Jon Geir Petursson

Transboundary Biodiversity Management: Institutions, Local Stakeholders, and Protected Areas: A Case Study From Mt. Elgon, Uganda and Kenya

Transboundary protected area governance is on the rise in Africa. There is still a scarcity of well-documented success stories on how to design and deliver institutionally consistent transboundary outcomes concerning biodiversity and sustainable livelihoods. This article focuses on institutional challenges of such governance at the local stakeholder level on Mt. Elgon in Uganda and Kenya. A stakeholder analysis was conducted in border communities to analyze institutional frameworks of different protected area regimes coordinating local peoples forest resources access, focusing on rights, returns, relationships, and responsibilities at the local stakeholder level. On the basis of the analyses we find that institutional complexities constrain an ideal of joint transboundary protected area management regime with a joint approach to local livelihood improvements. If institutional complexities lead to a lower priority on other concerns than biodiversity conservation in transboundary protected area programs in Africa, there may be an erosion of future support for such programs.

Optical absorption in As-Se glasses

Abstract The optical absorption above the fundamental edge has been measured as a function of temperature for 15 compositions from Se to AsSe. The samples were thin films made by blowing bubbles from the melt. The optical gap has a minimum near As43Se57. Tauc plots for absorption at different temperatures but the same composition appear to converge to a single point. An unexpected linear relation is observed between composition and the inverse square of the slopes of the Tauc plots. An inverse correlation is observed between optical gap and the glass-transition temperature.

The Political Economy of Conservation at Mount Elgon, Uganda: Between Local Deprivation, Regional Sustainability, and Global Public Goods

This paper presents a case study from Mount Elgon National Park, Uganda, examining and deepening an understanding of direct incomes and costs of conservation for local people close to protected areas. In the early 1990s, collaborative arrangements were introduced to Mount Elgon National Park to improve people-park relations and enhance rural livelihoods after a period of violent evictions and severe resource access restrictions. In areas with such arrangements – including resource access agreements, Taungya farming, and beekeeping schemes – we observe a marginal increase in annual incomes for involved households. Other incomes accrue from tourism revenue sharing schemes, a community revolving fund, and payments for carbon sequestration. However, these incomes are economically marginal (1.2% of household income), unevenly distributed and instrumentally used to reward compliance with park regulations. They do not necessarily accrue to those incurring costs due to eviction and exclusion, crop raiding, resource access restrictions and conflicts. By contrast, costs constitute at least 20.5 % of total household incomes, making it difficult to see how conservation, poverty alleviation and development can be locally reconciled if local populations continue to bear the economic brunt of conservation. We recommend a shift in policy towards donor and state responsibility for compensating costs on a relevant scale. Such a shift would be an important step towards a more substantive rights-based model of conservation, and would enhance the legitimacy of protected area management in the context of both extreme poverty and natural resource dependence.

Mechanism of the two-photon laser assisted reaction of Xe and Cl2 to form XeCl

Abstract Two-photon laser assisted reactions of Xe and Cl 2 at low pressure has been used to prepare xenon chloride in excited states (XeCl * (B[ 1 2 ], C[ 3 2 ])). Dispersed luminescence spectra due to the XeCl transition, B[ 1 2 −> X[ 1 2 ], in the spectral region 290 –310 nm were recorded for different excitation wavelengths. The vibrational energy disposal was assessed through spectral simulation of the emission spectra. The mechanism for XeCl(B) formation is discussed in terms of a simple global model.