W.T. de Groot

Visions of nature and landscape type preferences : an exploration in the Netherlands

Abstract A survey was carried out among inhabitants of Gennep, a small-town municipality in the east of The Netherlands, questioning about (1) the types of nature that people distinguish and the levels of naturalness ascribed to these types of nature; (2) the images that people hold of the appropriate relationship between people and nature and the level of adherence to these images, and (3) people’s preference of broadly defined landscape types. Types of nature inferred by means of factor analysis were labeled arcadian, wild and penetrative nature, the last category comprising elements such as mosquitoes and rats in the barn. Factor analysis was used as well to infer images of appropriate relationship, which appeared to hinge around the concepts of mastery over nature, responsibility for nature and participation in nature, respectively. Levels of adherence to the responsibility and participation images were very high, indicative of a ‘new biophilia’ mainstream in Dutch culture. Landscape types were defined, roughly, as (1) landscape made by and for people; (2) park-like, arcadian landscape; (3) wild, interactive landscape and (4) landscape “in which one may experience the greatness and forces of nature”. Strikingly, more than half of the respondents expressed preference for this last (‘deep ecology’) landscape type, with another third preferring the wild, interactive landscape. The highest preference of the ‘greatness and forces’ landscape was found among the respondents with high ascription of naturalness to the penetrative type of nature and respondents adhering to the participation-in-nature image of relationship. Preferences for landscape types as defined here should be distinguished from visual or behavioral landscape preferences. Even if people may not select landscapes of the ‘greatness and forces of nature’ in daily behaviors, these landscapes of wilderness and greatness do connect with human visions and desires.

Arsenic Speciation in Food and Estimation of the Dietary Intake of Inorganic Arsenic in a Rural Village of West Bengal, India

Arsenic (As) species were quantified by HPLC-HG-AFS in water and vegetables from a rural area of West Bengal (India). Inorganic species predominated in vegetables (including rice) and drinking water; in fact, inorganic arsenic (i-As) represented more than 80% of the total arsenic (t-As) content. To evaluate i-As intake in an arsenic affected rural village, a food survey was carried out on 129 people (69 men and 60 women). The data from the survey showed that the basic diet, of this rural population, was mainly rice and vegetables, representing more than 50% of their total daily food intake. During the periods when nonvegetarian foods (fish and meat) were scarce, the importance of rice increased, and rice alone represented more than 70% of the total daily food intake. The food analysis and the food questionnaires administrated led us to establish a daily intake of i-As of about 170 microg i-As day (-1), which was above the tolerable daily intake of 150 microg i-As day (-1), generally admitted. Our results clearly demonstrated that food is a very important source of i-As and that this source should never be forgotten in populations depending heavily on vegetables (mainly rice) for their diet.

PRINCIPLES FOR UNIVERSITY CURRICULUM GREENING. AN EMPIRICAL CASE STUDY FROM TANZANIA

As part of their commitment to sustainable development, the “greening” of curricula is a major objective of universities world‐wide. This paper describes the process of identifying principles for the (re)design of courses and programmes towards this aim within the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. These principles were elicited bottom‐up, from staff’s and students’ own visions of the issues involved. In their most condensed form, the principles thus found are: environment for development; in interaction with Tanzanian society; and in a student‐activating style. This contrasts with the usual conceptualisation of environment and development as normatively separate issues, with the trend to globalise the environmental issue, and with the top‐down teaching style that still dominates most universities. Both the study’s methods and its findings may be relevant for many more universities in the developing world.

Methodology for Multi-Scale Land-Use Change Modelling: Concepts and Challenges

Land cover is defined as the layer of soils and biomass, including natural vegetation, crops and human structures that cover the land surface. Land use refers to the purposes for which humans exploit the land-cover (Fresco, 1994). Land-cover change is the complete replacement of one cover type by another, while land-use changes also include the modification of land-cover types, e.g., intensification of agricultural use, without changing its overall classification (Turner II et al., 1993).

Emergent principles for river management

Paradigms for land and water management are on the move. New approaches are said to be, or meant to be, more ‘participatory’, ‘integrated’, ‘adaptive’, ‘ecosystem-based’ and so on. The present paper explores emergent principles for land and water management in ecological management theory, environmental science and the social sciences. These principles comprise adaptive management, opportunity-driven analysis, visions of managers and the public, and co-management that includes local and supra-local rationality. The paper concludes that for river management, these principles largely reinforce each other. This lays a basis for a style of river management in which the river managers may continue to be the guardians of science-based and whole-basin rationality, while at the same time interacting more successfully with society.

Exploring the Agroforestry Adoption Gap: Financial and Socioeconomics of Litchi-Based Agroforestry by Smallholders in Rajshahi (Bangladesh)

This paper takes a multistrata agroforestry system, based on Litchi chinensis and widely practised in North Bangladesh, as a case study to address the common problem of lack of adoption in agroforestry. Although the financial cost-benefit analysis of agroforestry systems may show clear-cut profitability, these systems are often hardly adopted by farmers. Our data clearly show this pattern. Net present values and returns to labor of agroforestry were five times higher than those of alternative (annual) crops, and yet the adoption rate remained very low, even though an agroforestry project had been carried out in the study area and agroforestry had positive cultural value. Common economic reasoning is that in such cases, adoption is hampered by capacity constraints of the farmers. Our data allow to argue, however, that not the capacities but rather the motivations of the farmers are key, in spite of the financial characteristics of the system. This is caused by the underlying institutional structures, that are highly unconducive to agroforestry. We conclude that action for agroforestry should focus first of all to get supportive institutions (rules and organisations) in place before focusing on trees and projects, if needed at all.

The missing pillar: Eudemonic values in the justification of nature conservation

The public justification for nature conservation currently rests on two pillars: hedonic (instrumental) values, and moral values. Yet, these representations appear to do little motivational work in practice; biodiversity continues to decline, and biodiversity policies face a wide implementation gap. In seven EU countries, we studied why people act for nature beyond professional obligations. We explore the motivations of 105 committed actors for nature in detail using life-history interviews, and trace these back to their childhood. Results show that the key concept for understanding committed action for nature is meaningfulness. People act for nature because nature is meaningful to them, connected to a life that makes sense and a difference in the world. These eudemonic values (expressing the meaningful life) constitute a crucial third pillar in the justification of nature conservation. Important policy implications are explored, e.g. with respect to public discourse and the encounter with nature in childhood.

Motivations for committed nature conservation action in Europe

Despite ongoing efforts to motivate politicians and publics in Europe regarding nature conservation, biodiversity continues to decline. Monetary valuation of ecosystem services appears to be insufficient to motivate people, suggesting that non-monetary values have a crucial role to play. There is insufficient information about the motivations of actors who have been instrumental in successful conservation projects. We investigated the motivations underlying these biodiversity actors using the ranking of cards and compared the results with the rankings of motivations of a second group of actors with more socially related interests. For both groups of actors, their action relating to biodiversity was supported in general by two groups of motivations related to living a meaningful life and moral values. The non-biodiversity actors also noted that their action relating to biodiversity rested more on beauty, place attachment and intrinsic values in comparison with their main non-biodiversity interests. Our results have implications for environmental policy and biodiversity conservation in that the current tendency of focusing on the economic valuation of biodiversity fails to address the motivations of successful actors, thereby failing to motivate nature conservation on an individual level.

Over-Regulated and Under-Marketed: Smallholders and the Wood Economy in Isabela, The Philippines

This study explores the relationships between smallholder wood economy, logging of the natural forest and regulatory policies that pertain to these. Major data come from interviews of informants and 42 treegrowing smallholders in the uplands of Isabela province. Three sub-markets appear to operate separately: one in tree-based fruit, one in fuelwood/charcoal and one in timber produced by the exotic Gmelina arborea tree. The latter market is of special interest because of its potential importance for the region and because it illustrates a case of outspoken negative interaction between markets and policies. The farmers are overburdened by regulations designed originally to protect the natural forest that is present in the same region. More is at stake than a simple illustration of a well-known dilemma however, since gmelina is well distinguishable from the natural forest species and technical difficulties cannot explain the present imbalance between the underdeveloped legal smallholder market and the well-organized trade in illegal timber, occurring under the wings of the same regulatory agency. The paper discusses the options for a fundamental policy rectification which would lay a basis for a free and fair gmelina timber market that would make wood procurement of the region more sustainable and equitable.

Actor-Based Design of a Management System for the Elephant Marsh Fishery in Malawi

ABSTRACT In Malawi, fishing community user groups known as beach village committees, traditional chiefs, government officers, and fishers are the key players in fisheries management. Fish catch trends at the Elephant Marsh Fishery in southern Malawi are declining. Based on interviews and participant observation, this article uses an actor-based framework (known as Action-in-Context) to unveil the issues that are crucial in devising a sustainable governance system for the fishery. We establish and propose that the key social variables for the design of a three-pillared (locally based, weak, and amorphous) resilient institution for sustainability of the Elephant Marsh Fishery are (i) the social reputation of the leaders of local fishery institutions (beach village committee leaders), and (ii) the power dynamics between traditional chiefs and these local fishery leaders. We end the article by exploring the implications of the findings on the sustainability of the fishery under rising resource pressure.