Losing ground: The marginalization of the St. Lawrence eel Fisheries in Québec,Canada

The world׳s eel fisheries are in a state of crisis. While an increasing number of studies have documented the biophysical dynamics of the decrease in eel populations in Canada and around the world, studies documenting fishing practices, fisheries management, and the impact of eel declines on the livelihoods of fishermen are still rare. This paper aims to contribute to this discussion by examining the American eel (Anguilla rostrata) fishery in the St. Lawrence River Estuary, positioning it within larger historical, economic, and socio-environmental contexts. More particularly, it explores the issues these fishermen face as a consequence of the declining eel population, changing management practices, global trends in eel commercialization, and initiatives taken to promote eel fishing and the landscape that surrounds it as an important component of natural and cultural heritage. It is argued that these changes, many of which have been amplified by neoliberal policy shifts, have contributed to the marginalization of eel fishers and are making their future increasingly uncertain.     

Multiple interfaces of the European Landscape Convention

The multiple interfaces of the European Landscape Convention were the topic of a roundtable panel discussion held at the meeting of the Permanent European Conference for the Study of the Rural Landscape in September 2006. The roundtable was convened by Kenneth R. Olwig, who together with four other speakers presented the main topics for discussion. Their presentations are given here as a series of short articles. Initially a brief historical background and the main provisions of the European Landscape Convention (Florence Convention) of 2000, in force 2004, are presented. The interfaces with law, landscape ecology, heritage, and globalisation are then successively discussed. Finally, the European Landscape Convention itself is examined as a discursive interface, with contradictory as well as synergetic aspects.     

Finnskogene I Norge

Recently, increased attention has been paid to the importance of everyday landscapes in the Western world, and a stronger political will to involve local participation in planning processes has emerged. The authors discuss the implementation of the political will to engage the Norwegian public in local heritage planning and whether or not this new role can have a mobilising effect on heritage protection. In Norway, cultural heritage managers have established methods for identifying valuable heritage assets in cultural historic landscapes. As increased responsibility for cultural heritage management is given to municipalities, more municipalities are making their own heritage plans to improve local heritage management. The article investigates how cultural heritage management in everyday landscapes is taking place, how heritage plans are developed, how local knowledge is involved, and what assets local residents appreciate in their environment, based on an in-depth study of two medium-sized Norwegian regional towns. The results show that local stakeholders were often invited to participate in planning processes, but that their contributions were largely kept out of official plans at the final stage. Further, the study revealed that memories and personal histories related to heritage appreciations are important elements in building identity, both at a personal level and at a local level.     

World heritage and landscape change – heritage buildings and their changed visibility in the coastal landscape of Vega,Norway

Part of the Vega archipelago in north-western Norway is a cultural landscape listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site. Its buffer zone comprises most of the main island of Vega, where agriculture is an important land use. The authors describe interdisciplinary research carried out in the buffer zone. The research revealed the significant role of agriculture for the maintenance of the traditional open coastal landscape. The finding was further underlined by the fact that many visitors to the site never reach the outer archipelago, which is the core of the listed site. Based on interpretations of aerial photographs, land cover maps were produced for three cross-sections in time (1965, 1986, and 2009). A further reclassification of the land cover was performed to capture the change in openness due to change in land cover. Viewshed maps of each building found on the aerial photographs were overlain with the openness classes to capture the visual consequences of the buildings due to changes in land cover. A marked decrease in open land surrounding the buildings was found in the study area, which comprised Holand and Floa-Kjul in Vega Municipality, which in turn comprises the islands of the Vega archipelago. The regrowth of the land seemed to be happening regardless of building category.     

中国自然文化遗产的价值体系及保护利用

对自然文化遗产价值的正确认识是处理遗产地保护和利用关系的基础,也是解决遗产地"城市化、商业化、人工化"的前提。本文在梳理国内外对自然文化遗产价值的诸多认识的基础上,依据系统论观点,提出了中国自然文化遗产价值是由"本底价值、直接应用价值和间接衍生价值"构成的"价值体系"。该体系具有明显的层次性,其中本底价值是所有价值存在的基础,这决定了遗产资源必须在保护的前提下才能合理利用;该体系也有空间性,三种价值主要分别存在于遗产地范围以内、遗产地及相邻区域、遗产地范围以外的更大的区域。于是,对自然文化遗产的保护和利用要坚持三个基本原则:严格保护本底价值,确保遗产的真实性和完整性不受损害;适度利用直接应用价值,做到功能综合利用、产品综合开发、产业综合发展;大力发展间接衍生价值,充分发挥其空间结构关联效应和产业发展乘数效应,从而达到带动遗产地所在区域社会、经济发展的目的。     

Preserving our in situ archaeological heritage: a challenge to the geochemical engineer

Empirical evidence has shown that industrialization and changes in agricultural practices have caused worldwide dramatic changes in the burial conditions of the archaeological remains. The current understanding of the problem, however, is not sufficiently advanced, which hinders adequate measures to prevent a tremendous loss of archaeological information. In the beginning of the nineties, research programmes were started to gain insight into the deterioration of different kinds of organic and inorganic components, representing a great variety of archaeomaterials. Knowledge of the present-day preservation condition of the remains will create the scientific basis for an environmental risk assessment of archaeological sites. It also will be the basis for developing strategies for the monitoring of a well-defined number of endangered sites. Such a monitoring system particularly is needed at places where geotechnical measures, like the local up-levelling of the soil and the creation of an artificially high ground water table, have been carried out to protect the archaeological heritage.     

1856年黔江小南海地震初探

对小南海地震发生的地质背景、成因机制、地震灾害及其遗迹进行了论述，作为自然遗产应得到充分地保护。     

The decay of coastal forts in southeast Brazil and its implications for the conservation of colonial built heritage

The 500th anniversary of European arrival in Brazil was celebrated in 2000 and highlighted the need to review the condition of the countrys remaining colonial built heritage. This revision is particularly apposite in the adjacent cities of Rio de Janeiro and Niterói, where the heritage that survived twentieth century reconstruction has done so largely because of ownership by the church or military. However, whilst this may have protected buildings from demolition, detailed fabric can be neglected or abused. This paper investigates this possibility through an examination of two forts, built primarily of local augen gneiss, that guard the entrance to Guanabara Bay. Natural outcrops exposed to the same humid sub-tropical maritime environment show that this rock is susceptible to slow disaggregation through salt weathering. Surveys suggest that stonework in the forts that is sheltered from rainwash is heavily loaded with salt and has passed a threshold, wherein stresses accumulated over centuries of apparent stability, combined with the effects of a more recent increase in atmospheric pollution and apparently inappropriate intervention (re-pointing), have triggered rapid breakdown that requires immediate intervention.     

Protecting the national parks and the world heritage sites in China: challenge and strategy

About 70% of its land area as mountains and plateaus, China is the largest mountain country in the world. Thanks to its vast territory (9.6 million km²), outstanding relief and varied climates, China boasts extremely plenty of ecosystems and landscapes. From south to north, it traverses almost all the temporal zones from tropical rainforest in the southernmost to frigid-temperate needle-leaved forest in the northernmost; from east to west, it sees a gradual transition fro humid forest landscape to extremely arid desert landscape; vertical change of landscapes is most striking owing to the existence of many high mountains (above 6000–7000 m, e.g., the Himalayas, the Kunlun, the Tianshan, the Hengduan, etc.) and plateaus, especially the immense Tibetan Plateau (averagely 4500 m above sea level). All of this give rise to the richness and diversity of ecosystems and landscape in China. Some of the ecosystems are endemic to China, e.g., alpine desert and alpine steppe in the Tibetan Plateau. As a result, China bears a great responsibility in the protection of global ecosystems and landscape.