From catfish to organic fish: making distinctions about nature as cultural economic practice

This paper addresses the cultural economy of nature and the material culture of economic practice. Attending to ways that cultural notions about the biophysical world play key roles in political economic conflicts, discussion centers on two recent debates involving the cultural economy of seafood production and trade. The first debate is over whether the label “catfish” should include catfish imported from Vietnam into the United States; the second deals with whether fish and shellfish should be eligible to be certified “organic” under new US regulations. Analysis reveals that the key dynamic in these debates is not necessarily how people think about “nature”, but instead is how people make distinctions about the world. Rather than focusing on what is natural or not, key actors make distinctions among both organisms and environments. The ways that different groups define and enclose the biophysical world works to distinguish places as either appropriate or not for certain kinds of production activities. The overall argument is that significance and meaning of the biophysical become implicated in economic geographies by making distinctions about the world that then become important for how economic activity can work. As such, cultural economic approaches should attend to the ways that the biophysical is involved in relations such as competition and international trade, while nature-society approaches should shift focus from Nature to specific aspects of the biophysical world.     

新疆对中亚五国的外贸结构,问题及对策

本文在分析新疆对中亚五国的外贸结构基础上，阐述了目前在与中亚五国的贸易中存在的一些问题，提出相应的对策建议，以推动新疆与中亚五国外贸发展的良性循环。     

90年代世界贸易发展及空间格局变化的新特点

在世界贸易组织、日趋强烈的开放的区域主义倾向、跨国公司强劲的直接投资影响下，世界贸易正在经历着巨大变化，处在一个新的转换时期。本文从影响当今世界贸易发展的多重因素分析，揭示90年代世界贸易增长、内容结构以及空间格局发展变化的新特征，并展望世界贸易的未来发展。     

Dislocating modernity: Identity, space and representations of street trade in Durban, South Africa

South Africa’s cities have experienced dramatic changes over the past decade. Cities are now home to a multiracial population, and have been transformed by new forms of economic and social interaction. For some, these changes have become a significant source of fear and anxiety. In this paper, we examine reactions to urban spatial change in the city of Durban, as expressed in local newspapers and interviews with suburban residents. We describe how the discourses of urban change in Durban have centred on the increased presence of street traders within the city’s public spaces, and the various ways in which the activity of street trade has disrupted long-established modernist norms governing the occupation and use of the urban space. Specifically, we offer a detailed reading of three prominent narratives within the discussion of street traders in Durban--chaos, congestion and pollution. We argue that street traders have come to embody a wide range of more deeply seated cultural anxieties, which have been brought to the fore in the context of South Africa’s transition. These anxieties arise from the ways in which modern understandings of order, agency and subjectivity have been called into question by material changes in the city, and have implications for the nature of citizenship and civic engagement in post-apartheid South Africa.     

地理国情普查时点核准作业方法探讨

通过核实从数据采集到标准时点阶段发生变化的内容,补充新增内容,消除普查前阶段由于资料时效性和外业局限性等导致的现势性不统一现象,对变化的地理国情信息进行核准,使地理国情普查数据成果在时间上达到统一,是开展地理国情监测的基础。     

Long-Term Variability of the Wind Field over the Indian Ocean Based on ERA-Interim Reanalysis

A detailed study of long-term variability of winds using 30 years of data from the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts global reanalysis (ERA-Interim) over the Indian Ocean has been carried out by partitioning the Indian Ocean into six zones based on local wind extrema. The trend of mean annual wind speed averaged over each zone shows a significant increase in the equatorial region, the Southern Ocean, and the southern part of the trade winds. This indicates that the Southern Ocean winds and the southeast trade winds are becoming stronger. However, the trend for the Bay of Bengal is negative, which might be caused by a weakening of the monsoon winds and northeast trade winds. Maximum interannual variability occurs in the Arabian Sea due to monsoon activity; a minimum is observed in the subtropical region because of the divergence of winds. Wind speed variations in all zones are weakly correlated with the Dipole Mode Index (DMI). However, the equatorial Indian Ocean, the southern part of the trade winds, and subtropical zones show a relatively strong positive correlation with the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI), indicating that the SOI has a zonal influence on wind speed in the Indian Ocean. Monsoon winds have a decreasing trend in the northern Indian Ocean, indicating monsoon weakening, and an increasing trend in the equatorial region because of enhancement of the westerlies. The negative trend observed during the non-monsoon period could be a result of weakening of the northeast trade winds over the past few decades. The mean flux of kinetic energy of wind (FKEW) reaches a minimum of about 100?W?m^?2 in the equatorial region and a maximum of about 1500?W?m^?2 in the Southern Ocean. The seasonal variability of FKEW is large, about 1600?W?m^?2, along the coast of Somalia in the northern Indian Ocean. The maximum monthly variability of the FKEW field averaged over each zone occurs during boreal summer. During the onset and withdrawal of monsoon, FKEW is as low as 50?W?m^?2. The Southern Ocean has a large variation of about 1280?W?m^?2 because of strong westerlies throughout the year.     

Would different methodologies for assessing carbon leakage exposure lead to different risk levels? A case study of the Brazilian industry

Energy-intensive industries play an important role in low-carbon development, being particularly exposed to climate policies. Concern over possible carbon leakage in this sector poses a major challenge for designing effective carbon pricing instruments (CPI). Different methodologies for assessing carbon leakage exposure are currently used by different jurisdictions, each of them based on different approaches and indicators. This paper aims to analyse the extent to which the use of different methodologies leads to different results in terms of exposure to the risk of carbon leakage, using the Brazilian industry sector as a case study. Results indicate that carbon leakage exposure is an expected outcome of eventual CPI implementation in Brazilian industry. However, results vary according to the chosen methodology, so the definition of the criteria is paramount for assessing sectoral exposure to the risk of carbon leakage.

Key policy insights

• Despite increasing discussion about the implementation of carbon pricing on the Brazilian industrial sector, the evaluation of carbon leakage risks is still neglected.

• Assessments of the risk of carbon leakage are directly related to the indicators and criteria used by each methodology. Thus, a given subsector may present different levels of exposure to carbon leakage depending on the methodological choice.

• More than a purely technical discussion, the methodological definition of carbon leakage risk is a political discussion – it can be well-conducted, leading to the success of a CPI, or even sabotaged, by implicitly subsidizing energy-intensive industries.

     

河南省活立木交易市场发展现状及前景分析

建立河南省活立木交易市场不仅能够促进全省林业发展,实现林木资源的规范流转,提高林农的经济收益,而且还可以提高森林覆被率、改善生态环境,并对林木资源的可持续发展起着重要作用.以河南省活立木交易市场为例,系统地阐述了活立木交易的有关概念、活立木交易市场发展中取得的成绩和存在的问题;针对市场发展中存在的问题提出了一些可行性的建议;最后对河南省活立木交易市场的发展前景进行了分析.     

Evaluation of policy options for the live reef food fish trade in the province of Palawan,Western Philippines

The live reef food fish (LRFF) trade has an estimated annual retail value of US$1 billion in the Asia-Pacific region and at least US$30 million in the Philippines. Palawan Province is the trade's center accounting for as much as 55% of the commodity's total export. Concern about the LRFF trade has caused the Palawan Provincial government to take action to regulate the trade. Four key policy options to address the short-term policy objective of developing a sustainable LRFF industry through the reduction of threats associated with destructive fishing and overfishing were proposed. These four policy options and associated analyses were presented to stakeholders at three separate policy consultations. The stakeholders reached a consensus that a regulated LRFF trade was the most sensible option. As a result, the Provincial Government of Palawan took action to enact “The Palawan Live Reef Fish Ordinance of 2006”, which provides for the sustainable and integrated regulation of the LRFF industry. This provincial ordinance will assist in crafting a national policy for the LRFF trade and may also be useful in revising the 1998 Philippine Fisheries Code. The key challenge is how to translate the ordinance provisions into effective on-the-ground actions.