The role of diversification in dynamic small-scale fisheries: Lessons from Baja California Sur,Mexico

Globally, small-scale fisheries are critical for livelihoods and food security yet face increasing uncertainty and variability from processes such as overfishing, globalization, and climate change. Enhancing the number of options for human response through increased access to marine resources, diverse livelihood approaches, and generalist fishing strategies may attenuate the negative effects of change and disturbance. My research explores the relative importance of diversification strategies for achieving resilient small-scale fishing communities and cooperatives of Baja California Sur, Mexico. Specifically, interview data and long-term catch and economic data were used to develop an economic metric of resilience, in addition to income diversification indices, for fishing cooperatives. Fishing cooperative characteristics and environmental conditions were then evaluated as possible predictors of cooperatives’ relative ability to diversify. I found that while diversification was important for risk mitigation and stabilizing income, the ability of cooperatives to specialize during favorable conditions may be important for poverty reduction and wealth accumulation. Thus, the flexibility to move across fishing strategies given changing environmental conditions is important for the adaptive capacity of small-scale fishing cooperatives. My findings will contribute to a better understanding of the institutional arrangements that promote a resilient small-scale fishery, and therefore, will be invaluable for practitioners of small-scale fisheries.     

Patience,persistence and pre-signals: Policy dynamics of planned relocation in Austria

Within the wide array of adaptive responses to flood hazards, planned relocation of residents at risk is usually only taken into account if other responses are ineffective or unavailable. Residents targeted by planned relocation are confronted with radical changes in their livelihood; therefore, relocation is highly contested within public risk discourse. The present paper assesses dynamic processes in the design and implementation of voluntary planned relocation in the Austrian Danube catchment over five decades. Using the Multiple Streams Approach, the emergence of policy windows is mapped to developments in the problem, political, policy and population streams. A mixed-methods design combines semi-structured interviews of 88 affected households and 21 decision-makers with archival research. Repeated flood events underscored that standard protection did not suffice for all riverside communities. In consequence, national authorities acted as policy entrepreneurs to advocate planned relocation and direct the discourse; by contrast, local stakeholders and residents played a mostly passive role. The relocation policy developed from ad-hoc informal arrangements towards a formalised procedure. Relocation governance evolved as incremental change over a long time span instead of immediate, radical disruption. Policy acceptance by residents depended crucially on social learning and on coincidence with personal circumstances and biographical stages. Policy windows opened for several years, when pre-signals from ongoing public debate accumulated and the different timescales in the decision-making of public administrators, elected representatives and residents aligned. Key factors were long-term perspective, flexibility, engagement and social capacity at a local level to deal with and manage planned relocation.     

极地系统变化及其影响与适应新认识

地球北极和南极部分地区正在经历着以变暖和冰冻圈退缩为主要特征的显著变化,不仅深刻影响着当地生态环境和社会经济,而且具有半球乃至全球效应。IPCC在2019年9月发布的《气候变化中的海洋和冰冻圈特别报告》（SROCC）第三章对极地系统变化及其影响与适应做了系统评估,主要呈现了IPCC第五次评估报告（AR5）之后极地冰冻圈、海洋、生态和社会系统相互作用的最新科学认知,探讨了降低脆弱性和风险、增强适应性和恢复力的路径。文中对SROCC第三章进行扼要解读,主要内容包括：(1)极地海洋、海冰、积雪/冻土/淡水冰、冰盖与冰川等极地系统要素过去和未来变化及其影响以及极地与中低纬度天气气候之间的关联;(2)人类响应极地系统变化的策略和不足以及应对未来变化的不确定性;(3)当前加强极地恢复力建设的主要行动及其实施进展。     

From regime protection to urban resilience? Assessing continuity and change in transnational security governance rationales in Guatemala

This article analyzes changing forms of transnational security governance and security expertise in Guatemala. It is argued that the dynamics of transnational security governance in Guatemala are directly related to the local appropriation of knowledge promoted by external security experts. As an expertise-based form of “intervention by invitation,” local political and economic elites engage in securitization strategies in order to invite external experts to intervene. In turn, through their intervention these experts provide resources that are “captured” and exploited by local actors to pursue their own interests. As a consequence, transnational security governance fails as it deviates from the original plans and programs experts try to implement. The analysis of these processes sheds light on how and why failure in the context of transnational security governance is productive. Failure, we argue, triggers a self-reinforcing interventionary feedback loop that aims at “fixing” the shortcomings of previous interventions by mobilizing new forms of external security expertise. In tracing the dynamics of this interventionary feedback loop over time, this article contributes to understanding of the role of experts and policy failure in the (re)making of transnational security governance.     

Resilience at the periphery: Insurgency,agency and social-ecological change under armed conflict

Armed conflict has played an increasingly important role in the transformation of key social and environmental systems at multiple spatial and temporal scales. Accelerated resource flows and environmental change dynamics intersect with conflict processes in ways that are substantial and yet inadequately understood. Drawing on research along the Pakistani border in eastern Afghanistan’s embattled province of Nangarhar, we employ a coupled systems approach for understanding the ways in which social-ecological processes shape and are shaped by armed conflict. Based on field surveys, geospatial analysis of land and forest change, and participatory research among local communities, government agencies and military actors, we identify several causal processes linking conflict and dynamics of social-ecological change in the context of multiscalar geopolitical processes. We focus attention on four inter-related elements: (1) transitional modes of resource governance relating to armed militia groups and state intervention, (2) forest changes related to illegal logging and trade networks, (3) the erosion of upper-montane rangelands through encroachment and changing pastoral responses to conflict, and (4) significant land use changes in the agricultural sector toward the cultivation of opium poppy. Our research highlights the importance of center-periphery relations, the problematic nature of local agency, and the ways in which local social-ecological elements—here, particularly, timber and opium—become political objects within competing narratives of (in)security and ongoing state formation.     

Hot-topics and Prospects of Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction: Based on 2017 Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction in Cancun,Mexico

A brief introduction to the Fifth Session of Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction, which was held in Cancun, Mexico, organized by United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UN/ISDR) and hosted by the Government of Mexico from 22 May to 26 May 2017, was firstly provided. Combined with “Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030”, “Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, and related work on natural disaster risk reduction at global, regional, country and local scales, some hot-topics and prospects of global platform for disaster risk reduction were put forward. Some findings were concluded, consisting of understanding disaster risk, disaster risk governance, building and enhancing resilience to disasters, coherence between the Sendai Framework, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and Climate Change Adaptation (CCA). Implementing the Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) through cross-sectoral collaboration, removing barriers and promoting public-private cooperation in DRR and other types of partnership among multi-stakeholders will become the main force pattern of DRR in the near future. Large-scale disaster risk governance caused by multi-hazards (disaster cluster), disaster chain and disaster compound will be the main trend in scientific research of DRR. Building regional disaster risk reduction platform (e.g. the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21^st-Century Maritime Silk Road) and sharing the technologies and information of disaster risk reduction will be the main contents of DRR practices. Building and optimization of institutional mechanisms on DRR will be the trend of DRR idea. Improving and enhancing the support to communities, vulnerable groups and locals on DRR will be the main trend in DRR achievements’ application and demonstration in China.