Property and Difference in Nature Conservation

Social science research on nature conservation ascribes enclosures and the consequent evictions and dispossession of local people to unequal power relations. It reveals that the monopoly of power by the state configures new relations between local people and their natural resources, and legitimizes land grabbing. In this paper we build on this literature by engaging two questions. The first question relates to how land tenure regimes enable green grabbing and also configure the participation of local people in nature conservation enterprises. Knowing how land tenure regimes structure the involvement of local people in nature conservation is a necessary step toward an inquiry into the relationship between local people and protected areas. In the second question we ask how historical land tenure allocations enable current configurations of power relations in conservation areas. We use the case study of Mapungubwe on the Botswana‐South Africa‐Zimbabwe borderlands to demonstrate that historical land tenure allocations facilitate land alienation and the marginalization of local people in TFCAs.     

Access to fisheries in the maritime frontier of Palawan Province,Philippines

Globally, capital investments are intensifying extraction and contestation over resources in frontier spaces, yet most discussion has focused on terrestrial frontiers. This paper shifts this focus to bring a scaled political ecology approach to examine the access dynamics of fisheries trade in the maritime frontier of Palawan province, the Philippines. We adapt the linked concepts of access and exclusion to highlight how access dynamics unfold at multiple scales. At the local scale, social relations of class and ethnicity serve as important markers of difference that inform control over access to fisheries resources. At the regional scale, we show how engagement in fisheries trade is also shaped by broader historical and geographical contexts of migration and land use change. Access dynamics unfold at multiple inter‐related scales to heavily influence the differentiated social outcomes of expanded fisheries trade.     

尺度政治理论框架

目前国内外对尺度及尺度政治的讨论十分热烈。本文在整合已有研究的基础上,基于主体与结构视角提出了一个三阶段的尺度政治理论框架,指出政治过程和权力结构的尺度化是尺度政治的前提,尺度重构是尺度政治的核心机制,权力关系重构是尺度政治的目的和结果。具体而言,尺度化涉及物质空间、组织空间和表达空间的大小、层级、范围等结构关系;尺度重构包含由尺度上推、下推、重组,以及上述不同尺度形式构成的3×3矩阵;不同政治主体会采用特定尺度重构策略改变权力关系,并造成一系列尺度关系和合法性的悖论。基于以上认识,本文进一步讨论了中西方关于尺度和尺度政治的认知差异和未来值得深入研究的课题。     

Political Ecologies of Dynamic Wetlands: Hydrosocial Waterscapes in the Okavango Delta

Research within geography and related disciplines has directed much attention to the coupled interactions between social and ecological systems. These studies have usefully analyzed the multifaceted, temporal, and scalar dimensions of human–environment interactions and how future environmental change will continue to challenge human resource needs. Political ecology research has also made contributions in this regard, particularly by emphasizing livelihood systems, impacts of conservation and development, agricultural production, and environmental governance. Yet although political ecology research has contributed to socioecological systems scholarship, much of this work has been situated within dryland environments or marine ecosystems that have particular biophysical features. Comparatively, wetland environments that experience dynamic flooding regimes warrant further attention from political ecology. This article engages with the findings from an ongoing research project that is evaluating the impacts of flooding variability for rural livelihoods in the Okavango Delta of Botswana. We outline some of the main findings from this work by concentrating on two themes central to political ecology: access and governance. We conclude by arguing that the Okavango Delta should be understood as a hydrosocial waterscape that encompasses a variety of socioecological relationships within the region, as well as the power relations operating at a variety of scales that both produce and govern them.     

Population densities and deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon: New insights on the current human settlement patterns

This paper provides the first analysis at the sub-municipality scale of the relationships between population densities and deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon between 2000 and 2010. We use the database on deforestation published by the Brazilian space research center (INPE) and the population census data released by the federal geographical and statistical agency IBGE at their finest scale: the census tract level. By crossing the population density and deforestation variables, we identify ten human settlement patterns in the Amazon. There are low-low and high-high classes of population density and deforestation, but also low-high and high-low classes. This analysis helps understand the low overall relations in the Amazon for population and deforestation. We emphasize the expansion of large-scale agriculture and cattle ranching as causing the depopulation of rural areas while in many regions of the Amazon quite strong population densities coexist with relatively low extents of deforestation. Such findings stress the need to implement case-specific public policies in these regions in order to encourage human presence compatible with the conservation of forest cover and biodiversity. We also confirm the importance of the Amazon urbanization process, including the ‘discrete urbanization’ of rural areas, and the need to better recognize the distinct social and environmental problems of urban areas.     

我国湿地景观研究现状、存在的问题与发展方向

湿地景观研究是近十余年来新兴的热点领域,极大地推进了湿地学科发展.但是,由于湿地景观研究体现的是湿地与景观方法有机结合,其在发展过程中还存在许多问题.本文在对我国湿地景观研究现状系统分析基础上,重点阐明了湿地景观概念、分类、遥感信息提取精度、多源数据可比性、结构与格局研究方法、景观过程与功能研究内容与尺度等制约湿地景观研究的主要问题.并指出了未来发展方向:(1)重视湿地景观分类研究;(2)重视湿地景观破碎化研究;(3)重视发展基于过程和功能的景观格局研究方法;(4)重视多尺度湿地生物多样性研究;(5)重视湿地景观管理研究.     

Building a bioregion through transboundary conservation in Central America

Barquet, K. 2015. Building a bioregion through transboundary conservation in Central America. Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift–Norwegian Journal of Geography. Vol. 69, 265–276. ISSN 0029-1951.

Proponents of transboundary conservation argue for the formation of a bioregional scale of governance. How such rescaling should be done remains an undiscussed issue. Through a study of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor in Central America and Si-A-Paz, a transboundary protected area in Nicaragua and Costa Rica, the author investigates how a transboundary scale of conservation is enacted. The study shows that in order to meet the conditions of a bioregion, actors involved in transboundary conservation in Central America produced accounts of social and ecological integrity that did not entirely match local narratives. Moreover, transboundary conservation provided actors with increased mobility across governance scales and sources of funding. In turn, this scalar mobility enhanced the power of already powerful actors in the area, helped states to attract international sources of funding, and empowered previously marginalized local groups at the expense of others. The author concludes that actors involved in transboundary conservation attempt to create new meanings of nature and understandings of society in order to produce a new scale of conservation. However, the study highlights the problems of matching discourses of nature to accounts of social unity, and underlines the political nature of scalar projects.     

Rescaling of Access and Property Relations in a Frontier Landscape: Insights from Jambi,Indonesia

The recent expansion of protected areas and oil palm plantations in Jambi (Sumatra), Indonesia, has been notably disruptive. This article investigates the scalar dimensions of land conflicts within a privately managed conservation area. We built on qualitative research focusing on struggles related to the formation of two informal settlements within the conservation area. Results indicate that, especially in the context of rapid rescaling (e.g., decentralization), new power constellations emerge, thereby altering preexisting property relations. We argue that competing scales of meaning and regulation are structuring the ability of actors to access land and, consequently, reflect tensions between structure and agency.     

尺度理论视角下的“一带一路”战略解读

目前,“一带一路”已成为中国的核心发展战略之一。借鉴尺度重构和尺度政治理论,分析“一带一路”战略的内涵、影响和风险。研究发现“一带一路”战略重构了现有的国家角色和地域形式,催生了以跨国基础设施为基础、以资本和经贸合作为支撑的新尺度。该尺度一方面被国际和国内的资本和权力关系不断重构,另一方面也在重构着现有的权力关系和资本积累过程。还从尺度政治视角出发探讨了“一带一路”战略中的风险因素。在国际层面,中国既面临着基于多边国际关系和地方抵抗的尺度上推力量,也面临着基于旧有边界和尺度化表达的尺度下推因素。在国内,“一带一路”战略既面临着地方政府基于政策争夺和地方保护主义产生的重复建设问题,也存在疆独势力等通过国际联系复杂化地方趋势的风险。为了更好地推行“一带一路”战略,中国必须积极应对这些尺度政治的挑战,深入研究尺度政治的机制和破解之道,努力化解海外投资、国际合作和地方治理中的风险。     

中国景观生态学与生物多样性的交叉研究进展（英文）

The spatiotemporal landscape heterogeneity implies multiple biodiversity mechanisms across scales, and the cross-disciplinary studies between landscape ecology and biodiversity are becoming a new research field in China. This paper briefly reviews the development of the field by comparing papers published in international journals and Chinese journals;then it investigates the differences in the trends and focuses between international and Chinese studies. We also introduce several study areas that have emerged over the last 10 years in this field, including metacommunity assembly, landscape genetics, biodiversity and ecosystem service relationship, and landscape planning for biodiversity conservation. The major advances emerging in this field in China over the past 5 years can be classified into six subject areas: 1) effects of urban landscape and urbanization on biodiversity;2) altitudinal patterns of biodiversity in mountain landscapes;3) effects of topographic heterogeneity on plant community assembly and species coexistence;4) impacts of landscape patterns and processes on animal behaviors;5) forest fires and spatiotemporal patterns of vegetation responses;and 6) landscape ecology applications in natural conservation planning and design. In an attempt to promote cross-field studies between geography and ecology, this special issue collected 10 research articles, involving multiple landscape types and biological assemblages, in order to explore the interaction between landscape features and biodiversity. We anticipate that the future development of this active front will be primarily driven by the application of novel information techniques and the realistic demands of sustainability issues, in addition to answering scientific questions cross scales.     

Delineating Hierarchical Hospital Service Areas in Florida

Hospital service area (HSA) and hospital referral region (HRR), known as a hierarchical HSA system, have been used as analysis units in a growing body of large‐scale studies of healthcare spending, utilization, and outcome in the United States. However, the popular Dartmouth HSAs and HRRs were produced more than two decades ago and are unable to represent contemporary healthcare markets. This research uses a revised Huff Model to delineate two levels of hospital service areas in Florida, resulting in sixty‐four HSAs nested in twenty‐one HRRs. Three elements distinguish our method from existing work. First, a best‐fitting distance‐decay function derived from the actual travel pattern of hospitalization is embedded in the Huff Model to strengthen the model's theoretical foundation in individual spatial behavior. Secondly, the hierarchal central place structure is supported by the differing travel‐friction coefficients for general versus specialized patients; general patients experience a steeper gradient and thus a shorter average travel range that supports delineating more HSAs of smaller area size, and specialized patients exhibit a flatter gradient and thus a longer average travel range that leads to fewer HRRs of large‐sized areas. Finally, the delineation method automated in geographic information systems (GIS) can be easily replicated in other regions to define large‐scale and consistent hierarchical HSA systems.     

Agri-cultural Heritage: An Interdisciplinary Field with Development Prospects

Traditional agricultural heritage research has a very long history. Programme on “The conservation and adaptive management of Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS)” initiative launched by FAO in 2002, aimed at not only preserving agricultural heritage system, but also applying the principle of dynamic conservation to promote rural development to benefit local community, to assure food security and maintaining the ecosystem. Since then, many more scientists have been enrolled in the new field focusing on the function and value, application and management, conservation and development and other aspects of these traditional agricultural systems which facilitate an emerging cross-discipline. In this paper, based on the concepts and characteristics of GIAHS and China Nationally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (China-NIAHS), the author specifies that Agri-cultural Heritage is a compound heritage that integrates the characteristics of natural, cultural and intangible cultural heritage, and a typical social-economic-natural complex ecosystem composed of economic, biological, technological, cultural and landscape components. For their conservation and development, the joint efforts of scientists from economics, ecology, geography, history, management sciences, culturology, ethnology, sociology and other subjects are needed. Based on progresses studies and perspectives of the field, the author felt that although a good start of the research on Agri-cultural Heritage has been made, there is still much room for development which show a steady growth trend and suggested 32 priority areas in research; a new subject of Agroheritology could emerge in the near future.     

Protected areas in mainland Southeast Asia, 1973–2005: Continuing trends

Since the 1970s, protected area networks in mainland Southeast Asian countries have developed significantly to occupy 4–25 per cent of their respective national areas, located mostly in the mountainous domains of ethnic minority peoples. Through this process, regions that were only nominally part of national geobodies until the 1950s have become more territorially integrated. The complexity of the characteristics and geographical impacts of this territorialisation have yet to be grasped. As a step in this direction, we briefly outline a multilevel systems approach that usefully contextualizes these issues together with a historical and cartographical assessment of the evolution of protected area networks for Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. Our main findings are intertwined. On the one hand, protected areas represent a new tool of state intervention in mountainous areas, clearly in keeping with past, notably colonial, actions. On the other hand, this evolution in state territorialisation and attendant power relations have disrupted, far more deeply than previous actions, the pre‐1970s sociogeographical organization in mountainous areas, where most of the region's residual forests remain.     

中国行政区划调整的尺度政治

行政区划调整是人文地理学研究中的重要议题,但目前相关理论研究仍显不足。本文借助“尺度政治”理论,尝试对行政区划调整的诸多类型进行理论化梳理。具体而言,行政区划调整主要涉及行政等级变更、领域幅员调整、区划类型更替3种类型;从尺度政治视角出发,行政区划调整可以理解为行政区划的尺度生产和权力的尺度修复两大过程,其中涉及各种形式的尺度上推、尺度下推和尺度更替。基于这些尺度特征,本文探讨了行政区划调整的尺度重构和尺度政治的综合性、动态性和辩证性。本研究对于深化行政区划及尺度政治的理论研究具有积极的推动作用。     

西方政治生态学的地理学研究进展与启示

随着全球生态环境问题的日益凸显,政治生态学以关注造成环境问题的政治因素为研究内核,成为不同学科共同探索的研究领域。地理学以人地关系为立足点,深化政治生态学研究的空间性和政治性。论文首先通过对西方政治生态学理论脉络进行梳理,发现政治生态学根源于早期环境批判思想、西方马克思主义、后结构主义以及后人类主义理论,并与地理学的发展相辅相成。其次,对近30年西方地理学与政治生态学的相关研究成果进行分析发现,现有的研究议题主要聚焦于生态经济与绿色发展、生态治理与环境保育、生态身份与微观政治及生态客体与能动性4个方面。在此基础上,论文总结了相关研究对中国地理学进行政治生态学研究的借鉴意义,并进一步提出立足中国本土进行政治生态学研究未来需要关注的方向。     

Political ecology of tiger conservation in India: Adverse effects of banning customary practices in a protected area

Protected areas have had significant impacts on local communities primarily through the physical removal of people. In some instances, people continue to live within protected areas due to the inability of the state to evict them. The restrictions on livelihoods placed on people living inside protected areas lead to in situ displacement. We show how conservation enclosures in the Biligiri Rangaswamy Temple Tiger Reserve have produced a class of people that the state ‘lets die’ by banning customary practices such as fire use, hunting and harvesting of forest produce. Using longitudinal ethnographic, socio‐economic and ecological data, we demonstrate that conservation policy has alienated indigenous forest dwellers from their agricultural and forest‐land. The outcomes of conservation policy include dispossession through increased crop losses, reduced income from agriculture and forest produce, as well as a forest that is dominated by weeds due to fire suppression. The ban on hunting in particular has increased wildlife densities, which has enabled the state to accumulate revenues through the establishment of wildlife tourism facilities. All in all, centralized protected area governance has changed the relationships among people, forest and the state in a way that has produced adverse effects for both livelihoods and the ecosystem.     

1700—1978年云南山地掌鸠河流域耕地时空演变的网格化重建

基于多源数据资料重建小尺度区域历史时期土地利用/覆盖变化,对深入理解土地利用变化的驱动力机制及其环境和气候效应具有重要意义。本文利用从流域尺度聚落格局演变重建到聚落尺度耕地数量和空间分布重建,再到流域尺度耕地格局重建的思路,以云南山地典型的中小流域为研究区,以历史文献资料、田野考察资料、历史地理学研究成果、档案资料、现代统计资料、地理基础数据为支撑,综合考虑区域自然因素（坡度、海拔高度）、人文因素（人口、政策、农业技术、耕地与居民点距离）,设计了历史时期山地小尺度区域耕地网格化重建模型,重建了1700—1978年具有明确时间和空间属性的网格化耕地格局。结果表明：① 掌鸠河流域的耕地面积近300 a增长6.3倍,垦殖率从1700年的2.1%上升到1978年的15.6%。② 不同地形区的耕地面积差异较为显著,其中山区和半山区的耕地面积最大,且增长速度最快;平坝区和中下游河谷区的耕地面积增长相对平缓,是自然环境、人口、政策和农业技术等因素综合作用的结果。③ 通过总耕地面积和人均耕地面积等对结果进行验证,证明了重建结果的合理性。本文设计的网格化重建模型可以为模拟具有明确时间和空间属性的小尺度区域历史耕地网格化数据集提供参考。     

Another political ecology of civil society reflexiveness against urban industrial risks for environmental justice: The case of the Bisasar landfill,Durban, South Africa

The concerns of political ecology since its beginnings as a field have been predominantly set in rural areas with limited focus on urban industrial risks. Further, debates on the global South (often from Anglo‐American perspectives) have not fully appreciated the divergent and differentiated perceptions of urban risks and, therefore, everyday forms of resistance within civil society. Instead, work has mainly focused on civil society power relations against the state and industry that are driven by coherent populist political agendas. Against this setting, this paper's contribution aims to better contextualize ‘other’ third world localities in political ecology through a case study of urban industrial risks in the upper/middle income (as opposed to rural, low/lower middle income) country, South Africa. In doing so, the paper sheds light on the derelict aspect of civil society contestation, especially along class and ethnic lines, over urban landfill infrastructure as a livelihood resource or a health hazard. The paper draws upon frameworks of self‐reflexivity and reflexive localism as complementary to the mainstream political ecology to illuminate differentiated civil society reflexiveness and therefore, aims to advance the discussion of other political ecologies. The case study of the largest formal landfill site in Africa, the Bisasar landfill situated in Durban, highlights differences underlying power relations and constraints within civil society (in leadership, social networking, resources and mistrust) that have implications for mainstream political ecology notions of civil society coherence.     

Habitat, occurrence and conservation of Saharo-Arabian-Turanian element Forsskaolea tenacissima L. in the Iberian Peninsula

The aim of this study is to assess the Iberian populations of Forsskaolea tenacissima L. according to its biogeographical interest, habitat, geographical range and conservation status. Results point out that they are restricted to gravel wadis of Tabernas Desert (SE Spain), are scarcely included in protected areas and represent historically isolated populations with relict behaviour. We also describe a new association, Senecioni-Forsskaoleetum tenacissimae. Conservation status of species is cause for concern and two conservation actions must be carried out. Firstly, protected areas should house Forsskaolea populations and secondly, phytosociological characterization of a community allows inventorying its habitat and directing conservation efforts to community level.     

基于人居环境特征的青藏高原“无人区”空间界定

青藏高原独特的高寒环境与自然条件在一定程度上限制了人口的自然分布与有序发展,形成了中国面积大、分布广的“无人区”（UPAs）。然而,当前有关“无人区”面积、分布、特征与区域差异等研究尚无定论。客观、准确界定“无人区”的空间范围,对开展青藏高原资源环境承载力评价、国家公园与生态安全屏障建设等具有重要意义。基于青藏高原居民点分布信息,据其地形、气候、生态、土地利用等要素特征,本文综合表征了居民点的自然—生态—土地利用耦合关系,率定了居民点分布上限的各要素阈值,通过多要素空间叠加构建了“无人区”评价综合模型,并以居民点分布的自然极限、生态（含氧量）下限、土地利用规律为关键阈值界定了青藏高原“无人区”空间范围并分析了其地理分布特征。研究表明：① 以居民点分布累计比例< 0.1%计,确定“无人区”的地形阈值为海拔> 5665 m、相对高差> 2402 m、地形起伏度> 8.59,气候阈值为相对湿度< 76.2%、温湿指数< 33或 > 71。② 根据居民点分布及人体对含氧量耐受情况,确定“无人区”的生态阈值为气压< 500 hpa、大气含氧量< 40%。③ 青藏高原严格“无人区”面积达1912 km²,其中新疆699 km²、四川413 km²、西藏331 km²、青海291 km²、甘肃178 km²。空间上呈零星分散状,多分布在四川贡嘎山、珠穆朗玛峰附近等极高山地区、可可西里东部—罗布泊地区;以及少部分分布在青海柴达木盆地。