Land conservation campaign in China: integrated management, local participation and food supply option

In an effort to halt soil erosion, desertification and sandstorms, the Chinese government has recently launched a series of land conservation programs targeted at the country’s north, northwest and southwest areas where problems are severe. This paper provides an overview of the current status of the major land conservation projects and their environmental and social-economic significance, as well as the challenges encountered. Conflicts of interests and objectives among different administrative entities involved and problems associated with the lack of local participation are addressed. Impacts on the food economy and implications for the environment are discussed in light of the options for meeting the country’s increasing food demand. The analysis highlights the necessity of improving cooperation and integration across different administrations and the imperative of participation of local communities in the planning and management process for achieving the goals of land conservation campaign. The importance of internalizing the environmental externality of land degradation and stipulating sustainable national food supply strategies is also stressed.     

Campaigning culinary documentaries and the responsibilization of food crises

This paper explores the campaigning culinary documentary (CCD) as an emerging format within food television. CCDs bring together elements of the lifestyle genre with an explicit focus on a food ‘crisis’ – such as obesity or animal welfare – and explore how this crisis is to be resolved, usually through the intervention of a food celebrity. Focussing largely on shows made by the UK’s Channel 4 network, we explore the ways in which CCDs narrate issues of responsibilization, whether these target consumers/viewers, the food industry, or the state. Through a reading of selected CCDs from Channel 4’s roster, we consider how the shows attempt to fuse elements of lifestyle/reality TV with a social or political agenda, but one which deploys the governmental strategy of responsibilization and so could be read as an enactment of neoliberal logic. While there is some truth to this claim, our analysis and discussion seeks to complicate this reading, showing how CCDs open up other narrative and political possibilities while also consolidating the brand image of the cookery TV stars who front them.     

Mediating the spaces of diet and health: A critical analysis of reporting on nutrition and colorectal cancer in the UK

The media are one of the main arenas in which nutrition information is framed and developed. Research has shown a predominantly individualistic framing of diet-related health issues such as obesity, type-2 diabetes and coronary heart disease in international media coverage. These issues are framed as personal, ’lifestyle’ issues rather than requiring policy or structural change. In addition, research has shown a tendency in nutrition research and media coverage of it, to emphasize individual ingredients or components more than overall diet. The media have a tendency to report diet related research simplistically, often without contextualization. Taking a case study approach, this paper analyses UK news media coverage and framing of British Medical Journal (BMJ) published research into dietary fibre and bowel cancer risk. I investigate how the health issue fibre and bowel cancer is framed and dissect the process of mediation (from press release to mass media to local media), analysing the shifting ’geographies of responsibility’ that result. This paper argues that media coverage of research into diet and bowel cancer can be explained by the technologies, conventions and routines of media representation. Key gatekeepers were found to have an important role in framing the information that was reported. Taking a critical approach, this paper argues that like obesity, type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease, coverage of nutritional means of preventing bowel cancer is set predominantly in the ’lifestyle’ frame, laying responsibility for increasing dietary fibre at the door of the individual rather than looking at broader social, economic, or political drivers of dietary change.     

Making visible: Interrogating the performance of food sharing across 100 urban areas

Interpersonal sharing of food has been an omnipresent feature of human civilisation from hunter-gatherer societies to the present, both as a mechanism through which sustenance is secured and as a means to cement social relations. While the evolutionary dynamism of this food sharing is relatively well documented, critical scholarship has tended to examine contemporary food sharing practices beyond family and friends through case studies of individual initiatives. A broader view of food sharing practices is absent. In addition, there has been little examination of the role that emerging information and communication technologies (ICT) are having on food sharing, despite claims that such technologies offer transformative potential to achieve more secure, sustainable and just food systems. In response, this paper presents a novel landscape level analysis of more than 4000 ICT-mediated urban food sharing activities operating across 100 cities in six continents. Adopting conceptual insights from the intersection of social and economic practice-oriented approaches, the resulting foodsharing database progresses understanding of, and makes visible, the ways in which food (and food-related skills, stuff and spaces) is being shared across diverse urban settings. To conclude, it is argued that the database plays an important productive and performative role in mapping and comparing diverse food sharing economies. Importantly, it provides a springboard for further explanatory research to fine-tune our understanding of the evolution, governance and sustainability potential of urban food sharing.     

Power and privilege in alternative civic practices: Examining imaginaries of change and embedded rationalities in community economies

Community economies can be considered as examples of the diverse economies growing outside common capitalist logics of private accumulation and profit, seeking to bypass or reconfigure dominant global trends of societal and economic organization. Yet, these communities seem to fit quite well under a neoliberal program in which responsibilities are shifting downwards, favoring multi-level governance over State intervention and accountability. This binary character makes imperative an open and critical discussion on the development of community initiatives, including on the motivations and visions of citizens practicing alternative ethical consumption. This article explores the neoliberal rationalities embraced by community members within the imaginaries of change they frame and examines how these rationalities contribute to (re)producing neoliberal conditions and forms of governance. Our analysis builds on semi-structured interviews conducted among the members of 11 initiatives in 5 EU countries and on participant observation. We argue here that communities articulate an “alternative imaginary” of change that appears imprinted by core neoliberal rationalities around questions of individual responsibility, the role of the State, and civic participation and equity. It is an imaginary related to the construction of CBEs to by-pass existing socio-political and economic configurations. This imaginary more often than not responds to neoliberal promises of individual freedom and autonomy and seems to undermine CBEs' more radical possibilities at the same time obscuring more diverse voices of transformation.     

Vulnerability to impacts of climate change on marine fisheries and food security

Assessment of fisheries vulnerability to climate change is an important step for enhancing the understanding and decision-making to reduce such vulnerability. This study aimed to provide an analysis of country level vulnerability focusing on food security implications of climatic disturbances on marine fisheries. The comparative magnitude and distribution of potential food security impacts of climatic disturbances on marine fisheries were assessed for 109 countries by scoring and ranking countries against a set of vulnerability criteria including metrics of national exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity, highlighting the contribution of marine fisheries to national food and nutrition security. Results showed that developing countries in Africa, Asia, Oceania, and Latin America appeared to be most vulnerable, and the key sources of vulnerability differed considerably among the countries. For countries most vulnerable to climate-induced effects on marine fisheries, more than two-thirds of them depended on domestic marine fisheries as a main source of fish supply. Developing appropriate adaptation policies and management plans to reduce the impacts of changing climate is of great importance to sustain food security in these highly vulnerable and heavy marine fisheries-dependent countries.     

“Fish as food”: Exploring a food sovereignty approach to small-scale fisheries

This article explores how conceptualizing fish as food, rather than primarily as a resource or commodity supports a shift towards more systems-based approaches to engaging with fisheries (i.e. considering the relationships between ecosystems, people, management and policy). A “fish as food” lens is operationalized by drawing on the theory and practice of food sovereignty. While fishing people and communities have always been a core part of the food sovereignty movement, there have been limited efforts in the academic literature to explore these connections directly. Drawing on examples primarily from a Canadian context, it is argued that a deeper engagement between fisheries and food sovereignty is long overdue, particularly as a growing body of research on small-scale fisheries seeks to address social-ecological relationships and issues of power that are also at the core of a food sovereignty approach. This article identifies the opportunities and limitations of engaging with food sovereignty in the context of small-scale fisheries and suggests a series of key questions for future fish as food research and policy.     

Livelihood diversity and dynamism in Timor-Leste; insights for coastal resource governance and livelihood development

Coastal communities within small island developing states are typically highly dependent on fisheries and other natural resource-based livelihoods. However, specialisation as a ‘fisher’ is rare compared to diverse livelihoods that can be adapted as opportunities and challenges emerge. Understanding this dynamic “livelihood landscape” is important for improving governance and livelihood opportunities associated with natural resources. Using data from 495 households across 15 communities on Atauro Island, Timor-Leste, this study evaluates the importance of fisheries within a suite of livelihoods; the correlation of livelihoods structure with wellbeing; and the spatial and temporal variation of those livelihoods. Activities linked to primary production were nominated by 67% of households as their primary livelihood, 41% fished, and of those 54% considered fishing their primary livelihood. Almost all households (95%) owned livestock, and even respondents who considered themselves ‘fishers’ ranked livestock disease, rather than fisheries related concerns, as their most critical livelihood challenge. Engagement in fishing varied by location and time of year. Communities in more protected locales fished throughout the year, and had less diverse livelihoods. This study highlights that interventions focused on self-identified ‘fishers’ would only engage a fraction of the population that derive benefit from fisheries resources, would likely overlook the most prevalent challenges fishers face, and would focus on those with relatively high food security and income. Measures of wellbeing were better explained by geography and socio-cultural settings, rather than dominant income sources. The results emphasise the value of cross-sector development interventions informed by contextualised analysis of livelihoods and wellbeing outcomes.     

西鄂尔多斯地区5种荒漠优势灌丛生物量分配格局及预测模型

以西鄂尔多斯地区5种荒漠优势灌丛（沙冬青（Ammopiptanthus mogolicus）、四合木（Tetraena mongolica）、霸王（Zygophyllum xanthoxylum）、红砂（Reaumuria songarica）、半日花（Helianthemum songaricum））为研究对象,采用平均标准灌丛全部收获法测定灌丛各营养器官（枝条、叶片、根系）生物量,并分别以丛高（H）和冠幅（C）的复合因子（CH）及基径（D）和丛高（H）的复合因子（D²H）为自变量建立单株灌丛生物量预测模型。通过决定系数（R²）、估计值的标准误差（SEE）和F检验显著水平筛选出各灌丛种最佳生物量预测模型。结果表明：（1）5种荒漠灌丛单株总生物量干鲜比差异性显著（P<0.05）,各营养器官间差异性也达到显著水平（P<0.05）;灌丛根冠比种间差异显著（P<0.05）,红砂（1.05）> 霸王（1.01）> 半日花（0.92）> 沙冬青（0.90）> 四合木（0.49）;（2）根系和枝条是荒漠灌丛生物量的主要贡献者,其生物量占灌丛总生物量比例之和均在80%以上,根系生物量分配随根系径级的增加而增加;（3）5种荒漠优势灌丛单株灌丛生物量预测模型R²值均在0.85以上,且在0.05水平上显著,生物量模型预测精度较高。     

干旱荒漠螨类和跳虫对降雨的响应

目前关于降水变化如何影响和调控荒漠土壤动物分布及多样性的形成与维持生态学机制的认识非常有限。通过对自然降雨后红砂和泡泡刺灌丛下螨类和跳虫群落的动态监测,揭示荒漠小型节肢动物群落组成及多样性对降雨变化的响应规律。结果表明：干季降雨对两种灌木下小型节肢动物、螨类和跳虫数量及类群丰富度影响较小,而湿季降雨对两种灌木下螨类和跳虫数量及类群丰富度影响较大。如7月24.8 mm和8月6.8 mm降雨后两种灌木下小型节肢动物群落、螨类和跳虫的数量及类群丰富度均显著高于5月4.0 mm、6月14.8 mm和6.6 mm的降雨。6月14.8 mm和6.6 mm降雨后两种灌木下小型节肢动物群落在第2天和3天出现峰值;而7月24.8 mm降雨后两种灌木下小型节肢动物群落均呈现先降低后增加的模式;8月6.8 mm降雨后红砂灌丛下小型节肢动物群落呈降低的趋势,而泡泡刺灌丛下小型节肢动物群落变化较小。泡泡刺灌丛下螨类数量及类群丰富度均高于红砂灌丛,而两种灌木下跳虫数量及类群丰富度相差较小,这可能会影响湿季荒漠小型节肢动物群落对自然降雨变化的响应模式。