EVOLUTION, Issue 6 2006
H. Allen Orr
Abstract Several recent theoretical studies of the genetics of adaptation have focused on the mutational landscape model, which considers evolution on rugged fitness landscapes (i.e., ones having many local optima). Adaptation in this model is characterized by several simple results. Here I ask whether these results also hold on correlated fitness landscapes, which are smoother than those considered in the mutational landscape model. In particular, I study the genetics of adaptation in the block model, a tunably rugged model of fitness landscapes. Considering the scenario in which adaptation begins from a high fitness wild-type DNA sequence, I use extreme value theory and computer simulations to study both single adaptive steps and entire adaptive walks. I show that all previous results characterizing single steps in adaptation in the mutational landscape model hold at least approximately on correlated landscapes in the block model; many entire-walk results, however, do not. [source]

LABOUR AND LANDSCAPES: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF LANDESQUE CAPITAL IN NINETEENTH CENTURY TANGANYIKA

GEOGRAFISKA ANNALER SERIES B: HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, Issue 3 2007
N. Thomas Håkansson
ABSTRACT. In a long-term and global perspective irrigated and terraced landscapes, landesque capital, have often been assumed to be closely associated with hierarchical political systems. However, research is accumulating that shows how kinship-based societies (including small chiefdoms) have also been responsible for constructing landesque capital without population pressure. We examine the political economy of landesque capital through the intersections of decentralized politics and regional economies. A crucial question guiding our research is why some kinship-based societies chose to invest their labour in landesque capital while others did not. Our analysis is based on a detailed examination of four relatively densely populated communities in late pre-colonial and early colonial Tanzania. By analysing labour processes as contingent and separate from political types of generalized economic systems over time we can identify the causal factors that direct labour and thus landscape formation as a process. The general conclusion of our investigation is that landesque investments occurred in cases where agriculture was the main source of long-term wealth flow irrespective of whether or not hierarchical political systems were present. However, while this factor may be a necessary condition it is not a sufficient cause. In the cases we examined, the configurations of world-systems connections and local social and economic circumstances combined to either produce investments in landesque capital or to pursue short-term strategies of extraction. [source]

TENDING CULTURAL LANDSCAPES AND FOOD CITIZENSHIP IN TORONTO'S COMMUNITY GARDENS,

GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW, Issue 3 2004
LAUREN E. BAKER
ABSTRACT. Scattered throughout the city of Toronto are more than no community gardens, sites of place-based politics connected to the community food-security movement. The gardens, spaces where passions for plants and food are shared, reflect the city's shifting cultural landscape and represent an everyday activity that is imbued with multiple meanings. Toronto's community food-security movement uses gardens as one strategy to regenerate the local food system and provide access to healthy, affordable food. Three garden case studies expand on the complexities of "food citizenship," illustrating the importance of that concept to notions of food security. The gardens reveal the role gardeners play in transforming urban spaces, the complex network of organizations working cooperatively and in partnership to implement these projects, and the way in which social and cultural pluralism are shaping the urban landscape. [source]

OUR MAROON IN THE NOW-LOST LANDSCAPES OF MONTSERRAT

GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW, Issue 1-2 2001
Article first published online: 21 APR 2010, LYDIA MIHELIC PULSIPHER
First page of article [source]

PINES IN ANCIENT LANDSCAPES

GLOBAL ECOLOGY, Issue 3 2001
Paul H. Zedler
[source]

MULTISCALE INFLUENCES ON PHYSICAL AND CHEMICAL STREAM CONDITIONS ACROSS BLUE RIDGE LANDSCAPES,

JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN WATER RESOURCES ASSOCIATION, Issue 5 2002
Mark C. Scott
ABSTRACT: Streams integrate biogeochemical processes operating at broad to local spatial scales and long term to short term time scales. Humans have extensively altered those processes in North America, with serious consequences for aquatic ecosystems. We collected data on Upper Tennessee River tributaries in North Carolina to: (1) compare landuse and landscape geomorphology with respect to their ability to explain variation in water quality, sedimentation measures, and large woody debris; (2) determine if landscape change over time contributed significantly to explaining present stream conditions; and (3) assess the importance of spatial scale in examining landuse influences on streams. Stream variables were related to both landuse and landscape geomorphology. Forest cover accounted for the most variation in nearly all models, supporting predictions of nutrient enrichment, thermal pollution, and sedimentation caused by landscape disturbance. Legacy effects from past catchment disturbance were apparent in sedimentation measures. Nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations, as well as stream temperature, were lower where riparian buffers had reforested. Models of stream physicochemistry fit better when predictors were catchment wide rather than more localized (i.e., within 2 km of a site). Cumulative impacts to streams due to changes in landuse must be managed from a watershed perspective with quantitative models that integrate across scales. [source]

Biodiversity Conservation in Agricultural Landscapes: Challenges and Opportunities of Coffee Agroforests in the Western Ghats, India

CONSERVATION BIOLOGY, Issue 2 2010
CLAUDE A. GARCIA
agroforestería de café; Ghats Occidentales; medios de vida; mosaicos paisajísticos; proyectos integrados de conservación y desarrollo Abstract:,The new approaches advocated by the conservation community to integrate conservation and livelihood development now explicitly address landscape mosaics composed of agricultural and forested land rather than only protected areas and largely intact forests. We refer specifically to a call by Harvey et al. (2008) to develop a new approach based on six strategies to integrate biodiversity conservation with sustainable livelihoods in Mesoamerican landscape mosaics. We examined the applicability of this proposal to the coffee agroforests of the Western Ghats, India. Of the six strategies, only one directly addresses livelihood conditions. Their approach has a clear emphasis on conservation and, as currently formulated risks repeating the failures of past integrated conservation and development projects. It fails to place the aspirations of farmers at the core of the agenda. Thus, although we acknowledge and share the broad vision and many of the ideas proposed by this approach, we urge more balanced priority setting by emphasizing people as much as biodiversity through a careful consideration of local livelihood needs and aspirations. Resumen:,Los nuevos enfoques recomendados por la comunidad de conservación para integrar la conservación y el desarrollo ahora abordan explícitamente los mosaicos paisajísticos compuestos de tierras agrícolas y forestales en lugar de solo áreas protegidas y bosques casi intactos. Basado en seis estrategias para integrar la conservacion de la biodiversidad con modos de vida sustentables en los mosaicos paisajisticos de Mesoamerica. Nos referimos específicamente a la llamada de Harvey et al. (2008) para desarrollar un enfoque nuevo basado en seis estrategias para congraciar la conservación de la biodiversidad con modos de vida sustentables en los mosaicos paisajísticos de Mesoamérica. Examinamos la aplicabilidad de esta propuesta en los agrobosques de café de los Ghats occidentales en la India. Solo una de las seis estrategias mencionadas aborda directamente las condiciones de vida. La propuesta tiene un claro énfasis en la conservación y, tal como está formulada actualmente, falla en colocar las aspiraciones de los campesinos en el centro de la agenda. Corre pues el riesgo de repetir los fracasos de pasados proyectos integrados de conservación y desarrollo. Por lo tanto, aunque reconocemos y compartimos la amplia visión y muchas de las ideas de esta llamada, insistimos en una definición de prioridades balanceada que enfatice a la gente tanto como a la biodiversidad mediante una consideración cuidadosa de las necesidades y aspiraciones de los habitantes locales. [source]

Quantifying Plant Population Persistence in Human-Dominated Landscapes

CONSERVATION BIOLOGY, Issue 4 2008
DAWN M. LAWSON
Base de Datos de la Diversidad Natural de California; conservación de plantas; crecimiento de la población; especies en peligro; paisajes urbanos Abstract:,We assessed population performance of rare plants across a gradient from rural to urban landscapes and evaluated 2 hypotheses central to strategic conservation planning: (1) population performance declines with increasing human dominance and (2) small populations perform poorly relative to larger ones. Assessing these hypotheses is critical to strategic conservation planning. The current conservation paradigm adheres to the well-established ecology theory that small isolated populations, particularly those in human-dominated landscapes, are the least likely to succeed over the long term. Consequently, conservation planning has strongly favored large, remote targets for protection. This shift in conservation toward ecosystem-based programs and protection of populations within large, remote systems has been at the expense of protection of the rarest of the rare species, the dominant paradigm for conservation driven by the endangered species act. Yet, avoiding conservation of small populations appears to be based more on theoretical understanding and expert opinion than empiricism. We used Natural Heritage data from California in an assessment of population performance of rare plants across a landscape with an urban-rural gradient. Population performance did not decrease in urban settings or for populations that were initially small. Our results are consistent with a pattern of few species extinctions within these landscapes over the past several decades. We conclude that these populations within compromised landscapes can contribute to overall biodiversity conservation. We further argue that conservation planning for biodiversity preservation should allocate relatively more resources to protecting urban-associated plant taxa because they may provide conservation benefit beyond simply protecting isolated populations; they may be useful in building social interest in conservation. Resumen:,Evaluamos el funcionamiento de la población de plantas raras a lo largo de un gradiente de paisajes rurales a urbanos y evaluamos 2 hipótesis centrales para la planificación estratégica de la conservación: (1) declinaciones en el funcionamiento poblacional con el incremento de la dominancia humana y (2) las poblaciones pequeñas funcionan pobremente en relación con las grandes. La evaluación de estas hipótesis es crítica para la planificación estratégica de la conservación. El paradigma actual de la conservación se adhiere a la teoría ecológica bien establecida que propone que las poblaciones pequeñas aisladas, particularmente en paisajes dominados por humanos, tienen menor probabilidad de sobrevivir a largo plazo. Consecuentemente, la planificación de la conservación ha favorecido objetivos grandes y remotos. Este cambio hacia programas de conservación basados en ecosistemas y la protección de poblaciones en sistemas extensos y remotos ha sido a costa de la protección de las especies más raras entre las raras, el paradigma dominante en la conservación conducida por el acta de especies en peligro. No obstante, la evasión de la conservación de poblaciones pequeñas parece estar basada más en entendimiento teórico y en la opinión de expertos que en el empirismo. Utilizamos datos del Patrimonio Natural de California en una evaluación del funcionamiento de plantas raras en un paisaje con un gradiente urbano a rural. El funcionamiento de la población no decreció en sitios urbanos o en poblaciones que eran pequeñas inicialmente. Nuestros resultados son consistentes con un patrón de extinción de especies en estos paisajes en las últimas décadas. Concluimos que estas poblaciones en paisajes comprometidos pueden contribuir a la conservación de la biodiversidad en general. También argumentamos que la planificación de la conservación para la preservación de la biodiversidad debería asignar más recursos para la protección de taxa de plantas asociadas a ambientes urbanos porque pueden proporcionar beneficios de conservación más allá de simplemente proteger poblaciones aisladas; pueden ser útiles para construir el interés social por la conservación. [source]

Biodiversity in Agricultural Landscapes: Saving Natural Capital without Losing Interest

CONSERVATION BIOLOGY, Issue 2 2006
Charles Perrings
No abstract is available for this article. [source]

Wildfire Policy and Public Lands: Integrating Scientific Understanding with Social Concerns across Landscapes

CONSERVATION BIOLOGY, Issue 4 2004
MICHAEL P. DOMBECK
administración de bosques; fuego no controlado; política; Servicio Forestal Estados Unidos; tierras públicas Abstract:,Efforts to suppress wildfires have become increasingly problematic in recent years as costs have risen, threats to firefighter safety have escalated, and detrimental impacts to ecosystems have multiplied. Wildfires that escape initial suppression often expand into large, high-intensity summer blazes. Lost is the legacy of smaller fires that likely burned outside extreme weather and fuel conditions and resulted in less severe impacts. Despite the recognized need for modifications to existing policies and practices, resource agencies have been slow to respond. The spread of exotic species, climate change, and increasing human development in wildlands further complicates the issue. New policies are needed that integrate social and ecological needs across administrative boundaries and broad landscapes. These policies should promote a continuum of treatments with active management and reduction of fuel hazard in wildland-urban interface zones and reintroduction of fire in wildlands. Management goals should focus on restoration of the long-term ecological health of the land. Projects that reduce fuel loads but compromise the integrity of soil, water supplies, or watersheds will do more harm than good in the long run. Despite significant ecological concerns, learning to live with fire remains primarily a social issue that will require greater political leadership, agency innovation, public involvement, and community responsibility. Resumen:,En años recientes, los esfuerzos para suprimir los fuegos no controlados se han vuelto cada vez más problemáticos por el incremento de costos, el aumento de las amenazas a la seguridad de bomberos y se la multiplicio, de los impactos perjudiciales a los ecosistemas. Los incendios que escapan la supresión inicial a menudo se expanden a grandes conflagraciones estivales de alta intensidad. Se ha perdido el legado de fuegos menores que probablemente se llevaban a cabo en condiciones climáticas y de combustible extremas que tenían impactos menos severos. A pesar del reconocimiento de la necesidad de modificaciones a las políticas y prácticas actuales, las agencias han respondido lentamente. La expansión de especies exóticas, el cambio climático y el incremento del desarrollo humano en áreas silvestres complican el problema aún más. Se requieren políticas nuevas que integren necesidades sociales y ecológicas más allá de límites administrativos y en paisajes amplios. Estas políticas deben promover un continuo de tratamientos con gestión activa y reducción de riesgo de combustión en la interfase área silvestre-urbana y la reintroducción de fuego en áreas silvestres. Las metas de la gestión deben enfocar en la restauración de la salud ecológica a largo plazo. Los proyectos que reducen la carga de combustible pero que comprometen la integridad del suelo, las reservas de agua o cuencas hidrológicas no serán de mucha utilidad en el largo plazo. A pesar de preocupaciones ecológicas significativas, aprender a vivir con fuego seguirá siendo un aspecto social que requerirá de mayor liderazgo político, innovación de agencias, participación del público y responsabilidad comunitaria. [source]

Combining Strategies to Select Reserves in Fragmented Landscapes

CONSERVATION BIOLOGY, Issue 4 2004
KRISTINA D. ROTHLEY
These criteria are assumed to be reasonable surrogates for the true network objectives. Caution is warranted, however, because the relationships between the selection criteria and the reserve-network objectives may be inconsistent. Conflicts are also likely to arise because no single reserve network will be optimal with respect to multiple objectives (or selection criteria) simultaneously. Instead, reserve planners must compromise between conflicting demands. We field tested the relationships between a variety of selection criteria and the objectives of a reserve network for the sandplain natural communities on Martha's Vineyard Island, Massachusetts (U.S.A.). Selection criteria that correlated with the reserve-network objectives were used in a multi-objective integer program to identify the 10-patch reserve networks that were optimal with each objective independently and those that offered optimal tradeoffs between the reserve-network objectives. From these 10-patch networks, one can select a final reserve network that provides the preferred compromise between the objectives. Resumen:,La utilización de criterios de selección, como el tamaño de parche, para clasificar el valor de conservación de los parches de hábitat y evaluar redes de reservas alternativas es un método para identificar redes de reservas en paisajes fragmentados con datos especie-específicos limitados,. Se asume que estos criterios son sustitutos razonables de los verdaderos objetivos de la red. Sin embargo, se requiere cuidado porque las relaciones entre los criterios de selección y los objetivos de la red de reservas pueden ser inconsistentes. Es probable que surjan conflictos porque ninguna red de reservas seráóptima con respecto a objetivos (o criterios de selección) múltiples simultáneamente. Más bien, los planificadores de reservas deben transigir entre demandas conflictivas. Probamos las relaciones entre una variedad de criterios de selección y los objetivos de una red de reservas para comunidades arenícolas naturales en la Isla Martha's Vineyard, Massachussets (E.U.A.). Los criterios de selección que se correlacionaron con los objetivos de la red de reservas fueron utilizados en un programa multi-objetivo integral para identificar las 10 redes de reservas de fragmentos óptimas con cada objetivo independientemente y las que ofrecían compensaciones óptimas entre los objetivos de la red de reservas. De estas 10 redes de reservas de fragmentos, se puede seleccionar una red de reservas final que proporcione el compromiso preferido entre los objetivos. [source]

Mexico's Community-Managed Forests as a Global Model for Sustainable Landscapes

CONSERVATION BIOLOGY, Issue 3 2003
David Barton Bray
On the other hand, conservationists have declared that the only way to stem the tide of deforestation is to place as many tracts as possible under strict protection. In this context, Mexico presents a national laboratory for studying the social and ecological benefits of delivering forests to local people. As a little-noticed result of the Mexican Revolution in the second decade of the twentieth century, well over half of the forests of Mexico were placed in community-held lands. In historic struggles that passed through several phases, most of these communities have now gained substantial control over the use of their forests. Because of the substantial degree of social capital in rural forms of organization in Mexico, this control of forest resources has led to an estimated 290,479 community forest enterprises ( CFEs ), through which communities are producing timber on their own lands. New studies are beginning to suggest that important gains in both social and economic justice, good forest management, and biodiversity protection are resulting from the actions of these CFEs. As more forests globally are being devolved to local communities, it is important to carry out more research on the Mexican model of community forest management for timber production. Resumen: Investigadores preocupados por el manejo sostenible de bosques en los trópicos han argumentado que el camino para una custodia mas efectiva de los recursos forestales es la transferencia de la responsabilidad a las comunidades locales que obtienen sustento de ellos. Por otro lado, conservacionistas han declarado que la única manera de detener la ola de deforestación es colocar bajo protección estricta tantas regiones como sea posible. En este contexto, México representa un laboratorio para el estudio de los beneficios sociales y ecológicos de entregar los bosques a los habitantes locales. Como un resultado poco conocido de la Revolución Mexicana, en la segunda década del siglo veinte, más de la mitad de los bosques de México se ubicaban en tierras que estaban en manos de las comunidades. Las comunidades forestales han atravesado por distintas etapas de conflicto, tras la cuáles han obtendio un control sustancial de los usos de sus bosques. Debido al nivel considerable de capital social en formas de organización rural en México, este control de los recursos forestales ha conducido a la integración de entre 290,479 empresas forestales comunitarias ( EFC ), en las que las comunidades están produciendo madera en sus propias tierras. Nuevos estudios están comenzando a sugerir que se están produciendo ganancias importantes en las acciones de estas EFC están generando beneficios importantes, tanto en lo que se refiere a justicia social como económica, la administración correcta de bosques y la protección de la biodiversidad. A medida en que se deleguen mayores extensiones de bosques a comunidades locales, es importante llevar a cabo más investigación sobre el modelo mexicano de manejo comunitario de bosques para la producción de forestal maderable. [source]

Global Visions, Local Landscapes: A Political Ecology of Conservation, Conflict, and Control in Northern Madagascar by Lisa L. Gezon

CULTURE, AGRICULTURE, FOOD & ENVIRONMENT, Issue 1 2009
Matthew J. Forss
No abstract is available for this article. [source]

Review article: Landscapes compared

EARLY MEDIEVAL EUROPE, Issue 2 2007
Ian Wood
First page of article [source]

Linking Spatial Pattern and Ecological Responses in Human-Modified Landscapes: The Effects of Deforestation and Forest Fragmentation on Biodiversity

GEOGRAPHY COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 4 2009
John A. Kupfer
Studies of forest loss and fragmentation provide clear examples of the linkages between ecological pattern and process. Reductions in forest area lead to higher within-patch extinction rates, the eventual loss of area-sensitive species, and declines in species richness and diversity. Forest loss also results in increased isolation of remnants, lower among-patch immigration rates, and less ,rescue' from surrounding populations. Specific responses, however, are sometimes counterintuitive because they depend on life-history tradeoffs that influence population dynamics and species co-existence in heterogeneous landscapes, not just forest remnants. Thus, while fragmentation generally favours r-selected, generalist strategies, such as high dispersal and a wide niche breadth, ecological outcomes may be confounded by species-specific responses to conditions in the human-dominated matrix and the ways in which forest edges shape cross-landscape movements. Given that pressures on global forestlands continue to intensify due to growing population sizes, economic pressures, and needs for space and resources, successfully maintaining or restoring species will necessitate a combination of short- and long-term actions that address both habitat protection and restoration. Doing so will require an interdisciplinary approach that gives adequate attention to the manners by which forest loss and fragmentation affect population dynamics through changes in forest area, isolation, habitat quality, matrix properties, and edge effects as well as the synergistic interactions of fragmentation with climate change, human-altered disturbance regimes, species interactions and other drivers of species population declines. [source]

Beyond Lack and Excess: Other Architectures/Other Landscapes

JOURNAL OF ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION, Issue 1 2000
Gülsüm Baydar Nalbanto
Familiar binary categories of architecture such as Western/regional, high style/vernacular and modern/primitive are crucial in guarding its disciplinary boundaries. In the first part of my article, by analyzing a number of paradigmatic architectural texts, I argue that notions of lack and excess are instrumental in maintaining the largely superimposed binary constructions of West/non-West and architecture/nonarchitecture. Then, through a particular reading of a non-Western site, I explore ways of rethinking the categories of architecture and non-Western beyond such binary oppositions. [source]

Ambient Landscapes from Brian Eno to Tetsu Inoue

JOURNAL OF POPULAR MUSIC STUDIES, Issue 4 2009
Paul Roquet
[source]

A Comparison of Statistical Approaches for Predicting Stream Temperatures Across Heterogeneous Landscapes,

JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN WATER RESOURCES ASSOCIATION, Issue 4 2009
Kevin E. Wehrly
Abstract:, Estimating stream temperatures across broad spatial extents is important for regional conservation of running waters. Although statistical models can be useful in this endeavor, little information exists to aid in the selection of a particular statistical approach. Our objective was to compare the accuracy of ordinary least-squares multiple linear regression, generalized additive modeling, ordinary kriging, and linear mixed modeling (LMM) using July mean stream temperatures in Michigan and Wisconsin. Although LMM using low-rank thin-plate smoothing splines to measure the spatial autocorrelation in stream temperatures was the most accurate modeling approach; overall, there were only slight differences in prediction accuracy among the evaluated approaches. This suggests that managers and researchers can select a stream temperature modeling approach that meets their level of expertise without sacrificing substantial amounts of prediction accuracy. The most accurate models for Michigan and Wisconsin had root mean square errors of 2.0-2.3°C, suggesting that only relatively coarse predictions can be produced from landscape-based statistical models at regional scales. Explaining substantially more variability in stream temperatures likely will require the collection of finer-scale hydrologic and physiographic data, which may be cost prohibitive for monitoring and assessing stream temperatures at regional scales. [source]

Landscapes of the Law: Injury, Remedy, and Social Change in Thailand

LAW & SOCIETY REVIEW, Issue 1 2009
David M. Engel
Sociolegal theorists since Weber have postulated that state law operates by interacting with and responding to nonstate legal orders. This article, examining conceptions of injury and compensation in Thailand, analyzes two ways of mapping law onto the landscape. The first is associated with state law and legal institutions established at the turn of the twentieth century. The state legal system imagines space from the outside in, drawing a boundary line and applying law uniformly throughout the jurisdiction it has enclosed. A second type of mapping, which has been more familiar over the centuries to ordinary Thai people, imagines space from the inside out. Nonstate legal orders are associated with sacred centers and radiate outward, diminishing in intensity and effectiveness with distance. This article, based on extensive interviews with injured persons and other actors and observers in northern Thailand, examines the interconnections between these two ways of imagining the landscape of law. It suggests that recent transformations of Thai society have rendered ineffective the norms and procedures associated with the law of sacred centers. Consequently, state law no longer interacts with or responds to nonstate law and surprisingly plays a diminished role in the lives of ordinary people who suffer injuries. [source]

Locating Value in Artisan Cheese: Reverse Engineering Terroir for New-World Landscapes

AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Issue 3 2010
Heather Paxson
ABSTRACT,Terroir, the taste of place, is being adapted by artisan cheesemakers in the United States to reveal the range of values,agrarian, environmental, social, and gastronomic,that they believe constitute their cheese and distinguish artisan from commodity production. Some see themselves as reverse engineering terroir cheeses to create place though environmental stewardship and rural economic revitalization. But a tension is produced: while warranting projects of reterritorialization through defetishized food production, terroir marketing may risk turning the concept of "terroir" into a commodity fetish. U.S. terroir talk reveals attempts to reconcile the economic and sociomoral values that producers invest in artisan cheese. [source]

White Roads of the Yucatan: Changing Social Landscapes of the Yucatec Maya by Justine M. Shaw

AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Issue 4 2009
ARLEN F. CHASE
No abstract is available for this article. [source]

Landscapes of voluntarism: New spaces of health, welfare and governance

NEW ZEALAND GEOGRAPHER, Issue 3 2007
Janine Wiles
No abstract is available for this article. [source]

Challenging Neo-Malthusian Deforestation Analyses in West Africa's Dynamic Forest Landscapes

POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT REVIEW, Issue 1 2000
Melissa Leach
Many influential analyses of West Africa take it for granted that ,original' forest cover has progressively been converted and savannized during the twentieth century by growing populations. By testing these assumptions against historical evidence, exemplified for Ghana and Ivory Coast, this article shows that these neo-Malthusian deforestation narratives badly misrepresent people,forest relationships. They obscure important nonlinear dynamics, as well as widespread anthropogenic forest expansion and landscape enrichment. These processes are better captured, in broad terms, by a neo-Boserupian perspective on population,forest dynamics. However, comprehending variations in locale-specific trajectories of change requires fuller appreciation of social differences in environmental and resource values, of how diverse institutions shape resource access and control, and of ecological variability and path dependency in how landscapes respond to use. The second half of the article présents and illustrates such a "landscape structuretion" perspective through case studies from the forest,savanna transition zones of Ghana and Guinea. [source]

Forest Restoration in Urbanizing Landscapes: Interactions Between Land Uses and Exotic Shrubs

RESTORATION ECOLOGY, Issue 2 2005
Kathi L. Borgmann
Abstract Preventing and controlling exotic plants remains a key challenge in any ecological restoration, and most efforts are currently aimed at local scales. We combined local- and landscape-scale approaches to identify factors that were most closely associated with invasion of riparian forests by exotic shrubs (Amur honeysuckle [Lonicera maackii] and Tatarian honeysuckle [L. tatarica]) in Ohio, U.S.A. Twenty sites were selected in mature riparian forests along a rural,urban gradient (<1,47% urban land cover). Within each site, we measured percent cover of Lonicera spp. and native trees and shrubs, percent canopy cover, and facing edge aspect. We then developed 10 a priori models based on local- and landscape-level variables that we hypothesized would influence percent cover of Lonicera spp. within 25 m of the forest edge. To determine which of these models best fit the data, we used an information-theoretic approach and Akaike's information criterion. Percent cover of Lonicera was best explained by the proportion of urban land cover within 1 km of riparian forests. In particular, percent cover of Lonicera was greater in forests within more urban landscapes than in forests within rural landscapes. Results suggest that surrounding land uses influence invasion by exotic shrubs, and explicit consideration of land uses may improve our ability to predict or limit invasion. Moreover, identifying land uses that increase the risk of invasion may inform restoration efforts. [source]

Enchanted Landscapes: Sensuous Awareness as Mystical Practice among Sufis in North India

THE AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 1 2008
Arthur Saniotis
Sufi studies in India have become increasingly popular in the last fifteen years, which has provided insight into Sufi thought and practice. However, many of these studies tend to deal with political and social issues in relation to Sufi movements and shrine culture. My analysis presents an innovative way of understanding how Sufis experience sacred landscapes, and differs markedly from other studies on Indian Sufism. My aim is to analyse how Sufis at the Nizamuddin shrine sensuously engage with the sacred landscape. [source]

Border Landscapes: The Politics of Akha Land Use in China and Thailand by Janet C. Sturgeon

THE CANADIAN GEOGRAPHER/LE GEOGRAPHE CANADIEN, Issue 1 2008
PETER VANDERGEEST
No abstract is available for this article. [source]

RGS-IBG Book Series: Geochemical Sediments and Landscapes , Edited by David J Nash and Sue J McLaren

THE GEOGRAPHICAL JOURNAL, Issue 3 2009
Kevin Taylor
No abstract is available for this article. [source]

White Roads of the Yucatán: Changing Social Landscapes of the Yucatec Maya , By Justine M. Shaw

THE HISTORIAN, Issue 3 2010
Matthew G. Looper
No abstract is available for this article. [source]

Invisible colour: Landscapes of whiteness and racial identity in international development

ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY, Issue 5 2009
Kristín Loftsdóttir
Racialized identity in relation to international development is a surprisingly unanalyzed theme within anthropology, even though extensively explored in connection with contemporary western multi-cultural societies and historical relations between different parts of the world. In the paper I explore race and whiteness in relation to international development, emphasizing the importance of analyzing how the historical construction of racial identity continues to inform actual lived relationships of people belonging to different geographical spaces. In order to capture the importance of development in visual and everyday lives of people in different parts of the world, I use the term "developscape", adapting Arjun Appadurai's (1996) idea of globalization consisting of different "scapes", furhtermore, as asking how this "developscape" is racialized. [source]

Neoliberalism and the Aestheticization of New Middle-Class Landscapes

ANTIPODE, Issue 2 2009
Choon-Piew Pow
Abstract:, If according to Terry Eagleton (The Ideology of the Aesthetic 1990:28), the aesthetic is from the start "a contradictory, double-edged concept", how are seemingly innocent acts of viewing and consuming aesthetically pleasing landscapes implicated in the neoliberal politics of urban restructuring? Using contemporary Shanghai as a case study, this paper critically examines the role of the aesthetic in the politics of exclusion and urban segregation in post-Socialist Shanghai where the restructuring and commodification of erstwhile public welfare housing have led to the rapid development of private "middle-class" gated enclaves. A central objective of this paper is to excavate the underlying cultural politics of neoliberalism and demonstrate how the aestheticization of urban spaces in Shanghai has become increasingly intertwined with and accentuated by neoliberal ideologies and exclusionary practices in the city. Imbricated in the pristine neighborhoods of Shanghai's gated communities are the fault lines of social division and class distinction that are rapidly transforming urban China. [source]