognize and respond to their environmental impacts by finding new ways of governing environment-economy relations, concepts of policy learning focus on the scope for new forms of environmental policy to be generated within and transferred between different contexts. Within this paper we explore the conceptual and practical linkages between the two areas of debate - a hitherto neglected area in the literature - and we set this discussion in the context of environmental policy-making in Hong Kong. We suggest that the practical relevance of the concepts of ecological modernisation and policy learning depends upon the presence of a reflexive society with rational, responsive institutions. While many theorists assume that such institutions exist, our analysis of policies for water and air quality management in Hong Kong highlights the need for theories to consider the embeddedness of existing institutions and the significance of the capacities for, and the barriers to, change more fully. We find that capacities for some forms of ecological modernisation and policy learning do exist in Hong Kong. However, we argue that the nature of these capacities often limits the potential for change to those local environmental problems that can be addressed through more technically and economically viable forms of policy intervention and that can be easily accommodated within existing political and economic structures. We also conclude that the capacities for ecological modernisation and policy learning that are needed if Hong Kong is to tackle the effects of the trans-boundary environmental problems that it is increasingly encountering have yet to emerge.     

Rethinking the nature of urban environmental politics: Security, subjectivity, and the non-human

The growing field of urban political ecology (UPE) has greatly advanced understandings of the socio-ecological transformations through which urban economies and environments are produced. However, this field has thus far failed to fully consider subjective (and subject-forming) dimensions of urban environmental struggle. I argue that this can be overcome through bringing urban political ecology into conversation with both post-structural political ecology and critical geopolitics. Bridging these literatures focuses attention on practices of socio-ecological exclusion and attachment through which environmental subjectivities are formed. This argument is drawn out through a case study of the politics of local economic development and conservation within the watershed of the Big Darby Creek near Columbus, Ohio. This struggle was driven by a preservationist movement that coalesced around a shared understanding of socio-ecological hybridity as a source of metaphysical insecurity. Hybridity appears here as a site of political and ethical struggle over social and ecological exclusions produced in the pursuit of security. This case study demonstrates a paradox of environmental politics: the non-human is at once a site of constituent possibilities for identity and subjectivity as well as forces which seek to foreclose this radical openness. Recognizing the paradoxical nature of environmental struggle allows for a more complex and nuanced account of the multifarious forces that shape the formation of environmental subjectivities.     

South African eucalypts: Health,trees, and atmospheres in the colonial contact zone

In this article I suggest that a reading of previous studies, which cast the early transfers of eucalyptus to South Africa along economic and aesthetic rationales can be enhanced by medical history. Through a case from King William’s Town in the 1870s, I show that the appeal of the eucalyptus hinged on the olfactory aspect of the trees, which were conceived as an important public health factor. I then proceed to outline how a clearer understanding of the role of olfaction in ecological studies can uncover new aspects of social dynamics and human relations to the natural environment. I argue that taking the atmosphere seriously as the medium through which we interact with the world, opens for an understanding of olfaction as an important and largely unexplored ethos that guided the dramatic reshaping of the colonial landscapes during much of the nineteenth century.     

工业化背景下30年来中国东北地区自然资源时空变化及其生态环境效应

【研究目的】 基于1990—2018年间的土地利用空间分布数据、数字高程模型(Digital Elevation Model,DEM)、植被、气象等数据,对位于东北地区自然资源时空变化及其区域生态环境效应进行定量分析。【研究方法】 按照东北地区自然-地理-资源分布规律,通过定量计算与定性分析相结合的区划分析手段,将研究区划分为7个二级自然资源亚区和14个三级自然资源地区,分析其近30年来（1990—2018年）自然资源时空动态特征及生态环境效应。【研究结果】 结果表明：（1）近30年,研究区最主要的变化是森林、草地转变为耕地、水体与湿地,同时大量耕地被开发为建设用地,以及草地的荒漠化现象较突出。这与当地的老工业基地振兴政策、强农惠农政策等关系紧密。（2）研究区整体生态环境质量呈下降趋势,尤其是I1、I5、I6、I7二级亚区(I1三江平原温带耕地亚区、I5小兴安岭山地温带森林亚区、I6山前平原温带耕地亚区和I7松辽平原温带草耕亚区)。（3）森林、草地转变为耕地,大量面积的草地荒漠化等变化类型,对研究区生态环境质量恶化的生态贡献率较大。【结论】 近30年,研究区大量森林、草地转变为耕地和水体与湿地,大量耕地被开发为建设用地以及草地荒漠化加剧,其I1、I5、I6、I7二级亚区生态环境质量下降趋势较显著,森林、草地转变为耕地以及草地荒漠化等变化类型对此现象的生态贡献率较大。     

城市尘土地球化学调查的意义及构想

城市生态系统是一个自然与人工生态环境的复合体，由于调查、观测的介质不易确定和采样条件限制，常是地球化学调查工作的盲点。目前环保部门对城市环境质量监测主要是大气和水质，而城市尘土这个与城市人类生活密切相关的介质没有引起研究者的关注。本文从环境生态学及地球化学的角度，简述了城市尘土地球化学调查的意义及构想。     

城市环境地球化学研究综述

近年来地球科学越来越多地面向城市,城市环境受到人类活动的广泛影响,自然及人类活动引起的城市地球化学问题日益受到人们的重视。城市环境地球化学是应用地球化学的原理和方法研究城市生态环境问题,主要研究城市土壤、沉积物、尘埃、地表水、地下水、生物、空气等介质中化学元素及同位素的分布、演化、环境作用及健康效应,重点解决城市地球化学环境质量变化的原理及由此产生的生态环境效应及人体健康效应。城市环境地球化学的主要研究对象是传统工业城市、典型矿业城市及国际化的大都市。在城市地球化学概念出现之后短短的10余年时间内,很多国家开展了城市环境地球化学调查和研究工作,取得了重要的成果和进展,并发展成为环境地球化学与城市环境的重要方向,但仍存在着一定的问题,需要深入研究。目前,城市环境系统的地球化学填图、城市地球化学与环境污染研究、城市地球化学与生态风险研究、城市地球化学与人体健康研究、城市地球化学系统的调控与环境规划等领域是国际城市环境地球化学的热点和前沿。     

‘Selling Our Own Skin:’ Social dispossession through microcredit in rural Bangladesh

In this paper, I articulate a notion of ‘social dispossession,’ an optic that extends current theorizing on agrarian dispossession into the realm of social reproduction, by examining the testimonies of microcredit borrowers in rural Bangladesh. In recent years, research on microcredit has highlighted new forms of subject-making employed by microcredit and other NGO entrepreneurship development programs. These developments have received insufficient attention in scholarship on agrarian change, both globally and in specific places. I correct this by arguing that microcredit drives social dispossession through three specific mechanisms: the confiscation of assets necessary to social reproduction (as well as to production); the construction of debt relations within a community which reshape what reproduction can look like; and the re-configuration of women’s social status and subjectivities in relation to their communities.     

昭通市城市建设层适宜性综合研究及其未来发展方向的选择

昭通市未来城市建设层的适宜性和发展方向应该受自然环境、经济和社会因素 3个方面因素的控制 ,它们决定了城市建设层的功能的需求。通过影响昭通市建设层的自然环境状况、城市经济和社会发展现状和在建或将建的几个重大工程对城市建设发展的影响程度等几个方面 ,对昭通市城市建设层的适宜性进行了综合评价 ,划分了城市建设层的适宜区和功能区区划。文章认为 :(1)昭通市所处的地质、地理环境是相对脆弱的 ,资源开发和城市建设与地质、地理环境的优化已经具有很大的不协调性。 (2 )原来的昭通市城市发展规划中把未来城市发展定位为以褐煤资源开发为中心的发展模式存在很多弊端和经济风险。 (3)昭通市所处的社会经济发展现状表明本区经济结构正处于重大调整阶段。促使城市发展调整的动力 ,有经济发展的本身需求动力 ,也有外部机遇的刺激 (国家重大工程的实施 )。本区发展动力主要来源于后者。但是重大工程的实施 ,必将带来环境恶化等负面效应。文章综合研究认为 ,现阶段褐煤的大规模开发策略是不可取的 ,水利、交通等的发展才是首要选择。 (4 )昭通市将来的发展更可能是以高效农业为基础 ,利用其区域中心城市、物资集散地、交通枢纽的区位优势和廉价的劳动力 ,充分发展运输、资讯、商业、娱乐、休闲等服务     

Golf and the environmental politics of modernization

In this critical review we reflect on findings from a socio-historical study of golf’s relationship with the environment. We focus especially on the golf industry’s pursuit of modernization from the early 1900s to the present. Golf’s quest to ‘be’ modern, we contend, has specifically constituted three particular ‘turns’: a first turn in the early 1900s involving the scientific rationalization of golf course development and maintenance; a second, ‘exemptionalist’ turn in the post-war years whereby science and technology fueled a perception of immense control over nature; and a third, more recent turn to ecological modernization (EM) whereby science and technology are leveraged toward environmental stewardship – or at least claims thereof. We ultimately argue that the golf industry’s recent adoption of EM principles in their environment-related work has political implications, as it ‘protects’ the industry from more radical environmental alternatives.     

An assessment of women’s access to natural resources through communal projects in South Africa

With the passing of the apartheid regime and its multi-faceted mechanisms of exclusion, women in rural South Africa have begun expanding their access to natural resources for livelihood enhancement. One of the ways this has occurred is through community-based organizations that focus on local production as a mechanism to transform natural resources into material goods. While this practice is nearly ubiquitous throughout sub-Saharan Africa, the apartheid regime was particularly effective in limiting access to natural resources, a phenomenon reversed by the current democratic government. In this paper, we assess the impact of organizational design on women’s livelihood systems as a means of alleviating rural poverty. We surveyed women on both more formal, or bureaucratic, organizations and more informal, or socially-embedded, organizations. After locating the discussion in the relevant gender, environment, and livelihoods literatures, we employ four concepts, organizational context, environmental entitlement, livelihood systems, and gender and power relations to assess the impact of organizational design on livelihood enhancement. Having found that women derived no significant material benefit from participation in either type of organization, we conclude that women are straddling two processes, neo-liberalization and neo-traditionalism, that impact gender and power relations. This situation has left women in vulnerable positions within their organizations and with little livelihood enhancement.     

地质环境与生态环境雏论

生态环境是地质环境的“屏障”,对地质环境起着保护作用。当生态环境的森林植被遭受破坏或大气降水与气候条件发生变化时,将导致水土流失、地质灾害、土壤退化等一系列地质环境问题。另一方面,地质环境是生态环境的“载体”,对生态环境起着一定的控制作用。成土基岩是除自然地理气候条件外控制森林植被种属与空间分布的最重要因素。地质体特征与水文环境、地质背景与社会经济状况之间均存在着一定的依从联系。生态环境和地质环境是环境体系中的两个方面。生态环境的恶化将导致地质环境的脆弱,地质环境的自然属性控制着生态环境的基本状况。     

中国西部生态环境变化与对策建议

中国西部地区生态环境的历史演变过程与未来可能变化趋势是科学界面对的一大难题,正确认识西部地区生态环境的演变过程与变化趋势,是西部地区社会经济可持续发展必须面对的课题,是正确制定西部大开发战略方针的重要科学基础。依托中国科学院牵头完成的《中国西部环境演变评估》研究成果,介绍了中国西部地区生态环境演变的主要特征与基本事实,主要强调近50年来全球变暖与人类活动在西部生态环境演变中的重要作用;指出未来的气候与环境变化对西部地区的经济社会发展将产生重要影响;提出了西部地区生态保护与可持续发展的对策与建议,指出西部地区的生态建设必须综合治理、突出重点,特别强调要强化对西部地区的科学研究,为西部大开发服务。     

An overview of satellite remote sensing technology used in China’s environmental protection

Satellite remote sensing technology has been widely used in environmental protection in China. Based on China’s environmental protection characteristics, this paper reviews the application advancements of optical, infrared, microwave and hyperspectral satellite remote sensing techniques in atmospheric environment, water environment and ecological environment, respectively, including the atmospheric environment monitoring of aerosols, particulate matter, pollution gases, and greenhouse gases; the water environment monitoring of water blooms water quality, oil spills, water pollution and drinking water safety; the ecological environment monitor of national nature reserves, environmental damages from mines development, soil contamination, urban/rural ecological environment and biodiversity richness. Furthmore, it summarizes the limitations and future directions of satellite remote sensing studies in China environmental protection. The paper specifically notes that the development of high-resolution satellite remote sensing technology, as well as the launch and use of China series satellites could significantly improve the level of government’s environmental management.     

A critique of development and conservation policies in environmentally sensitive regions in Brazil

More than a strategy for environmental conservation, protected area paradigm has represented a specific conception of nature–society relationship. Originated in a context of capitalist consolidation, rapid urbanisation and frontier development in the US, this paradigm has given rise to a ‘politically viable rationale' in which utilitarian use of natural resources by tourism development would ensure nature preservation. This political rationality has deeply influenced environmental policies in developing countries, fostering a paradoxical model in the history of nature preservation. It also has brought into play diverse interests that have shifted patterns of local nature–society interaction, configuring a complex politicised environment. Established in ‘isolated' regions, protected areas have been implemented often by top–down approaches, disrupting resident peoples' livelihoods strategies through conflicts over the control of natural resources. Understanding the implications of development and conservation policies on resident peoples' livelihoods may represent a starting point for an integrated developmental conservation policy towards the promotion of sustainable livelihoods in environmentally sensitive regions in developing countries. These issues are analysed in the region of the Lençois Maranhenses National Park in Brazil. This paper argues that the context facing the region reveals a standardised conservationist paradigm marked by the absence of wider ecological criteria informing nature protection and a disregard for the strengthening of sustainability in existent socio-economic dynamics. The regional development and conservation policies have not only promoted tensions between resident peoples' livelihoods and the protected area paradigm, but also reinforced the legitimisation of social exclusion and environmental disruption under the prevalent rhetoric of nature protection and tourism development.     

关于全球变化研究的几个问题

第四纪地质工作者面临全球变化研究的形势,应主动调整自身的研究战略,注重最近0.15Ma环境信息的提取,加强地质过程的研究,重视人类活动对环境的影响,强调模型的模拟和检验。