Forest-Cover Change from Labor- and Capital-Intensive Commercial Logging in the Southern Chocó Rainforests*

Abstract

This article examines two key aspects of land-cover change in the south of the Chocó region. First, it assesses and compares the local impact on forest condition of labor-intensive and capital-intensive commercial logging. Second, it assesses the regional significance and permanency of these changes. Studies of land-cover change associated with commercial logging have focused almost exclusively on capital-intensive extraction and have assumed that after logging, degraded forests are transformed into agricultural cover. This study shows that both capital- and labor-intensive logging result in similar land-cover changes (i.e., forest degradation) if the timber sought is the same. However, labor-intensive loggers also seek timber species not sought by capital-intensive loggers, and this impact is statistically different from the impact of the extraction of the first group of species. Results also show that only a small fraction (20–30 percent) of the area logged is later converted to agricultural cover types. The persistence of logged forests means that up to 20 percent of the remaining forest cover could correspond to forests with significant and lasting levels of degradation. Furthermore, the different production requirements for each group of species also mean that there is a spatial differentiation in the impact of logging in the region. Logged forests are arranged into two consecutive corridors on each side of access routes (e.g., rivers). The first corridor corresponds to a narrow (approximately 1-km) band of high-intensity degradation. The second, broader (approximately 2-km) forest band, with lower levels of degradation, extends inland along first-tier corridors. A key factor determining the permanency of this land-cover pattern is the strong control local communities have over the land in the region. This limits the spread of patterns observed in other frontier areas, especially the conversion of logged forests into agricultural cover.     

Change and continuity of income divide in the American Southeast: A metropolitan scale analyses, 2000–2014

Changing racial/ethnic diversity along with economic growth have also drawn renewed public attention to growing income inequality and lack of economic well-being in the American society. This paper investigates one element of contemporary inequality – the income divide between the richest and the poorest population groups in the metropolises of the U.S. Southeast. This paper examines income divide across southern U.S. metropolises in 2000 and 2014, their change during 2000–2014, their variation across major races/ethnicities, and their relationships with important metropolitan characteristics such as diversity, intermixing, socio-economic status and built-environment attributes. Cartographic, ranking/matrix, and correlations analyses suggest that the largest, most diverse, most segregated, and those with a greater presence of better educated are the most income divided metropolises, whereas the small-to-mid-sized metropolises, with lesser educated population are less divided. The income divide has increased during 2000–2014 in a majority of these metropolises, and for all races/ethnicities, even though Whites and Asians are relatively better-off compared to overall population whereas Blacks and Hispanics lag behind.     

“Story-Networks” of Livestock and Climate Change: Actors,Their Artifacts,and the Shaping of Urban Print Media

Despite widespread media coverage of livestock-related issues and growing scientific evidence linking meat production and climate change, systematic content analysis of this relationship in media coverage has been surprisingly minimal. In this article, we combine actor-network theory with framing theory to develop the basis for “story-networks”—networks of actants and artifacts that shape how a media report or “story” is framed. We coded livestock-related articles from a major U.S. newspaper, the Los Angeles Times, over the 1999–2010 period to understand how various actants and artifacts shaped different story-networks. Just 5% of all livestock articles addressed connections with climate change; these articles focused on technology, lifestyle, or policy. Distinctive story-networks characterized each category, framing the livestock–climate change linkage as an issue to be addressed through either technological innovation, individual lifestyle choices, or policy action. In each story-network type, varying configurations of actants and artifacts were involved, including the cattle themselves.     

A Review of “Coastlines: How Mapmakers Frame the World and Chart Environmental Change”

This article examines the microgeography of diplomacy, particularly its localized embodiment in a corps diplomatique and international governmental organizations. Drawing on the case of The Hague, we map embassies and consider the locations of organizations engaged with interstate and transnational relations. The article raises questions about diplomatic form and function, whereby urban, economic, and political geographies intersect around issues of diplomacy, representation, and security. Our case study has implications for the study of other diplomatic centers and poses research questions about diplomacy as a spatial practice pertaining to diplomatic buildings, diplomatic clusters, para-diplomacy, and securitization.     

A Review of “Shanghai Rising: State Power and Local Transformations in a Global Megacity. Globalization and Community,Volume 15”

Joan Fitzgerald and Nancey Green Leigh. Thousand Oaks, CA: . Sage Publications. 2002. xi and 267 pp., illustrations, tables, notes, appendices, and index. $89.95 hardcover(ISBN: 0-7619-1655-5) and $39.95 paperback (ISBN: 0-07619-1656-3).     

A Critical Evaluation of Structural Reform Considerations in ‘Rates and Taxes: A Fair Share for Responsible Local Government’

In its landmark report entitled Rates and Taxes: A Fair Share for Responsible Local Government, the Commonwealth House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics, Finance and Public Administration (2003 Commonwealth House of Representatives Standing Committee On Economics, Finance and Public Administration [‘Hawker Report’] ( 2003 ) Rates and taxes: a fair share for responsible local government , Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra . [Google Scholar]) considered the plight of Australian local government given its very wide terms of reference involving local government's roles and responsibilities, current funding arrangements, municipal capacity, council expenditure, scope for rationalisation, and the findings of the Commonwealth Grants Commission Review (2001 Commonwealth Grants Commission (CGC) ( 2001 ) Review of the Operation of Local Government (Financial Assistance) Act 1995 , Canberra . [Google Scholar]) of the Local Government (Financial Assistance) Act 1995. The authors of the ‘Hawker Report’ brought down 18 recommendations, two of which dealt directly with the thorny question of structural reform. This paper seeks to provide a critical assessment of those aspects of the Report that concern structural reform in Australian local government.     

A Review of “Tectonic Faults: Agents of Change on a Dynamic Earth”

The fluvial system represents a nested hierarchy that reflects the relationship among different spatial and temporal scales. Within the hierarchy, larger scale variables influence the characteristics of the next lower nested scale. Ecoregions represent one of the largest scales in the fluvial hierarchy and are defined by recurring patterns of geology, climate, land use, soils, and potential natural vegetation. Watersheds, the next largest scale, are often nested into a single ecoregion and therefore have properties that are indicative of a given ecoregion. Differences in watershed morphology (relief, drainage density, circularity ratio, relief ratio, and ruggedness number) were evaluated among three ecoregions in eastern Oklahoma: Ozark Highlands, Boston Mountains, and Ouachita Mountains. These ecoregions were selected because of their high-quality stream resources and diverse aquatic communities and are of special management interest to the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation. One hundred thirty-four watersheds in first- through fourth-order streams were compared. Using a nonparametric, two-factor analysis of variance (α= 0.05) we concluded that the relief, drainage density, relief ratio, and ruggedness number all changed among ecoregion and stream order, whereas circularity ratio only changed with stream order. Our study shows that ecoregions can be used as a broad-scale framework for watershed management.     

A Review of “Economic Geography: Places,Networks, and Flows”

Landing a rescue helicopter in a wilderness environment, such as Yosemite National Park, requires suitable areas that are flat, devoid of tree canopy, and not within close proximity to other hazards. The objective of this study was to identify helicopter landing areas that are most likely to exist based on available geographic data using two GIScience methods. The first approach produced an expert model that was derived from predefined feature constraints based on existing knowledge of helicopter landing area requirements (weighted overlay algorithm). The second model is derived using a machine learning technique (maximum entropy algorithm, Maxent) that derives feature constraints from existing presence-only points; that is, geographic one-class data. Both models yielded similar output and successfully classified test coordinates, but Maxent was more efficient and required no user-defined weighting that is typically subject to human bias or disagreement. The pros and cons of each approach are discussed and the comparison reveals important considerations for a variety of future land suitability studies, including ecological niche modeling. The conclusion is that the two approaches complement each other. Overall, we produced an effective geographic information system product to support the identification of suitable landing areas in emergent rescue situations. To our knowledge, this is the first GIScience study focused on estimating the location of landing zones for a search-and-rescue application.     

A Review of “Turf Wars: Discourse,Diversity, and the Politics of Place”

The spatial correlation, or colocation, of two or more variables is a fundamental issue in geographical analysis but has received much less attention than the spatial correlation of values within a single variable, or autocorrelation. A recent paper by Leslie and Kronenfeld (2011) contributes to spatial correlation analysis in its development of a colocation statistic for categorical data that is interpreted in the same way as a location quotient, a frequently used measure in human geography and other branches of regional analysis. Geographically weighted colocation measures for categorical data are further developed in this article by generalizing Leslie and Kronenfeld's global measure as well as specifying a local counterpart for each global statistic using two different types of spatial filters: fixed and adaptive. These geographically weighted colocation quotients are applied to the spatial distribution of housing types to demonstrate their utility and interpretation.     

Laghi di Monticchio (Southern Italy,Region Basilicata): genesis of sediments—a geochemical study

The sedimentation record of Lago Grande di Monticchio (LGM) is one of the most prominent paleoclimatic archives in the non-glaciated areas of Europe. However, the modern lake system has never been the subject of intense limnological studies. On the basis of hydrochemical water profiles, detailed investigations of sediment short cores and in situ pore water profiles from the littoral to the profundal zone, we elucidate spatial variations of sediment genesis within the lake basin and the importance of various depth sections for the lake’s internal nutrient cycling. Sediments from the smaller meromictic Lago Piccolo di Montichio are discussed as a reference. Our study demonstrates: (i) distinctly higher sediment accumulation for the centre of the lake basin by focussing of the settling particle flux; (ii) decline of carbonate from the littoral to the profundal zones; (iii) non-synchronous change of calcite net-accumulation for various water depths; (iv) exceptionally high cation release from sediments covering the steeply inclining sector of the lake basin; (v) relatively constant dissolved silica concentrations in the pore waters (SiO₂ ∼42 mg/l) independent of water depth and sediment composition; (vi) influx of oxygen-bearing groundwater into the anoxic hypolimnion after heavy rainfall and the associated precipitation of Fe-oxihydroxides; (vii) higher release of NH₄ by anaerobic degradation of organic matter at a water depth of 23 m than for sediments at a maximum water depth of 32 m, whereby the latter reflects the importance of seasonal sediment re-oxidation for anaerobic degradation of organic debris; (viii) although seasonal re-oxidation of sediments from various water depths is quite different, Oxygen Index values of LGM sediments fall in a small range, which reflects rapid microbial consumption of seasonally re-generated easily bio-degradable organic molecules.     

A Review of “Darkening Peaks: Glacier Retreat,Science, and Society”

This study is motivated by insufficiencies in two areas in the literature. First, some technical barriers have hindered investigations of changing job–housing patterns over time. Second, traditional dichotomous studies (black–white) of ethnically divided commuting patterns are insufficient to paint the big picture of such dynamics in a multiethnicity metropolitan area. This research fills the gap by presenting an approach to the spatio-temporal analysis of commuting patterns by ethnicity. A case study is performed to track changing commuting patterns for whites, blacks, and Latinos in Atlanta over the last two decades. The results shed light on our understanding of the changing job–housing dynamics, particularly that of Latinos.     

A Review of “The Future of Intermodal Freight Transport: Operations,Design, and Policy”

This article analyzes the interrelationship among resource consumption, sociospatial justice, and what is popularly known as global warming by interrogating the ecological footprint of professional geographers, especially in terms of their conference-going involving air travel. In this spirit, the article introduces and employs the concepts of ecological privilege (as well as its inextricably related antithesis, ecological disadvantage) and dys-ecologism as a way to understand the roots and implications of professional geographers’ fossil fuel use and those of globally advantaged classes more broadly. To illustrate this, the article measures the flight-related ecological footprint of the 2011 annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers (AAG) in Seattle, Washington. In doing so, the article examines how professional geographers, in the form of the AAG, have responded to their travel-related ecological footprint. It thus highlights the importance of scrutinizing the complex and dynamic interrelationships among consumption; associated socioecological benefits and detriments and their systemic manifestations; and hierarchy-related and power-infused categories of race, class, and nation—and their spatialities.     

A Review of “Politics of Urban Runoff: Nature,Technology, and the Sustainable City”

California sage scrub (CSS) is a highly threatened vegetation community in coastal Southern California, 90 percent of which has been lost. Understanding CSS recovery is critical to its survival. This study compares long-term effects of grazing, cultivation, and mechanical disturbance in Southern California by tracking the extent of exotic grassland in two valleys in the Santa Monica Mountains over sixty years using aerial image analysis. Native shrubs returned to the grazed valley over one and one-half times faster than they did in the cultivated valley. Cultivation might result in a type conversion of CSS to exotic annual grassland that resembles a new steady state.