Journal articles on the topic 'Natural resources, Communal – Zambia – Management'

Farmers in developing countries depend on communal natural resources, yet countries in Sub-Saharan Africa are facing the severe degradation of communal lands due to the so-called “tragedy of the commons”. For the sustainable management of common resources, policy interventions, such as farmer seminars, are necessary to ensure high-level cooperation among farmers for land conservation. However, the effects of this type of information provision are not well known. The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of the dissemination of conservation information on collaborative communal forest management using an economic field experiment with 936 farmers selected by random sampling from 11 villages in the northern Ethiopian Highlands. We conducted a public goods game experiment using a framework of voluntary contribution to communal land conservation with an intervention to remind participants about the consequence of their behaviors. The results show that the volunteer contribution increased after the intervention, and thereafter the decay of the contribution was slow. The results indicate that providing information about the consequences leads to a higher contribution. The effects of information provision are heterogeneous in terms of social condition, such as access to an urban area and social capital, and individual characteristics, such as wealth. These findings imply that information provision effectively improves farmer collaboration toward natural resource conservation in developing countries.

Gender space generally separates space and place of land and natural resources management and utilization based on gender. The assumption these gender space segregation with firm boundary lines implicated demand to showing women's control, utilization, and management of the land and natural resources on the participatory mapping result that is mostly facilitated by JKPP in Indonesia. One of the purposes of this demand is to include women's interests over space in every decision-making process that has an impact on the women's production areas. In fact, not all places have separated the control, utilization, and management of the land and natural resources based on gender. In an agrarian society, like in Indonesia, most of the areas for control, utilization, and management of the land and natural resources are communal based, which is means that the land and natural resources are joint management by men and women. In one indigenous territory, at two different places and times, gender based management can undergo changes. Taking the case of the Balai Juhu in Hulu Sungai Tengah Regency, South Kalimantan, using a feminist political ecology framework, this article examines the complexities of gender segregation on indigenous territory

A rapid increase in population in sub-Saharan Africa has caused a decrease in farm size, an increase in the number of landless farmers, and soil erosion in communal forests due to increasing utilization. Ethiopia has addressed this problem by introducing an epoch-making privatization policy for the allocation of communal land to landless farmers. This policy promotes the economic utilization of the communal land while protecting natural resources. Hitherto, few studies have evaluated the impact of the policy. We evaluate the effect of the communal land distribution policy for tree-planting using technical efficiency of farm production by estimating a stochastic production function model in the Tigray region of Ethiopia. We compare the technical efficiencies of farm production between both participating and nonparticipating farms in the program using a quasi-experimental method. The results reveal the improvement of technical efficiency through communal land distribution. Therefore, program activities could increase farm incomes while maintaining land conservation. Thus, the allocation of communal land promotes sustainable land utilization in the mountainous areas of sub-Saharan Africa.

All that man needs for his existence come from the natural environment. Advanced modern technologies often only increase the consumption of natural resources, since the material benefits produced by human labor are made from them. As a natural resource, land is a unique and most valuable source that forms the basis of life and activity for all humankind. All the processes of establishing a human society, which take place in the social, political, economic, communal, industrial and environmental spheres, are directly linked to land resources. This issue is of ongoing global concern. Therefore, the activities of any state must, first and foremost, be aimed at their effective management and protection from the negative impact of natural factors and consequences of human activity.

This article aimes to find the rationality on the regulation of village government function on the first-time land registration. Negative publication system in Indonesia Agrarian law leads to the uncertainty of land ownership which results in conflicts. A strong optimization on the function of Village Government on land registration is necessary. This study employed a normative approach. Communal regime-based natural resources management becomes the basis of the rationality of Village Government’ function strengthening on the land registration.

In theory, natural resource governance through co-management promises a rich array of benefits for local populations, from representative decision-making to legitimately equal and open access to natural resources. Anthropologists, social geographers and other practitioners of political ecology will not be surprised to learn that such theory rarely bears out in practice, but that instead sociopolitical relationships are forged in the niches created by reoriented power structures. These reconfigured relationships exhibit not only shifts in peer networks but also in relationships of scale, for example, among local fishers and chiefs, and chiefs and government agents. Recent application of a co-management system of enforcement in the Zambian portion of the Mweru-Luapula fishery shows how well-intentioned policy fails to produce expected results: leading to spoils for some and reduced value of access for others. This paper focuses on one among several case studies derived from this region. It describes how a small group of roughly fifty lake island residents gain advantage from the dubious legality of their incursion into a perpetually closed fish breeding area because, while legislative statute restricts all fishers from these fecund common-pool resource grounds, comanagement empowers "traditional" modes of authority with the de facto clout to rebuff civil officers charged with evicting these potentially destructive occupants. For their part, the recent immigrant squatters argue a moral imperative to residence by claiming autochthony. By doing so they leverage the comanagement prerogative intended to protect indigenous rights, while bolstering their own campaign to entrench themselves in the most valuable waters of the fishery.Keywords: co-management, fishery, commons, autochthony, Zambia, Mweru-Luapula fishery, Kanakashi Island

Currently, demand-side management (DSM) covers a whole range of technological and policy measures aimed at reducing electricity consumption connected with economic activities. Thus, the development of wind PV and other renewable energy technologies, combined with microgrid technology, offers the remote consumers and prosumers ample opportunities to stabilize long-term costs and increase local energy system security. Apart from that, DSM from microgrid based on renewable sources also has certain social benefits, such as protection of the environment and conservation of natural resources. Due to the advances in photovoltaic material research and solar panel price reduction over the last years, the usage of this alternative energy source in Baltic region countries seems more attractive. The usage of energy storage devices can help use the solar power more efficiently and smarter. This paper deals with the optimization of a proposed solar panel array of a renovated office building’s communal lighting in Riga, using storage devices and demand-side management of the produced power, looking into a way to calculate the needed storage capacity on the basis of potential PV system and existing power consumption for communal space lighting system. The proposed approach will become one of the first basic steps in applying DSM to help reduce the communal space’s illumination power consumption, in turn helping to reduce the needed PV generating power and energy storage.

SUMMARYCommunity based natural resource management (CBNRM) programmes aim to achieve the joint objectives of biodiversity conservation and improved rural livelihoods by providing incentives to sustainably manage relevant resources. Since 1998, more than 50 natural resource management institutions, known as conservancies, have been established in order to manage wildlife resources, on communal lands in Namibia. The national programme is often cited as a CBNRM success; however, despite its rapid spread, there are few systematically collected or analysed household-level data which demonstrate the long-term ecological, social and economic impacts of Namibian programme. A meta-synthesis was undertaken to determine the range of positive and negative livelihood impacts resulting from CBNRM programme activities in two key regions, and the factors affecting how these impacts have been felt by households or individuals. Impacts were categorized according to any changes in access to and/or returns from the five key assets of the sustainable livelihoods framework, namely financial, human, natural, physical and social assets. Positive and negative impacts were felt on financial, human, natural and social assets; only positive impacts were identified as affecting physical assets. Individual- and household-level impacts differed depending on the specific activities implemented locally and, according to the duration, frequency and timing of the impacts, the circumstances and preferences of households and their access to particular activities and consequent impacts. If a greater understanding of the extent and importance of different impacts is to be gained in the future, more rigorous and comprehensive data collection and analysis will need to be undertaken. Analyses will need to consider the whole range of activities implemented, both the benefits and costs associated with these different activities, and will also need to provide contextual information to allow the relative importance of impacts resulting from CBNRM activities to be better understood.

Access to natural resources has changed over the years in Zimbabwe. At least three broad periods of biodiversity conservation, utilisation, and access can be identified in the country, namely, the precolonial, colonial, and postindependence periods. This paper reviews the relationships between human livelihoods and biodiversity conservation in the rural areas of Zimbabwe during these periods and is informed by an extensive review of the relevant literature. A combination of historical narrative, thematic, and content analysis was used in analysing the various documents into meaningful information addressing the objective of the study. Traditional societies in precolonial Zimbabwe had access to abundant natural resources. However, access to these resources was not uncontrolled, but was limited by traditional beliefs, taboos, and customs enforced through community leadership structures. The advent of colonialism in the late 19th century dispossessed indigenous African communities of natural resources through command-type conservation legislation. At independence in 1980, the new majority government sought to redress the natural resource ownership imbalances created during colonialism, culminating in some significant measure of devolution in natural resource management to local communities in the late 1980s, though such devolution has been criticised for being incomplete. An accelerated land reform exercise since the year 2000 has adversely affected biodiversity conservation activities in the country, including the conservation-related livelihood benefits derived from protected areas. The review paper highlights the need for a more complete devolution of natural resource ownership and management down to the grassroots levels in the communal areas, if social and ecological sustainability is to be fully realised in these areas. On the other hand, the disruption of conservation activities in the country due to the ill-planned accelerated land reform exercise that has demarcated land for arable farming in some of the protected areas should be held in check as a matter of urgency.

Conservation is a necessary component of sustainable development. Human activities have had and continue to have a negative effect on natural ecosystems. There is a need to move to a more co-operative, effective and accountable management of "communal resources" including fauna and flora. Many issues negatively influence the ability of conservation managers to perform well and for all stakeholders. Society's underlying philosophic and economic attitudes are important. Most contemporary Southern Hemisphere societies see nature as separate from people and manage with a welfare mentality. Most financial incentives favour degraders of natural values and penalize those who conserve or behave sustainably. The other major issue which precludes effective management is the approach of government managers. Performance tends to be patchy, unaccountable and often based on simplistic single factor notions. There appears to be a general failure to provide diversified products to different stakeholders. These issues with suggestions for improvement are discussed with special reference to the management of rare bird populations and of fire.

SUMMARYThis paper reviews the concept and practice of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) as it has evolved in southern Africa, with a particular focus on Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia and, to a lesser extent, Zambia. It recognizes that, like democracy, CBNRM is both an imperfect process and a conceptual goal. The governance of economic processes, property rights and local political organization lie at the heart of CBNRM. The first challenge is to replace fiscal centralization, fees and bureaucracy (and the subsidization of alternative land uses) that have historically undervalued wild resources, so that CBNRM's comparative economic advantage is reflected in landholder and community incentives. Second, devolving property rights to communities shifts resource governance, responsibility and benefit appropriately to the local level. This necessitates accountable, transparent and equitable micro-governance, which in turn is linked to effective meso-level support and monitoring and cross-scale linkages between central government and local communities. This paper outlines the evolution of current models of CBNRM in the region and suggests core strategies for the next generation of CBNRM.

The article sets out to examine the concept of customary or traditional land within the context of Zambia’s dual land system that is categorized as: customary/traditional land. In turn, the traditional land is controlled, allocated, and regulated through the Chiefs. Then there is formal land that is owned and controlled by the State through the Commissioner of Lands who works in consultation with the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources, in conjunction with the Ministry of Local Government and its District Councils. The article will thus examine the history of dual land system in Zambia; and will further evaluate the Land Act of 1995, whose purpose was to propose a wave of new land system reforms. The latter was intended to establish a more efficient system of land tenure conversion in Zambia. The article also examines the administration of conversion process of traditional/customary and State land. The article sets out on the premise that without effective tenure conversion policies in administering land, sustainable development in both traditional or customary and State areas will be hampered. To this effect, the issue of boundaries in customary or traditional communities will be discussed as a way of building territorial integrity and land management in customary land, through cadastral surveys that is apparent with the rise in population and demand for market-based activities in rural areas. The article will argue that without clearly defined systems of administration and demarcation of boundaries, between customary/traditional and State/formal lands in Zambia, this process will be prone to more land conflicts hindering socio-economic progress. Hence, the aim of the article is to investigate how the United Church of Zambia’s land has been administered and managed, considering the fact that most of its land is based both in customary/traditional areas that are controlled by the Chiefs and formal or State lands that are largely controlled by the government institutions. The methodology that will be used in or der to examine how the United Church of Zambia manages and administer its land will be qualitative methodology. The article will conclude that there is need for the United Church of Zambia to develop a land management policy that will assist the Church to manage and administer its lands that is both located in the traditional and government areas. Above all, the Church needs to ensure that leasehold conversion that is both customary and traditional authorities through the local Chiefs and the government through its Ministry of Land and Natural Resources, Commissioner of Lands, together with the Ministry of Local Government are legitimately acquired.

Wildlife culling is the most preferred form of wildlife utilization in ULGMA. Nevertheless, the frequency of game-meat consumption by local people is low, partly due to the problem of irregular meat sales from the culling scheme and partly due to the low purchasing capability of villagers. LIRDP needs to improve the distribution routine of meat sale at lower prices if the culling scheme is to fulfil its objective of providing game-meat to local people. It is also essential to spread comprehension of the use of benefits from wildlife utilization among the local residents. Any increase in the allocation of the wildlife harvest quota should be considered with caution in order that species are not harvested at a rate beyond their reproductive capacity.There is resentment against safari hunting, based on the opinion that it gives to foreigners the opportunities to utilize wildlife resources while the local people are forbidden access to them. Appreciation of benefits from safari hunting is minimal, and option for reduction of the off-take allocation quota is strong. Although safari hunting is the most prominent revenue-generating form of utilization, benefits from it are not visible to local communities. Exchange of information between LIRDP and the local communities concerned with the use of revenue from wildlife utilization programmes needs to be reinforced. This would be instrumental not only in minimizing misconceptions about safari hunting, but also in establishing cooperation between LIRDP and local communities. An increase in the number that may be taken of the more numerous species during DGL hunting could well be considered, so as to enable more local people to utilize wildlife resources legally.Control shooting has a marginal effect in reducing crop damage. Even though electric fencing could be an effective barrier against large animals such as Elephants, it would be better to encourage traditional methods of self-defence. Control shooting is advocated only if and when the problem gets out of hand. Subsistence poaching is widely successful, due to the skills of the practitioners, the use of appropriate traditional technology, and the low operating costs. These features may be considered favourably in wildlife culling operations. Through allocation of a sustainable off-take quota to local hunter cooperatives, their services could be used to provide game-meat to local communities.Continued confrontation with commercial poachers through regular and more intensive patrols is essential, particularly in vulnerable areas. LIRDP should maximize the services of Village Scouts stationed at Miliyoti and Kauluzi wildlife camps by providing adequate firearms and ammunition for more effective anti-poaching patrols in the game management areas than currently exist. To gain local support, LIRDP may consider an increased wildlife offtake quota for the Malaila Kunda traditional ceremony. This would serve to sustain local culture and would help to develop enthusiasm among local people for due conservation of animal wildlife and other natural resources.

Promulgation of Law Number 5 of 1960, brought its own consequences in terms of regulation of agrarian resources, including earth, water, space and natural resources contained therein. The ideals of the law in the realization of the objectives of the national agrarian law are realized in the form of the Agrarian Reform policy which is one of the ideals in the administration of President Joko Widodo. This policy was stated in the Decree of the People's Consultative Assembly of the Republic of Indonesia Number IX / MPR / 2001 concerning Agrarian Reform and Natural Resource Management and followed up with the issuance of Presidential Regulation Number 86 of 2018 concerning Agrarian Reform. The Presidential Regulation regulates the determination of assets in the legalization of agrarian reform land object certificates. However, the problem is that it is feared that disputes and agrarian conflicts will arise in the right of recognition of the existence of communal rights for indigenous and tribal peoples explicitly mentioned in Ministerial Regulation ATR / Ka.BPN Number 10 of 2016, which seems to be no longer recognized by indigenous peoples in Indonesia. This paper is a legal research that uses the method of the statutory approach and conceptual approach that examines the recognition and use of customary land by using the norms contained in legislation. The results of this paper are directed to be able to provide clarity of legalization of customary community land as well as communal rights of indigenous and tribal peoples related to the issuance of Presidential Regulation Number 86 of 2018 which does not expressly state the position of indigenous peoples as the subject of policy arrangement on Agrarian Reform assets, so that the rights owned by marga indigenous and tribal peoples can be fought for.

Since 1950, the annual rainfall in the habitat of Black-cheeked Lovebirds Agapornis nigrigenis has decreased, increasing dependence on artificial water supplies. In this study, the seasonal water requirements and drinking behaviour of the lovebirds in their natural habitat were investigated. During the dry season, lovebirds drank at the same water-point in the early morning and late afternoon. Flock sizes of birds at drinking sites ranged from 1 to 175 individuals. Birds from one locale all drank at the same waterhole. Black-cheeked Lovebirds were vigilant and highly cautious drinkers that did not drink at waterholes when disturbed by humans or livestock. The implications for conservation of the species are discussed. Since water availability is a limiting factor for the Black-cheeked Lovebird, gradual desiccation of its habitat has caused the reduction of its small distributional range. Because of increasing dependence on artificial water supplies in a highly localized distribution the priority for conservation management of the species must be creating and maintaining water resources with minimal external disturbance.

The sustainable use of rangelands in pastoral areas requires the inclusion of all stakeholders to develop sound management strategies. However, the role of these actors in the sustainable management of natural resources is still poorly understood. The present study aims to (i) assess the perception of farmers and herders of the risks and opportunities of transhumance on rangeland resource use and management, and to (ii) generate useful knowledge for the design and implementation of policies that favor the coexistence of these actors and reduce competition over rangeland resources use in Benin. To this end, interviews were conducted with 240 crop farmers and herders using a semi-structured questionnaire in two contrasting agroecological zones in the northern (Kandi) and the southern (Kétou) part of the country. Among the respondents, 64% of farmers in the North were agro-pastoralists (owning 10.6 ha of land and 10.7 cattle) and 36% were herders (keeping 45.8 cattle and cultivating about 3.7 ha of land). They perceived that communal rangelands were entirely degraded. In the South, 36% of respondents were agro-pastoralists (with 0.3 cattle and farming 4 ha of land) and 64% cattle herders (raising 45.3 cattle and farming 0.9 ha of land only). Of the herders, 50% kept cattle for more than 20 years, while agro-pastoralists had no previous experience in cattle herding. Cultivation practices among crop farmers, such as high use of mineral fertilization (23.8%) and bush fires for land clearing (22.5%), were reported in Kandi (North) and Kétou (South) as factors that might contribute to land degradation. However, these farmers perceived transhumance as a threat to the sustainable use of natural resources. In contrast, herders perceived transhumance as an opportunity to valorize unused land and increase the availability of manure to cropland. The prevalent negative attitude of crop farmers regarding transhumant herders increases the vulnerability of cattle herding in both regions. There is an urgent need of raising awareness concerning the mutual benefits provided by the coexistence of crop farmers with herders to promote participative rangeland management strategies. This may contribute towards coping with the current challenges of food insecurity and increasing climate variability as well as to reducing recurrent conflicts in the region.

This study aims to determine the role of local Sasi institutions in forest management activities, which can be used in formulating forms of forest management based on regional characteristics in realizing sustainable forest management and improving community welfare. Data collection is done by observing all community activities both in the forest and in residential areas. Interviews are conducted with all stakeholders to obtain systematic and intensive data and information including village government, managers (kewang), youth and student leaders, academics, NGOs and documentation studies in the form of library studies and photographs relating to research. The results of the study show that sasi is a form of temporary prohibition on the community to refrain from exploiting natural resources that are on land that are privately owned (non-communal) or collectively (communal rights) and at sea owned by the management agency (Kewang). Sasi law for teresterial land (forest) has management stages, namely planning, implementation, supervision, yield management, and marketing. Government policies in the forestry sector such as the forestry law number 41 of 1999 year concerning forestry, and the decision of the minister of forestry number 31 of 2001 year concerning social law are seen to be in line with the sasi law. In its development, sasi as a model of local wisdom in Moluccas Province faced obstacles in its implementation, both those who came from outside and inside the community, such as the proportion of forest area with the number of members of the community, conflicts between customary law and national law, and government policies in the form of HPH which is a threat to the territory of the country.

Payments for environmental services (PES) programs incentivize landowners to protect or improve natural resources. Many conservationists fear that introducing compensation for actions previously offered voluntarily will reduce social capital (the institutions, relationships, attitudes, and values that govern human interactions), yet little rigorous research has investigated this concern. We examined the land cover management and communal social capital impacts of Mexico’s federal conservation payments program, which is a key example for other countries committed to reducing deforestation, protecting watersheds, and conserving biodiversity. We used a regression discontinuity (RD) methodology to identify causal program effects, comparing outcomes for PES participants and similar rejected applicants close to scoring cutoffs. We found that payments increased land cover management activities, such as patrolling for illegal activity, building fire breaks, controlling pests, or promoting soil conservation, by ∼50%. Importantly, increases in paid activities as a result of PES did not crowd out unpaid contributions to land management or other prosocial work. Community social capital increased by ∼8–9%, and household-level measures of trust were not affected by the program. These findings demonstrate that major environmental conditional cash transfer programs can support both land management and the attitudes and institutions underpinning prosocial behavior. Rigorous empirical research on this question can proceed only country by country because of methodological limitations, but will be an important line of inquiry as PES continues to expand worldwide.

The content of the concepts of “public administration”, “rural area”, “integrated rural area development” and “public administration of integrated rural areas development” are determined. The conceptual principles of public administration of the integrated rural area development are substantiated due to the activation of servicing cooperatives to solve the most actual problems of territorial communities. It is determined that its essence consists in administrative decisions by the administrative management through introduction of effective mechanisms, tools and levers of state and regional policy. It is summarized that public administration should be carried out taking into account the project-targeted approach to increase the level of social and economic development of rural communities, rational use of natural resources and preservation of the environment. It is proved that servicing cooperatives are the effective tool for self-organization of community representatives and serve as a unifying center for rural population. Their capabilities are not only in combining of commodity producers to meet economic interests in harvesting, processing and marketing of agricultural products, but they could be engaged also in providing quality services in the spheres of housing and communal services, servicing of communal property, the carry out and utilization of solid household waste, organization of civilized landfills, provision of landscaping. Due to the public-private partnership the local self-government bodies could be delegate some of their powers to cooperatives and support them through financing of measures of social and economic programs of integrated development of rural areas.


 One of the most significant tasks and problems amplifying every year for all heads of management companies and other organizations of a housing and municipal complex is the effective legal department receivables of the enterprises of branch.
 Today the debt of the population on payment for utilities is the most widespread type of a debt in relationship between management companies, the supplying resources organizations and consumers of services of housing and communal services. For this reason the majority of the disputes, which are at permission in courts of law, arise between the organizations of housing and communal services, natural and legal entities.
 In the article actual problems of compensation of debts of the population on payment of housing-and-municipal services are considered, the main reasons for emergence of non-payments, and also difficulties of management companies in work with defaulters are established. The statistical material characterizing the volume of debt for housing-and-municipal services in the country including by regions of Russia is given. On the base of considering of the debt structure is revealed that its main part is made by debts on heat supply. The special attention in article is paid to the transition tendency arising now from delay by citizens of payment of obligatory payments to systematic failure to pay that causes the necessity of acceptance of urgent measures for strengthening of discipline of payments. Various ways of impact of management companies and associations of owners of housing on unfair residents are given. In article on the basis of the review of legislative initiatives the offers on ensuring repayment of debt on housing-and-municipal services directed on improvement of payment discipline of consumers of services, increase of mutually responsibility of all subjects of system of the relations, and also on providing necessary conditions for effective work of the organizations and the enterprises of branch are considered. It is noted that against the possible growth of volume of debts formation among the population of steady understanding of importance of timely fee of a housing-and-municipal complex becomes topical issue.

A flood is a natural disaster that threatens the economy through the damage caused. Establishing an effective financial mechanism for assessing damage and providing flood insurance is becoming increasingly important. An analysis of the financial relationships between government and insurance organizations in the field of US insurance, related directly to the management system in flood-prone areas, allows us to develop recommendations for building an effective flood insurance system in Russia. Research into the costing of the US national flood insurance program and the appropriate level of subsidies for existing properties in high-risk flood areas is part of the scientific study of the interaction between insurance and government funding. The article provides an overview of the mechanism for the distribution of financial resources in areas prone to flooding. Proposals are presented regarding the creation of an effective flood insurance system in Russia, which will ensure the coordination of actions of various levels of government, scientifically grounded zoning in flooded areas, as well as the establishment of compulsory insurance of social, housing, and communal facilities in flood-prone areas.

Trypanosomiasis has been endemic in wildlife in Zambia for more than a century. The disease has been associated with neurological disorders in humans. Current conservation strategies by the Zambian government of turning all game reserves into state-protected National Parks (NPs) and game management areas (GMAs) have led to the expansion of the wildlife and tsetse population in the Luangwa and Zambezi valley ecosystem. This ecological niche lies in the common tsetse fly belt that harbors the highest tsetse population density in Southern Africa. Ecological factors such as climate, vegetation and rainfall found in this niche allow for a favorable interplay between wild reservoir hosts and vector tsetse flies. These ecological factors that influence the survival of a wide range of wildlife species provide adequate habitat for tsetse flies thereby supporting the coexistence of disease reservoir hosts and vector tsetse flies leading to prolonged persistence of trypanosomiasis in the area. On the other hand, increase in anthropogenic activities poses a significant threat of reducing the tsetse and wildlife habitat in the area. Herein, we demonstrate that while conservation of wildlife and biodiversity is an important preservation strategy of natural resources, it could serve as a long-term reservoir of wildlife trypanosomiasis.

In present day Mexico, Chiapas is the state that produces the greatest amount of coffee, with both the highest number of producers and the largest cultivated area. A significant part of this production is organic coffee. Organic coffee growing emerged as an important alternative for small producers who previously devoted themselves to the production and commercialization of conventional coffee but found it increasingly difficult to make a living. The expansion of the cultivation of organic coffee was closely related to the processes of peasant mobilization that started in the 1970s when the agricultural model of the Green Revolution went into crisis. This article analyzes the expansion of organic coffee growing in Chiapas and its connection with the process of the collective organization of small coffee producers in cooperatives. In these cooperatives, an alternative model of production was established based on the peasants’ traditional knowledge. We argue that the development of organic coffee growing was strongly linked to the long tradition of community life, communal management of land and natural resources, and collective action. We also underline the resilience of the peasants’ traditional farming systems and their contribution to a more sustainable and environmentally respectful agriculture.

A country's water resources are important not only for the continued well-being of its population but also because water is a critical element in its economic development. Water is vital for human, animal and plant life. Life cannot exist without it. Most domestic needs in developing countries are satisfied through direct access to natural sources. The World Health Organisation in 1976 estimated that only 38 per cent of the total population in developing countries had access to safe water supplies. This means that 62 per cent of the population resorted to lakes, rivers, streams and wells for domestic requirements. Many industries abstract water from rivers and lakes for their industrial processes and often return it to those sources as trade effluents. Water is a critical factor in agricultural production. In turn agricultural activities create by-products such as sediment loads and chemical residues with adverse impact on water quality.It is obvious therefore that a country must ensure that its water resources are rationally utilised and managed. Such utilisation and management entails the creation of normative and institutional structures, first, to regulate the allocation of an often scarce resource to competing legitimate demands and, secondly, to anticipate, prevent and control the adverse consequences of resources utilisation. This article examines the nature of the legal mechanisms instituted by selected African countries, viz. Zambia, Ethiopia, Ghana, Sudan and Kenya, for the control and prevention of water pollution. The objective is two-fold: first, to determine the adequacy of existing legal regimes and, secondly, to suggest how deficiencies in existing frameworks may be rectified.

Environmental conflict management gains significance in rational use of natural resources, ecosystem preservation and environmental planning for mineral mines. In Central Coast Vietnam, titan mines are subject to conflicting use and management decisions. The paper deals with an empirical research on applying a combination of the fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the fuzzy Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) to measure environmental conflicts emerging as a result of titan mining in Vietnam. The methodology used in the paper combines the fuzzy AHP and the fuzzy TOPSIS to rank environmental conflicts and propose conflict prevention solutions in the titan mining industry of Ky Khang coastal commune (Ky Anh district, Central Coast Vietnam). Data was collected by using a questionnaire with 15 locals, 8 communal authorities, 2 district authorities, and 12 scientific experts on titan mining, environmental geology, and sustainability management. The result shows that, titan mining conflicts with the eight criteria of economic sectors at five alternative sites including beach, protected forest, agricultural area, settlement area, and industrial area. The conflicts between titan mining and forestry, agriculture, settlements, fishing and aquaculture are highly valued. The beach area shows most environmental conflict as a result of titan mining, followed by the agricultural area and settlement area. Based on the empirical findings, legal and procedural tools such as environmental impact assessments, strategic environmental assessments, integrated coastal zone management, marine spatial planning, and multi-planning integration advancing environmental management for titan mines in Vietnam are suggested.

ABSTRACT : Mosque as a means of worship is very important for Indonesian people who are Muslim majority. Mosques in Indonesia have been numerous and will continue to grow. Environmental issues due to the many building developments have become a global concern today, from the limited natural resources, global warming, climate change, Urban Heat Island (UHI) to its impact on the comfort and health of people. The concept of green architecture has been used to minimize environmental damage from buildings. This design-based research will implement green architecture approach in the mosque design in the context of a particular location to identify problems, possible applications and potential development. The designated location is in the eastern area of Bandung, city gates that has fairly dense place of settlement and transportation.The results showed that green architecture approach with neighborhood perspective criteria can be applied, especially with large scale mosque such as the case. The approach is more holistic and relates to the type of communal building. Criterias such as (1)land ecological enchancement; (2)circulation, movement and connectivity; (3)water management and conservation (4)solid waste and material; (5)community wellbeing strategy; and (6)building and energy, can be applied by combining with various design ideas and responses of site problems. Keywords : Mosque, green architecture, research-based design

Coastal society is a group of indigenous people or local people who reside or live in coastal regions and have particular custom in managing its surroundings/row generation to generation. The people manage their coastal resource traditionally and locally; their social structure and activities are still simple. The people have their local wisdom, namely Hak Ulayat Laut, which can conceptually be translated into sea tenure. Hak Ulayat Laut is a form of communal marine resource management. The traditional local wisdom can be manifested in social values, custom norms, ethics, system of belief, traditional site planning, as well as tools and environment-friendly simple technology. The fishing community of Bebalang Village, Sangihe Islands Regency, is a group of indigenous people who have their local wisdom in maintaining and using marine resource. The local wisdom is manifested in a traditional institution which manages the usage of the available natural resources. In the institution there are a number of rules concerning the usage of marine resource as well as the applicable technology and territorial-operating borders. Besides that, the people of Bebalang Village uphold the law regulating the catching of malalugis, a species of kite fish. They catch malalugis by using seke, bamboo-woven traps. The traps appear like bubu, but they have bigger sizes.

The “Green Economy” concept is a tool that leads to the guideline to develop sustainable economy in parallel with social development, quality of life, and the balanced conservation of natural resources and the environment (Office of Agricultural Economics, 2013). The concept of economic development leading to sustainable development or Green Economy is a concept of business operation based on low carbon emission, reduction of energy consumption, promotion of efficient use of resources, leading to business growth, social development, reduced destruction of the environment and the ecosystem diversity.
 Tourism is a form of service business that is crucial to Thailand’s economic and social development. It has high potential to accommodate free trade and demand of global market in accordance with the National Economic and Social Development Plans. Moreover, it generates employment and income from foreign currency. However, if the rapid growth of tourism lacks good management, the environment will be directly affected. For example, energy consumption in communication and transport sectors, trips, hotel rooms, as well as garbage and waste from tourism activities. Tourism industry consists of numerous types of business, including direct, indirect, and supporting businesses, service purchased by both Thai and foreign tourists, leading to spending flows that benefit many jobs, and social stability at communal, local, and national levels (Chantouch Wannathanom 2009, 101). It illustrates the role of community tourism in generating widespread employment and occupation such as local handicrafts, agricultural and natural resources-based products, to stimulate production and maximum use of the country’s resources. At present, the government has formulated clear policy to promote and support tourism with directly responsible agencies at regional, national, and particularly community levels. The agencies with important role in community tourism include provincial administrative organizations, sub-district administrative organizations or municipalities, and community enterprises. Moreover, local administrative organizations and especially community enterprises also have the authority, duty, and role to promote and manage tourism leading to the development of sustainable tourism. Therefore, the good management of tourism business should grow in parallel with efficient environmental management from all relevant sectors especially community tourism. The management starts from small units including people, community leaders, local administrative organizations, and community enterprises. It will succeed if all stakeholders possess appropriate knowledge, if tourism development is aligned with strategic plans on provincial development, development plans of local administrative organizations, and implementation plans derived from joint planning, cooperation, awareness and conscience of community, organizations in community, and community enterprises. The community enterprises supporting Thailand’s tourism activities are scattered in all regions in the form of grouping of local wisdom, community culture, raw materials, or various resources to increase value added of products and services to generate income to the community. The management of community network for sustainable tourism based on the Green Economy is to study potentials and limitations of Thailand’s tourist destinations, role of participation of community network from tourism management, analyze knowledge and impact from operation, as well as recommendations of the guideline to develop sustainable tourism based on the Green Economy using the base of main resource which is community network allowing one to know about the context of preparedness, potentials, and limitations of community to manage tourism. The research will result in community network with systematic management, network format, or guideline to connect the network of stakeholders, resulting in management of sustainable tourism, and community’s self-reliance. Tourism entrepreneurs, both local and non-local, can use the information to develop tourist destinations in line with national policy. It also benefits those involved in formulation of policy, plans, or products for economic, social, and environmental development by the community in sustainable tourist destinations.

Resumen: Los diagnósticos convencionales y no convencionales permiten leer holísticamente lo ambiental. La solidaridad y la sustentabilidad para la vida, son vías concretas para conservar y acrecentar la existencia. Históricamente, la perspectiva de género ha contemplado imaginarios equitativos, justos con el ambiente y la sociedad. En zona rural de Ibagué, Tolima, los roles reproductivo, productivo, comunitario, político y cultural se asignan tradicionalmente. Con prácticas agroecológicas de transformación productiva con equidad social y de género, se visibilizan oportunidades para todos y todas, y se logra un manejo apropiado de recursos naturales y medio ambiente. Interpretar, analizar y promover en el tiempo estas prácticas, exige esfuerzos sistémicos, los problemas ambientales revelan disfunciones sociopolíticas y económicas.Palabras claves: agroecología, historia ambiental, perspectiva de género, solidaridad, comunitarismo, sostenibilidad de la vidaAgroecology, Economies with Solidarity, Gender Perspective and Wellbeing: Reading the Environment with Valid Choices to Conserve and Increase LifeAbstract: Conventional and unconventional diagnoses allow you to read the environment holistically. Solidarity and sustainability for life, are concrete ways to preserve and increase existence. Historically, the gender perspective includes equitable representations, fair to the environment and society. In rural areas of Ibagué, Tolima, reproductive, productive, communal, political and cultural roles are assigned according to tradition. Agroecological practices change with gender equity, making visible opportunities for everyone, allowing for proper management of natural resources and the environment. To interpret, analyze and promote these practices over time, requires systemic efforts, as environmental problems reveal sociopolitical and economic dysfunctions.Key words: agro-ecology, environmental history, gender, solidarity and communalism, sustainability of life

This manuscript analyses trends in land use changes in Awoja Watershed with the aim of exploring the underlying causes of degradation in this watershed within the context of frequent draughts and floods. Changing trends of land use characteristics were used as indicators of ineffectiveness of control of access to resource use in the watershed. The study was carried out in the districts of Katakwi, Amuria and Sorotiin Eastern Uganda where the watershed is experiencing increasing trends of degradation despite the presence of elaborate watershed management institutions. The study used Remote Sensing, and focus group discussions to acquire relevant data on land use changes and their perceived causes. Perceptions of respondents on the effectiveness of the local governance processes were generated. The findings show increase in built-up areas from 0.21% between 1986-1996; to 3.28 between 2006 and 2016 and a notable decrease in forest cover from 107.48 Km2 in 1,986 to 6.94 Km2 by 2016. The results also show a dramatic increase in small scale farming area from 629.44 Km2 to 2,376.64 Km2 from 1986-2016 while the area of wetland reduced from 2,810.47 Km2 to 1,355 Km2over the same period. Results from focus group discussions revealed that although climatic and demographic factors were responsible for land use changes in Awoja, control of access to natural resources was inadequate to stop degradation. Climatic factors mentioned included increased frequency of floods and draughts that were perceived to have been responsible for changes in vegetation cover, water levels and infrastructure. Socio economic factors driving the changes in land use included increased cultivation of wetlands and communal land, increased sale of fuel wood, charcoal and sand, increased migration of cattle herders into the watershed during draughts and out of it during floods and increased fishing. While climatic factors were important, socio political factors such as displacements of communities, resettlements in the fragile environment brought about by government efforts to demarcate wetlands and wild life conservation areas were cited as drivers of degradation. The study concludes that besides climatic factors, inadequate management of access to resources was contributing to degradation of the watershed.


 El agua es un bien común cuyo modelo de gestión puede provocar grandes conflictos si en él no están incorporados los intereses, raíces culturales y criterios de sostenibilidad de los participantes. En Ecuador existe una importante tradición y experiencia en comunidades campesinas e indígenas para la gestión de bienes que no son ni públicos ni privados, sino comunales. Un caso especial lo constituye la transferencia de la parte baja del sistema de riego Poza Honda a una comunidad de regantes organizados en la Junta General de Usuarios del Sistema de Riego Rocafuerte. En este contexto se analiza la política pública de riego y los modelos de gestión desarrollados con su implementación. Para ello revisamos el efecto que han producido las reformas legales en la gestión del agua a partir de un estudio de caso que involucra una muestra de productores familiares ubicados en la cuenca.
 
 Palabras clave: Ecuador, política pública, sostenibilidad, acción colectiva, bienes comunes, economía del medio ambiente y recursos naturales.
 
 ABSTRACT 
 
 Water is a common benefit, whose management model can lead to major conflicts, if is not consider to the interests, cultural roots and good judgement of the participants. In Ecuador, there is an important tradition and experience in the peasant and indigenous communities for the management of goods that are neither public nor private, but communal, widely studied from Ostrom (1990). A special case is the transfer of the lower part of the Poza Honda irrigation system to a community of irrigators organized in the General Meeting of Users of the Rocafuerte Irrigation System. In this context, we analyze the public policy of irrigation and the management models developed after its implementation. To do this, we review the effect of legal reforms on water management, based on a case study involving a sample of family producers located in the basin.
 
 Key words: Ecuador, public policy, sustainability, collective action, common goods, economy of environment and natural resources.

Forests assume a great socioeconomic and environmental importance, requiring good management decisions to value and care for these natural resources. In Portugal, forest land use accounts for 34.5% of the continental area. The softwood species with the highest representation is maritime pine (Pinus pinaster Ait.). Traditionally, the species is managed as pure and even-aged stands for timber production, with a rotation age of 45 to 50 years. Depending on the initial stand density, the stands are thinned 2 to 4 times during the rotation period. Disturbances associated with forest fires have a negative impact on the age structure of stands over time, as they result in a narrow range of stand ages. This age homogenization over large forest areas increases with the recurrence and size of forest fires, bringing new challenges to forest management, namely the difficulty in ensuring the long-term sustainability of the wood supply. The problem aggravates with the increasing demand pressure on pine wood. This article aims to suggest a framework of DSS for Pinus pinaster that can effectively support the management of forest areas under these circumstances, i.e., narrow age ranges and high demand of harvested timber volume. A communal woodland area in the Northern region of Portugal affected by forest fires was selected as a study case. The Modispinaster model was used as the basis of the DSS, to simulate growth scenarios and interventions along the optional rotation period. Two clear-cut ages were considered: 25 and 40 years. The results obtained were the input data for an integer linear programming (ILP) model to obtain the plan that maximizes the volume of timber harvested in the study area, during the planning horizon. The ILP model has constraints bounding the area of clearings, and sustainability, operational and forestry restrictions. The computational results are a powerful tool for guidance in the decision-making of scheduling and forecasting the execution of interventions determining the set of stands that are exploited according to the different scenarios and the period in which the clear-cut is made throughout the planning horizon. Considering all constraints, the solution allows a balanced extraction of a total of 685 m3·ha−1, over the 50-year horizon, as well as the representation of all age classes at the end of the planning period.

Una discusión reciente en México es la posesión territorial. Este artículo comprende cuatro apartados que discuten tal fenómeno. El primero refiere al despojo como proceso histórico que se da por la disputa de recursos naturales, se ejemplifican dos casos de México y se plantean a los geoparques mundiales como alternativas de apropiación territorial de comunidades originarias. El segundo analiza fundamentos de los geoparques, y su situación en Latinoamérica, especificando al Geoparque Mundial Mixteca Alta (GMA). El tercero aborda la Educación Popular como paradigma de análisis, enfatizando al taller como herramienta de reflexión y acción en temas como la defensa del territorio. finalmente se da cuenta de dos talleres realizados a guías del GMA y los resultados referentes a la apropiación territorial. An actual discussion in Mexico has been the possession of land by the indigenous communities. The article is organized into four sections. The first refers to territorial evictions as a relevant historical process in Latin America due to the dispute over natural resources. In this same section the attention is focused in two cases of the activities developed in two mexican indigenous lands and the importance of the existence of geoparks as an alternative to land possession. The second section analyzes the characteristics of geoparks, their situation in Latin America, particularly in the case of the Mixtec World Geopark (GMA) in Mexico. The third part refers to methodologies that are based on Popular Education. It emphasizes the implementation of workshops as a tool that intends to generate reflection and action on issues such as the defense of the communal land. The final section represents the testimonies of two workshops conducted with GMA guides and their results regarding territorial management and property.

PurposeThe purpose of the instrument is to favour and strengthen, in a timely and relevant manner, the processes of design, planning, investment, execution and evaluation of various public and private initiatives in the territory, thereby strengthening the preventive, responsive and adaptive capacities of the communities, institutions and territory. The instrument allows the generation of a single single-community diagnosis, a definition of a baseline which leads to progress assessment at different levels and provides specific risk management recommendations to municipalities.Design/methodology/approachThe definition of the purpose and design of this tool was the result of the work in a year by a group of national experts from the public, private, organised civil society and academia members of the National Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction. This initial stage has sought to capture the different sectoral visions with a multidimensional approach that considers the territorial differences cautioning that local governments are key actors to achieve risk reduction, and they are also the first respondents and responsible for managing their territory and community. In order to help local governments, to understand their situation, the experts’ group established that the assessment should consist of a guided self-diagnosis using a survey. The dimensions considered are as follows: governance, territorial planning, socio-economic and demographic conditions and climate change and natural resources. The four dimensions encompass in total 41 variables that are considered relevant for the disaster risk management discipline.FindingsThe rural to semiurban municipalities classified as medium or low development, according to the national standard, present a high-risk level in the dimension of territorial ordering. The municipalities that show a moderate to low dependence on the common municipal fund have a low risk in all the evaluated dimensions, related to greater financial autonomy and own or self-management of resources. The municipalities with low percentage of poverty by income are better evaluated in all the dimensions showing a low level of the Communal Underlying Risk Factors Index (CURFI). A high percentage of communes with a low level of the CURFI have low-urban growth in the last 15 years.Research limitations/implicationsOne of the main difficulties was raising awareness amongst the mayors that the reduction of the underlying factors does not necessarily imply monetary investment, understanding the scarcity of local government resources. The important thing was to sensitise them that the diagnosis per se was already a result to manage risk in their community.Practical implicationsTo be able to count for the first time in Chile with a methodology that allows diagnosing risk-based conditions and to target structural and non-structural measures aimed at reducing these factors in local governments. Additionally, it will be possible to monitor the reduction of the underlying risk factors (URF), for accompanying the work of the municipalities in terms of knowing if they have been able to implement the individualised recommendations that are provided.Originality/valueThe methodology was formulated by reviewing and considering the methodologies applied in different regions of the world, which generally coincide in the dimensions that group the main underlying factors of disaster risk. However, the numerical treatment of the variables obeys to novel statistical processing (multicriteria method), which provides robustness to the model and, therefore, to the results obtained.

The article analyzes the information content of the websites of amalgamated hromadas (AHs). On the example of AHs of Lviv region, a content analysis of the information on websites was carried out. Of the 41 formed during 2015-2019 amalgamated hromadas of Lviv region, 38 hromadas have created their official website. Mostly, the AHs’ websites cover: information about the activities of the management apparatus; information about the governance apparatus and the deputy composition of the AH council; budget and use of budget funds; participation of citizens in governance; regulatory activity/policy; strategic documents; passport of AH; detailed description of infrastructure, labor, agricultural, natural, tourism resources, enterprises operating on the territory of AH; there is a tab with information about ASC; investment passport and the land plots, which are intended for the implementation of investment projects, as well as information about the activities of various departments and communal utilities. It is noted that during the coverage of information on official websites, executive authorities should be guided by the Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine «On the procedure for publishing information on the activities of executive authorities on the Internet», as well as Art. 15 of the Law of Ukraine «On Access to Public Information». It is determined that the most common is information about the composition and activities of the AH governance apparatus, information about the deputy composition, budget and use of budget funds, regulatory activities. The index of the amount of information covered is proposed and computed. It is concluded that AHs with general fund income (without transfers) per capita of more than 3000 UAH have more informatively filled websites. However, the type of hromada (urban or rural) does not influence the amount of information covered on the website. In general, the carried out analysis showed the lack of asymmetry in the disclosure and dissemination of information through the official websites of AHs of the Lviv region.

Competing natural resources usage that leads to dramatic land use changes can threaten the balance of a social-ecological system. When this is the case, communities are directly exposed to the negative consequences of those land use changes. The Mashavera River Basin is considered one of the hotspots of environmental pollution in Georgia. This is of importance for public health because the food production from this basin meets a substantial proportion of the country’s food demand. The farmers’ perception of the water quality and their perceived risks to the economy, health, and lifestyle reflect the status of the environmental and social conditions. The inclusion of farmers’ risk perceptions is an important stage of water quality governance that could enable active civic participation. The approach of this research study was the convergence model in the triangular design of the mixed method approach. As part of the social data, the research study was conducted with a survey of 177 households, for which agriculture was either a main or partial source of income. A few focus group discussions were also conducted. A binary logistic regression analysis was employed as the main method for the analysis. The results from the pollution load index (PLI) were used as the supportive data to verify some geospatial hypotheses. We found that aesthetic attributes (i.e., color changes observed in the river) and the source of the water contamination (i.e., mining sites) were the main predictor variables for a perceived risk to water quality, health, and livelihoods. The people who work in agriculture as the main income source had more concern about their ability to sell their agricultural products as a result of water contamination in the river, compared with people for whom agriculture is a secondary source of income or for self-consumption. Age, amount of land, years of agricultural experience, and the source of water supply for agriculture did not have a significant effect on any of the risk perception or water quality perception models. The results indicate that the health risk is perceived more strongly in areas with more heavily contaminated water compared to less polluted areas. We propose that conducting a public risk perception assessment is an ideal means to detect people’s concerns regarding water quality governance for future risk analysis in Georgia. Another recommendation of this study is an integrated model of risk assessment that combines the results from a public risk perception assessment and a technical assessment. The benefits of such an integrated assessment include finding new hazard-sensitive areas for further analysis, the possibility to cross-check data for verification, communal communication of hazardous conditions by utilizing local knowledge, and the direct participation of the community in monitoring risks.

This article is part of a joint project conducted by Finnish and Estonian scholars that aims to comparatively study the famine of the 1860s in those countries. Unlike Finland, research into the last large-scale famine of the 19th century has begun only rather recently in Estonia. Kersti Lust has contributed the most to this area of research. The task of this article is to trace the development of agriculture in the present-day Estonian area in the 1860s, focusing primarily on the size of harvests. Attention is paid to some factors that still made agriculture vulnerable even in the 1860s. Additionally, the article also considers methods adopted at the local level in attempts to resolve the situation, alleviate food shortages, and ward off famine.
 The appendices to the annual reports drawn up by the governors general of Estland and Livland include statistical data on the amounts of winter grain (rye), summer grains (barley, oats) and potatoes sowed, the size of their harvests (in chetverts), and the number of inhabitants. These appendices also provide an estimate of crop yields (how many seeds these types of crops produced). The fact that more precise information from Estland on 1868 is missing has to be pointed out as the largest gap. In spite of imperfection, the absolute numbers presented in the appendices of the reports from the governors are used in this article since there are no better options.
 The archives of rural municipal governments provide the opportunity to ascertain how different localities tried to alleviate the situation that emerged as the result of crop failure and to ensure that all members of the rural municipality were supplied with grain. The extent of crop failure, the use of communal grain, and the purchase of grain using money from the rural municipal treasury or on loan unfold from rural municipal council transcripts. Many archives of rural municipal governments have been lost over time. There are only 156 collections in total that contain transcripts from 1868 and 1869.
 The most important grain was rye, which could withstand poor growing conditions. The amount of winter grains sowed in Estonian territory as a whole was around 200,000 chetverts in the 1860s, and in the better years, the harvest of winter grains exceeded the threshold of 1,000,000 chetverts. The average crop yield of winter grains was 4.8 in the 1860s (excluding 1868). Barley and oats were primarily grown as summer grains, whereas oats were mostly used as animal feed.
 It was only starting in the 1830s that potato cultivation had begun spreading more extensively in the Baltic region, whereas it started being used primarily in distilleries, where it was cheaper raw material compare to rye. Unlike grains, potatoes were cultivated considerably less in Livland than in Estland. The potato harvest failed in Estland in 1866 and 1867, when the crop yield was only 2.8. The crop nevertheless did not fail in 1868 in the northern part of Livland as a whole, but it was poor (the crop yield was 3.4). Good potato harvests in Estland in both 1869 and 1870, when it set a record, surpassing the 662,000 chetvert threshold, contributed to recovery from the famine.
 Crop failure (less than three seeds) was not universal, rather it affected only one crop type and was mostly regional. In Northern Estonia and primarily in Saaremaa, the years of poor harvests in 1865 and 1867 were followed by the rainy summer of 1868, which brought with it crop failure and famine. The most complicated situation was in Saaremaa because the soil there was not very fertile. There winter grain yielded 2 seeds, summer grains 2.5 and potatoes 0.5 seeds. Thus, less potatoes were harvested there than were planted. Tartu County was the only district in Livland where average or satisfactory, and even good harvests were almost consistently achieved in the 1860s.
 Grain grown in Estland and Northern Livland was mostly consumed in the domestic market. Manorial estates cultivated grain primarily with the needs of the market in mind, while farms had to look after covering their own needs first and foremost. At that time, 1 chetvert of winter grain and 1 chetvert of summer grains was considered the food requirement of one person for a year. In Estland, 1.1–1.7 chetverts of rye and 1.2–2.2 chetverts of summer grains were produced per inhabitant in the 1860s. Rye was produced in quantities below this norm (0.8) in 1865, 1867, as well as in 1868, according to indirect data. In Northern Livland, 1–1.4 chetverts of rye and 1.1–2.0 chetverts of summer grains were produced per inhabitant. There the production of rye was slightly below the norm (0.9) in 1865, 1867, 1868 and also in 1870. Although crop yield was higher in Northern Livland, the large number of very small holdings in the crown manorial estates there, where secondary livelihoods, primarily fishing, occupied an important place, caused lower indices per person. The rye harvest per person was lowest in Pärnu County and Saaremaa (0.6) in 1868. The relative proportion of crown manors was especially large in these two counties.
 Alongside harvests and crop yields, it is also necessary to examine how the population coped in situations of crop failure and hunger, and what measures were taken for alleviating grain shortages.
 This particular crop failure was the first serious touchstone for the rural municipal communities that had only just been liberated from the control of the manorial estates by the Baltic Rural Municipalities Act in 1866. According to this act, each rural municipal community had to elect a council, which was the governing body of the rural municipal community. Thus, the council was the body that had to make the decisions concerning the use of the communal granary’s grain reserves, the taking out of loans, and distributing aid.
 Harvests in many regions of Estland and Northern Livland, and especially in Saaremaa, were so small in 1868 as the result of crop failure that they did not make it possible to survive over the winter or to allocate grain for the next sowing. The crisis reached its culmination in the winter of 1868 and the spring of 1869, when famine struck the most backward regions, gripping the province of Estland more or less as a whole, whereas the situation in Lääne County was the worst. Of the counties of the northern part of Livland, it struck only Saaremaa severely. Epidemics broke out in addition to the famine, primarily typhus, as well as dysentery, measles, smallpox, etc.
 The rural municipality was obliged to care for all its members, especially if they encountered difficulties due to either illness or poverty. Particular attention started being paid to providing poorer people with food and shelter. Food supply policy in the Russian state was founded on maintaining reserves in local communal granaries in order to prevent famine in the event of crop failure. In an emergency, members of the community could borrow grain from the granary for food or sowing, but the borrowed grain had to be returned together with interest in the form of grain from the new crop. In good years, the rural municipality could sell the surplus grain and set aside the money earned from such sales in the rural municipal treasury.
 When the communal granary’s grain reserves had been distributed and the granary was empty, the next measure was to purchase additional grain in return for the savings of the rural municipality, using both money from the treasury as well as obligations. In some rural municipalities, such measures were sufficient, and the rural municipality managed in this way to ride out this difficult period and also to feed its poor. More exceptional measures did not have to be adopted. This, of course, depended on the condition of the rural municipal treasury, which differed widely. Money taken from the rural municipal treasury was also a loan that had to be paid back. Here the principle of joint surety applied, thus this also had to be paid back on behalf of those who were themselves incapable of doing so.
 These measures nevertheless were not sufficient everywhere because primarily in Northern Estonia and Saaremaa, rural municipality transcripts record that the whole rural municipality had declined into great need and poverty, and all of the poor were starving. If the rural municipality had spent its own financial resources, the next step was to apply for a crown loan with which to procure grain, which would in turn be loaned out to the people of the rural municipality. The public authorities already made it known well in advance that rural municipalities could take out loans in an emergency, stressing that this was not aid and that it had to be paid back.
 The rural municipality could use granary reserves and money from the rural municipal treasury and receive support loans from the state only with the consent of the parish judge. The threshold for requesting permission was quite high because rural municipalities mostly already had communal granary debts, and the authorities feared the creation of new debts. The decision to take out a loan was not taken lightly in the rural municipalities because both paying back the loan and the payment of interest were considered to be too difficult.
 Taking out a crown loan was placed on the agenda only in the event of a very serious emergency, when reserves were completely depleted. The need for loans continued to grow at the end of 1868 and over the first half of 1869, when there were shortages of bread grains as well as seed grain.
 Different types of tactics can be seen in the case of taking out loans that corresponded to the size and opportunities of the rural municipality. In some rural municipalities, it was common procedure to assess the situation separately for each month, and smaller sums within the range of 100–600 roubles were taken out repeatedly as loans. Elsewhere – primarily in larger rural municipalities – the aim was to borrow a larger sum all at once that exceeded 1,000 roubles. A small proportion of the rural municipalities in Järva, Viru and Lääne counties had taken out a loan by then, but the sum could even extend to 3,000 roubles.
 Since the rural municipalities had been made responsible for looking after supplying the peasantry with food, resolving the situation depended on the extent of the famine and the economic condition of the rural municipality. At the same time, the rural municipality lacked sufficient power for coping with the tasks assigned to it. The resources of the rural municipality were limited, and it did not have possibilities for redistributing reserves between rural municipalities. In cases of more serious famine when communal granary reserves were insufficient, the manorial estate and, above all, the state had the means for assisting the population.
 Grain harvests did not depend solely upon the weather or other natural conditions, but also on agrarian relations. The farm economy was still almost entirely dependent on the manorial estate economy in the 1860s. Major changes took place in the 1860s aimed at accelerating the transition from the mode of management based on corvée to a system based on a money economy. The reorganisation of relations between farm and manorial estate did not immediately bring any noticeable changes. The three-field system remained in use in compact hamlets with fields divided into strips in Estland and Saaremaa until the enclosure of farms, which was usually carried out just before the manor put the farms up for sale.
 Enclosure became universal in the latter half of the 19th century, when the sale of farmland to peasants as hereditary property became its primary impetus. The outright purchase of farms took place early in Livland precisely in those areas with predominantly dispersed settlement where farms had accumulated money from the sale of flax and where it was not necessary to carry out the enclosure of farms before starting to sell farms. At the same time, this is precisely what led to Northern Livland’s more rapid commercial and financial development compared to Estland. Areas with enclosed farms that had been purchased outright were naturally not immune to unfavourable weather conditions and crop failure. They nevertheless had better chances for coping with grain shortages. Only the establishment of new economic relations, primarily the enclosure of farms and the growth of peasant smallholdings, created the prerequisites for the transition to crop rotation and for increased crop yields, which made it possible to cope better with setbacks.

A systematization of a workshop course that took place in 2018 in the ejido of Nuevo Ideal, Durango, with the aim of agreeing actions to start a management plan, is presented. The workshop derived from work done to provide producers with tools and techniques that are useful for livestock exploitation, in addition to raising awareness of the need for actions for the protection and conservation of the natural resources offered to them by summer pasture ecosystems. The workshop was designed with five themes: Our Ejido, Livestock Management Plan, Grazing System, Infrastructure and Agreements. It is important to note that the agreement between PRONATURA northwest and the ejido for the implementation of a program that will help in the grazing system was the product of the workshop. The document is divided into three parts: Ejido, Design and implementation of the workshop, and Conclusions.

Abstract. Rasethe MT, Potgieter M, Pfab M. 2021. Local management strategies and attitudes towards selected threatened or protected plant species in Limpopo Province, South Africa. Biodiversitas 22: 3773-3784. Throughout South Africa, ordinary people are managing and using local natural resources in ways that enhance their lives, but there is a major concern about the sustainability of wild plant harvest. This study aims to investigate the current management strategies employed by local people in the Limpopo Province for selected threatened or protected plant species (TOPS). Semi-structured questionnaires were used to gather information from a total of 333 participants, i.e. 110 community members (CMs), 180 traditional health practitioners (THPs), and 28 traditional leaders (TLs), as well as from 15 conservation officers (COs). The study area included the districts of Capricorn, Sekhukhune, Mopani, Vhembe, and Waterberg. Results indicated that in all districts of the province most CMs and THPs reported that no one managed plant resources in their surrounding communal lands, though TLs indicated that the state was involved with management. Fifty-nine percent of THPs indicated that there are no traditional rules that are applied towards conservation of communal lands, yet 91% of other participants in the Mopani, Sekhukhune, and Capricorn districts indicated that traditional rules are followed. Most CMs in these three districts were allowed to participate in conservation initiatives, although most of them did not know that the plants they were using were threatened and protected in legislation. It is recommended that collaborative partnerships be initiated between government and TLs in relation to managing the threatened or protected plant species in communal lands.

In South Africa, communal rural community development has, for the most part, been viewed as an add-on, rather than as an integral value in the broad spectrum of conservation activities being practised in the country. This paper, therefore, argues for the reality-based adoption of an extension of existing conservation paradigms to incorporate the development of communal rural communities as an integral part of the overall wildlife conservation and management policy in South Africa. The answer to the seeming contradiction in the focus of wildlife conservation and rural development lies in the devel- opment of wildlife management programmes based on multi-disciplinary and multiinstitutional interaction, by also harnessing scientific knowledge and skills found in the social sciences. In this manner, the present largely lip service related to so-called com- munity participation in wildlife management can be changed into programmes which really achieve conservation-based community development enhancing survival for both the communities and their inherent natural resources.

AbstractThis paper explores how property rights arrangements affect the equity, efficiency and sustainability of high-altitude rangeland management in Bhutan from the perspectives of rangeland users. Property rights affect how natural resources are allocated to individuals, communities and institutions and how they are managed. In Bhutan, only grazing rights are granted to rangeland users, as ownership of rangeland lies with the State. Three case study areas were selected across Bhutan with different levels of rangeland degradation, governance arrangements and property rights regimes. Semi-nomadic yak herders, sedentary livestock farmers and government officials participated in 40 semi-structured interviews and nine focus group discussions between 2013 and 2014. Findings revealed that historical inequities exist with private leases and some communal leases, but government-supported leases with management rights are considered more equitable. All property rights systems can become unproductive and inefficient with increasing populations, but communal areas are at greater risk of sub-optimal resource use and conflicts. Respondents were concerned about the lack of management rights, uncertainty over future lease arrangements and climate change impacts. This research revealed that (i) assignment of incomplete property rights is detrimental to efficient and sustainable natural resource management; (ii) banning of traditional practices such as burning, clearing and cutting of shrubs and bushes could undermine conservation by triggering natural resource degradation; (iii) granting of management rights in the bundle of rights is vital to encourage provisioning and maintenance activities; and (iv) in the absence of official contracts, deeds or titles which provide tenure security and political legitimacy, equitable distribution, clear boundary demarcation with written norms and rules are not sufficient to foster long-term investment in provisioning and maintenance activities. We discuss the implications of the findings for delayed implementation of the Land Act 2007 aimed at a more equitable redistribution of use rights and improved high-altitude rangeland management in Bhutan.

Based on Regulation of Indonesian Environment Ministry number 19/2012 about Climate Village (Proklim) Program, Serut Village is designated as Climate Village in 2012 because of the effort on climate change adaptation and mitigation. This success is not separated from the community empowerment efforts after Bantul earthquake in 2006. This research aims to describe the community empowerment on climate change adaptation and mitigation then identify factors infl uence community empowerment. This research method used case study with single case using qualitative descriptive approach. The research results indicate that the community empowerment has occured simultaneously and unnoticed caused by the earthquake. Community empowerment is refl ected in many sectors, such as development of organic farming, management of livestock farming with communal cages, community base litter management, disaster response, greening and water resources management. Factors that infl uence the process of community empowerment are natural conditions; society culture, norm, and community self-help; local leader; and government.

A study was conducted to document the local knowledge and practices in soil management of the Manobo tribe in Cotabato Province, Philippines. This is to determine the validity of the local corpus with the western knowledge. A total of 145 key informants were selected randomly from various Manobo groups using semi-structured survey questionnaires and field documentation. A prior informed consent (PIC) was sought by the researcher and followed by a consultation dialogue with the tribal leaders, elders and other key person of the study. Manobo tribes were located in the undulating areas of Arakan, Cotabato dominated by the sub- tribes Tinananen and Kulamanen. The Arumanen were in the distant area of Carmen and Libungan while the Obo Manobo and Kidapawanen sub-tribes were situated in Magpet and Makilala, Cotabato. About 32.41percent were tribal chieftains and farming was the prime source of living. Tribal women and children were involved in major farming activities. The farming information was obtained mostly from the tribal elders (88.97%), chieftains (71.72%), and co-tribesmen (54.48%). Most of the farms were marginalized and primarily planted with upland rice, corn and root crops. Farmers practiced rotational system of gathering food, kaingin and fallow period, “tudak” or dibble method of planting, “kompak” system (communal planting), and the use of perception and actual field observation in managing the soils through the biophysical indicators. Most of the informants (88.97%) used local corpus in farming and the 90.34 percent respondents wanted to continue the indigenous knowledge important to preserve the natural resources like water (96.95%), soil (89.31%), and forest trees (85.50%). Fallow period was the known local corpus and praxis of the 78.76 percent informants including the planting of leguminous crops. The identified indigenous corpus and praxis of the Manobo were found scientifically in agreement with modern knowledge hence, considered as relevant, valid and factual.

The actualization of the results of financial decentralization in Ukraine as part of the reform of decentralization of power and the development of proposals for its improvement is explained by the fact that a clear division of functions, powers and financial resources between national and regional levels is the basis for the well-being of our citizens. opportunities for its sustainable socio- economic development on a democratic basis. It is noted that financial decentralization is a process of giving authority to mobilize revenues and expenditures of local governments in order to increase the effectiveness of the implementation of these powers and better management of community budgets. It is established that unlike traditional entrepreneurship, which focuses on profit generation, the purpose of social entrepreneurship is to create and accumulate social capital. Abroad, social enterprises operate successfully in the fields of education, the environment, human rights, poverty reduction and health care, and their development and dissemination is one way to improve the living conditions of citizens. A similar mission is entrusted to local governments, which allows us to consider the revival of social entrepreneurship as an important element in improving self-government policy. It is determined that in modern conditions social entrepreneurship is one of the tools to ensure the ability of the local community to provide its members with an appropriate level of education, culture, health, housing and communal services, social protection, etc., as well as plan and implement programs efficient use of available natural and human resources, investment and infrastructural support of territorial communities. Due to financial decentralization, local governments have received additional resources that can be used to create economic incentives to promote social entrepreneurship in small and medium-sized businesses at the community level.

Formulation of the problem. Water is one of the most important resources in the world. The Volyn region has significant reserves of surface and underground water, but irrational use of water resources leads to their depletion. Furthermore, today the anthropogenic loading on natural ecosystems is increasing, this factor leads to the deterioration of the ecological state of water resources. So that, research the peculiarities of the water using and ecological state of water bodies and underground aquifers is necessary for conservation and restoration water resources of the region. Review of previous publications and studies. The problem of water use in the Volyn region was being studied by many scientists. The information base of this article includes number scientific works, published by K. I. Herenchuk, F. V. Zuzuk, L. V. Ilin, Ya. O. Molchak, R. V. Migas, M. R. Zabokrytska, V. K. Khil-chevskyi, V. O. Fesiuk, S. V. Polianskyi, T. S. Pavlovska, O. V. Ilina, M. A. Khvesyk, I. V. Sanina, H. H. Liutyi, L. I. Shevchuk and others. Moreover, statistical information about water use and state of water resources was given in the ecological passports, yearbooks of the Volyn region and Ukraine. Also, systematic observations of aquatic ecosystems are carried out by Regional water resources office in the Volyn region. Methods. The methodological base of the study is theoretical foundations of the doctrine of nature management. The authors applied mathematical-statistical, graphic and cartographic methods. Besides, methods of induction, deduction, comparative analysis and synthesis were used during the research. Results. The article is devoted to the study of water resources in the Volyn region, peculiarities of their use by the population and economy. The authors pay attention to the all sources of water in the Volyn region and characterize their distribution. It is mentioned that the most important source of water is aquifers. The authors give information about the structure of water use by type of economic activity. It is clarified that the largest consumers of water are agricultural enterprises and communal services. Agriculture consumes water resources for irrigation and other purposes, however, much water in this branch of economy is used irrationally. Also, large amount of extracted water is exploited for water supply of settlements in the Volyn region. But, only 5,5 % of the used water is consumed by industry, in particular, by food and sugar branch. Besides, the peculiarities of water usage in the administrative districts of the Volyn region are analyzed. The authors investigated that the biggest consumers of water are population and economy of Lutsk, Gorokhiv, Ivanychi and Volodymyr-Volynskiy districts, the least water usage is inherent for Shatsk, Lyubeshiv and Lokachinsky districts. Moreover, it is mentioned, that the features of water usage in the Volyn region change in time. For example, the amount of water consumption during 2000-2014 was decreasing as a result of social-economic causes. The article considers the problem of the influence of different sources of pollution on the water resources in the Volyn region. It is noted, that the most vulnerable to the anthropogenic loading are surface water bodies, they are polluted generally by untreated sewage. For example, river waters consist many pollutants, concentration of which exceeds the maximum permissible concentration. Scientific novelty and practical significance. The structure and dynamics of water consumption in the Volyn region is characterized for the first time. Particular attention is paid to the research of modern ecological state of surface and underground water resources in connection with water use and other economic activities. The results of this exploring will help to optimize water use and to conserve water resources.

The study was conducted in Soro and Misha districts of Hadiya zone Southern Ethiopia, to describe the husbandry practices, to assess production and reproductive performance of indigenous cattle breeds. Data collections were carried out by using observation, semistructured questionnaire, and focused group discussion and also from secondary data sources. A total of 240 households (120 from each district) were selected by using systematic sampling method for questionnaire interview. The collected data were analyzed by Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS version 20), and the values were compared at the significance level P<0.05. The study reported that the main purpose of keeping indigenous cattle in both districts were milk production, saving as live bank, draught power, income generation, for meat, manure and ceremonies. The selection criteria used by farmers for selecting male and female cattle were by using mainly associated with production and reproduction parameters. The main feed resources of cattle in dry season were crop residues, communal grazing, maize strover, Enset, Atela and wheat bran. Natural uncontrolled mating system was the main breeding system in the study areas. The average daily milk yield and length of calving interval showed significant variation (p<0.05) between the two studied locations. The major cattle production constraints in the study area were feed shortage, shrinkage of grazing land, lack of capital, shortage of improved breeds, and low productivity of indigenous cattle, lack of improved forages and disease and parasites. The reported major prevalent cattle disease identified were bovine pasteurollosis, foot and mouth disease, diarrhea, sudden death and blackleg. The current study result indicated that cattle production and reproductive performance in the current environmental condition are comparable with other indigenous breed. Therefore, it could be concluded that, management improvement and designing appropriate breed improvement programmes such as participation of the community are critical to improve the breed..

Isu konservasi lingkungan menjadi sebuah studi yang menarik belakangan ini karena efek dari global warming sudah semakin dirasakan oleh manusia. Kebijakan nasional dan international dengan perspektif konservasi lingkungan semakin dikuatkan, begitu pula dengan Unnes dengan visi kampus konservasinya. Selain kebijakan tersebut, komunitas lokal sebenarnya memiliki persepsi sendiri tentang konservasi lngkungan dari sistem nilai dan pengetahuannya. Tujuan penelitian ini adalah melihat persepsi masyarakat tentang konservasi lingkungan dan penerapan persepsi dalam aktivitas masyarakat. Metode yang digunakan adalah kuliatatif untuk memperoleh data yang akurat dan valid. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan persepsi masyarakat tentang konservasi lingkungan tidak dapat dipisahkan dari aktivitas masyarakat sebagai petani. Tingkat ketergantungan pada lingkungan membentuk persepsi akan konservasi melekat pada pola hidup keseharian mereka. Tapi persepsi tersebut berubah seiring dengan perubahan sosial di masyarakat. Interaksi antara msyarakat Sekaran dengan mahasiswa sebagai pendatang mendorong perubahan pandangan tentang alam dan mata pencaharian. Ketika sistem mata pencaharian mereka tidak lagi tergantung sepenuhnya pada manajemen sumber daya alam, begitu pula percepsi akan konservasi lingkungan turut berubah. Hal ini dibuktikan dengan pola aktivitas mereka yang tidak lagi berkomitmen sepenuhnya pada konservasi lingkungan. Ritual kolektif yang dahulu berfungsi untuk pemeliharaan lingkungan, kini digantikan oleh aktivitas personal dengan makna yang sempit. The issue of environmental conservation is an interesting study nowadays because the effect of global warming has been felt by mankind. Many national and international policies that toward environmental conservation perspective is encouraged, so did Unnes with its vision of conservation. Besides these policies, local communities actually have a perception about environmental conservation from their values and knowledge systems. The aim of this research is to find out society perception about environment conservation and the appearance of perception on the daily activities of the society. The research method is qualitative to gain accountable and valid data. Perceptions of environmental conservation can not be separated from their activities as farmers. The level of dependency on environtment makes perception of conservation is embedded well within the pattern of their daily lives. But this perception has shifted in line with social changes that occur. The presence of Unnes in their territory is the main factor of social changes in society. Interaction between Sekaran society with students as immigrant helped change their views about the nature and the occupation system. When the occupation system no longer depend entirely on the management of natural resources, so the perception of environmental conservation also shifted. This can be seen on their activity patterns that no longer has a full commitment to environmental conservation. Communal ritual that used to function as a place of transformation values of environmental conservation has been replaced with the personal activities of environmental hygiene has a narrower meaning.

Introduction Most developed countries, including Australia, have a strong focus on national, state and local strategies for emergency management and response in the face of disasters and crises. This framework can include coping with catastrophic dislocation, service disruption, injury or loss of life in the face of natural disasters such as major fires, floods, earthquakes or other large-impact natural events, as well as dealing with similar catastrophes resulting from human actions such as bombs, biological agents, cyber-attacks targeting essential services such as communications networks, or other crises affecting large populations. Emergency management frameworks for crisis and disaster response are distinguished by their focus on the domestic context for such events; that is, how to manage and assist the ways in which civilian populations, who are for the most part inexperienced and untrained in dealing with crises and disasters, are able to respond and behave in such situations so as to minimise the impacts of a catastrophic event. Even in countries like Australia that demonstrate a strong public commitment to cultural pluralism and social cohesion, ethno-cultural diversity can be seen as a risk or threat to national security and values at times of political, natural, economic and/or social tensions and crises. Australian government policymakers have recently focused, with increasing intensity, on “community resilience” as a key element in countering extremism and enhancing emergency preparedness and response. In some sense, this is the result of a tacit acknowledgement by government agencies that there are limits to what they can do for domestic communities should such a catastrophic event occur, and accordingly, the focus in recent times has shifted to how governments can best help people to help themselves in such situations, a key element of the contemporary “resilience” approach. Yet despite the robustly multicultural nature of Australian society, explicit engagement with Australia’s cultural diversity flickers only fleetingly on this agenda, which continues to pursue approaches to community resilience in the absence of understandings about how these terms and formations may themselves need to be diversified to maximise engagement by all citizens in a multicultural polity. There have been some recent efforts in Australia to move in this direction, for example the Australian Emergency Management Institute (AEMI)’s recent suite of projects with culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities (2006-2010) and the current Australia-New Zealand Counter-Terrorism Committee-supported project on “Harnessing Resilience Capital in Culturally Diverse Communities to Counter Violent Extremism” (Grossman and Tahiri), which I discuss in a longer forthcoming version of this essay (Grossman). Yet the understanding of ethno-cultural identity and difference that underlies much policy thinking on resilience remains problematic for the way in which it invests in a view of the cultural dimensions of community resilience as relic rather than resource – valorising the preservation of and respect for cultural norms and traditions, but silent on what different ethno-cultural communities might contribute toward expanded definitions of both “community” and “resilience” by virtue of the transformative potential and existing cultural capital they bring with them into new national and also translocal settings. For example, a primary conclusion of the joint program between AEMI and the Australian Multicultural Commission is that CALD communities are largely “vulnerable” in the context of disasters and emergency management and need to be better integrated into majority-culture models of theorising and embedding community resilience. This focus on stronger national integration and the “vulnerability” of culturally diverse ethno-cultural communities in the Australian context echoes the work of scholars beyond Australia such as McGhee, Mouritsen (Reflections, Citizenship) and Joppke. They argue that the “civic turn” in debates around resurgent contemporary nationalism and multicultural immigration policies privileges civic integration over genuine two-way multiculturalism. This approach sidesteps the transculturational (Ortiz; Welsch; Mignolo; Bennesaieh; Robins; Stein) aspects of contemporary social identities and exchange by paying lip-service to cultural diversity while affirming a neo-liberal construct of civic values and principles as a universalising goal of Western democratic states within a global market economy. It also suggests a superficial tribute to cultural diversity that does not embed diversity comprehensively at the levels of either conceptualising or resourcing different elements of Australian transcultural communities within the generalised framework of “community resilience.” And by emphasising cultural difference as vulnerability rather than as resource or asset, it fails to acknowledge the varieties of resilience capital that many culturally diverse individuals and communities may bring with them when they resettle in new environments, by ignoring the question of what “resilience” actually means to those from culturally diverse communities. In so doing, it also avoids the critical task of incorporating intercultural definitional diversity around the concepts of both “community” and “resilience” used to promote social cohesion and the capacity to recover from disasters and crises. How we might do differently in thinking about the broader challenges for multiculturalism itself as a resilient transnational concept and practice? The Concept of Resilience The meanings of resilience vary by disciplinary perspective. While there is no universally accepted definition of the concept, it is widely acknowledged that resilience refers to the capacity of an individual to do well in spite of exposure to acute trauma or sustained adversity (Liebenberg 219). Originating in the Latin word resilio, meaning ‘to jump back’, there is general consensus that resilience pertains to an individual’s, community’s or system’s ability to adapt to and ‘bounce back’ from a disruptive event (Mohaupt 63, Longstaff et al. 3). Over the past decade there has been a dramatic rise in interest in the clinical, community and family sciences concerning resilience to a broad range of adversities (Weine 62). While debate continues over which discipline can be credited with first employing resilience as a concept, Mohaupt argues that most of the literature on resilience cites social psychology and psychiatry as the origin for the concept beginning in the mid-20th century. The pioneer researchers of what became known as resilience research studied the impact on children living in dysfunctional families. For example, the findings of work by Garmezy, Werner and Smith and Rutter showed that about one third of children in these studies were coping very well despite considerable adversities and traumas. In asking what it was that prevented the children in their research from being negatively influenced by their home environments, such research provided the basis for future research on resilience. Such work was also ground-breaking for identifying the so-called ‘protective factors’ or resources that individuals can operationalise when dealing with adversity. In essence, protective factors are those conditions in the individual that protect them from the risk of dysfunction and enable recovery from trauma. They mitigate the effects of stressors or risk factors, that is, those conditions that predispose one to harm (Hajek 15). Protective factors include the inborn traits or qualities within an individual, those defining an individual’s environment, and also the interaction between the two. Together, these factors give people the strength, skills and motivation to cope in difficult situations and re-establish (a version of) ‘normal’ life (Gunnestad). Identifying protective factors is important in terms of understanding the particular resources a given sociocultural group has at its disposal, but it is also vital to consider the interconnections between various protective mechanisms, how they might influence each other, and to what degree. An individual, for instance, might display resilience or adaptive functioning in a particular domain (e.g. emotional functioning) but experience significant deficits in another (e.g. academic achievement) (Hunter 2). It is also essential to scrutinise how the interaction between protective factors and risk factors creates patterns of resilience. Finally, a comprehensive understanding of the interrelated nature of protective mechanisms and risk factors is imperative for designing effective interventions and tailored preventive strategies (Weine 65). In short, contemporary thinking about resilience suggests it is neither entirely personal nor strictly social, but an interactive and iterative combination of the two. It is a quality of the environment as much as the individual. For Ungar, resilience is the complex entanglements between “individuals and their social ecologies [that] will determine the degree of positive outcomes experienced” (3). Thinking about resilience as context-dependent is important because research that is too trait-based or actor-centred risks ignoring any structural or institutional forces. A more ecological interpretation of resilience, one that takes into a person’s context and environment into account, is vital in order to avoid blaming the victim for any hardships they face, or relieving state and institutional structures from their responsibilities in addressing social adversity, which can “emphasise self-help in line with a neo-conservative agenda instead of stimulating state responsibility” (Mohaupt 67). Nevertheless, Ungar posits that a coherent definition of resilience has yet to be developed that adequately ‘captures the dual focus of the individual and the individual’s social ecology and how the two must both be accounted for when determining the criteria for judging outcomes and discerning processes associated with resilience’ (7). Recent resilience research has consequently prompted a shift away from vulnerability towards protective processes — a shift that highlights the sustained capabilities of individuals and communities under threat or at risk. Locating ‘Culture’ in the Literature on Resilience However, an understanding of the role of culture has remained elusive or marginalised within this trend; there has been comparatively little sustained investigation into the applicability of resilience constructs to non-western cultures, or how the resources available for survival might differ from those accessible to western populations (Ungar 4). As such, a growing body of researchers is calling for more rigorous inquiry into culturally determined outcomes that might be associated with resilience in non-western or multicultural cultures and contexts, for example where Indigenous and minority immigrant communities live side by side with their ‘mainstream’ neighbours in western settings (Ungar 2). ‘Cultural resilience’ considers the role that cultural background plays in determining the ability of individuals and communities to be resilient in the face of adversity. For Clauss-Ehlers, the term describes the degree to which the strengths of one’s culture promote the development of coping (198). Culturally-focused resilience suggests that people can manage and overcome stress and trauma based not on individual characteristics alone, but also from the support of broader sociocultural factors (culture, cultural values, language, customs, norms) (Clauss-Ehlers 324). The innate cultural strengths of a culture may or may not differ from the strengths of other cultures; the emphasis here is not so much comparatively inter-cultural as intensively intra-cultural (VanBreda 215). A culturally focused resilience model thus involves “a dynamic, interactive process in which the individual negotiates stress through a combination of character traits, cultural background, cultural values, and facilitating factors in the sociocultural environment” (Clauss-Ehlers 199). In understanding ways of ‘coping and hoping, surviving and thriving’, it is thus crucial to consider how culturally and linguistically diverse minorities navigate the cultural understandings and assumptions of both their countries of origin and those of their current domicile (Ungar 12). Gunnestad claims that people who master the rules and norms of their new culture without abandoning their own language, values and social support are more resilient than those who tenaciously maintain their own culture at the expense of adjusting to their new environment. They are also more resilient than those who forego their own culture and assimilate with the host society (14). Accordingly, if the combination of both valuing one’s culture as well as learning about the culture of the new system produces greater resilience and adaptive capacities, serious problems can arise when a majority tries to acculturate a minority to the mainstream by taking away or not recognising important parts of the minority culture. In terms of resilience, if cultural factors are denied or diminished in accounting for and strengthening resilience – in other words, if people are stripped of what they possess by way of resilience built through cultural knowledge, disposition and networks – they do in fact become vulnerable, because ‘they do not automatically gain those cultural strengths that the majority has acquired over generations’ (Gunnestad 14). Mobilising ‘Culture’ in Australian Approaches to Community Resilience The realpolitik of how concepts of resilience and culture are mobilised is highly relevant here. As noted above, when ethnocultural difference is positioned as a risk or a threat to national identity, security and values, this is precisely the moment when vigorously, even aggressively, nationalised definitions of ‘community’ and ‘identity’ that minoritise or disavow cultural diversities come to the fore in public discourse. The Australian evocation of nationalism and national identity, particularly in the way it has framed policy discussion on managing national responses to disasters and threats, has arguably been more muted than some of the European hysteria witnessed recently around cultural diversity and national life. Yet we still struggle with the idea that newcomers to Australia might fall on the surplus rather than the deficit side of the ledger when it comes to identifying and harnessing resilience capital. A brief example of this trend is explored here. From 2006 to 2010, the Australian Emergency Management Institute embarked on an ambitious government-funded four-year program devoted to strengthening community resilience in relation to disasters with specific reference to engaging CALD communities across Australia. The program, Inclusive Emergency Management with CALD Communities, was part of a wider Australian National Action Plan to Build Social Cohesion, Harmony and Security in the wake of the London terrorist bombings in July 2005. Involving CALD community organisations as well as various emergency and disaster management agencies, the program ran various workshops and agency-community partnership pilots, developed national school education resources, and commissioned an evaluation of the program’s effectiveness (Farrow et al.). While my critique here is certainly not aimed at emergency management or disaster response agencies and personnel themselves – dedicated professionals who often achieve remarkable results in emergency and disaster response under extraordinarily difficult circumstances – it is nevertheless important to highlight how the assumptions underlying elements of AEMI’s experience and outcomes reflect the persistent ways in which ethnocultural diversity is rendered as a problem to be surmounted or a liability to be redressed, rather than as an asset to be built upon or a resource to be valued and mobilised. AEMI’s explicit effort to engage with CALD communities in building overall community resilience was important in its tacit acknowledgement that emergency and disaster services were (and often remain) under-resourced and under-prepared in dealing with the complexities of cultural diversity in emergency situations. Despite these good intentions, however, while the program produced some positive outcomes and contributed to crucial relationship building between CALD communities and emergency services within various jurisdictions, it also continued to frame the challenge of working with cultural diversity as a problem of increased vulnerability during disasters for recently arrived and refugee background CALD individuals and communities. This highlights a common feature in community resilience-building initiatives, which is to focus on those who are already ‘robust’ versus those who are ‘vulnerable’ in relation to resilience indicators, and whose needs may require different or additional resources in order to be met. At one level, this is a pragmatic resourcing issue: national agencies understandably want to put their people, energy and dollars where they are most needed in pursuit of a steady-state unified national response at times of crisis. Nor should it be argued that at least some CALD groups, particularly those from new arrival and refugee communities, are not vulnerable in at least some of the ways and for some of the reasons suggested in the program evaluation. However, the consistent focus on CALD communities as ‘vulnerable’ and ‘in need’ is problematic, as well as partial. It casts members of these communities as structurally and inherently less able and less resilient in the context of disasters and emergencies: in some sense, as those who, already ‘victims’ of chronic social deficits such as low English proficiency, social isolation and a mysterious unidentified set of ‘cultural factors’, can become doubly victimised in acute crisis and disaster scenarios. In what is by now a familiar trope, the description of CALD communities as ‘vulnerable’ precludes asking questions about what they do have, what they do know, and what they do or can contribute to how we respond to disaster and emergency events in our communities. A more profound problem in this sphere revolves around working out how best to engage CALD communities and individuals within existing approaches to disaster and emergency preparedness and response. This reflects a fundamental but unavoidable limitation of disaster preparedness models: they are innately spatially and geographically bounded, and consequently understand ‘communities’ in these terms, rather than expanding definitions of ‘community’ to include the dimensions of community-as-social-relations. While some good engagement outcomes were achieved locally around cross-cultural knowledge for emergency services workers, the AEMI program fell short of asking some of the harder questions about how emergency and disaster service scaffolding and resilience-building approaches might themselves need to change or transform, using a cross-cutting model of ‘communities’ as both geographic places and multicultural spaces (Bartowiak-Théron and Crehan) in order to be more effective in national scenarios in which cultural diversity should be taken for granted. Toward Acknowledgement of Resilience Capital Most significantly, the AEMI program did not produce any recognition of the ways in which CALD communities already possess resilience capital, or consider how this might be drawn on in formulating stronger community initiatives around disaster and threats preparedness for the future. Of course, not all individuals within such communities, nor all communities across varying circumstances, will demonstrate resilience, and we need to be careful of either overgeneralising or romanticising the kinds and degrees of ‘resilience capital’ that may exist within them. Nevertheless, at least some have developed ways of withstanding crises and adapting to new conditions of living. This is particularly so in connection with individual and group behaviours around resource sharing, care-giving and social responsibility under adverse circumstances (Grossman and Tahiri) – all of which are directly relevant to emergency and disaster response. While some of these resilient behaviours may have been nurtured or enhanced by particular experiences and environments, they can, as the discussion of recent literature above suggests, also be rooted more deeply in cultural norms, habits and beliefs. Whatever their origins, for culturally diverse societies to achieve genuine resilience in the face of both natural and human-made disasters, it is critical to call on the ‘social memory’ (Folke et al.) of communities faced with responding to emergencies and crises. Such wellsprings of social memory ‘come from the diversity of individuals and institutions that draw on reservoirs of practices, knowledge, values, and worldviews and is crucial for preparing the system for change, building resilience, and for coping with surprise’ (Adger et al.). Consequently, if we accept the challenge of mapping an approach to cultural diversity as resource rather than relic into our thinking around strengthening community resilience, there are significant gains to be made. For a whole range of reasons, no diversity-sensitive model or measure of resilience should invest in static understandings of ethnicities and cultures; all around the world, ethnocultural identities and communities are in a constant and sometimes accelerated state of dynamism, reconfiguration and flux. But to ignore the resilience capital and potential protective factors that ethnocultural diversity can offer to the strengthening of community resilience more broadly is to miss important opportunities that can help suture the existing disconnects between proactive approaches to intercultural connectedness and social inclusion on the one hand, and reactive approaches to threats, national security and disaster response on the other, undermining the effort to advance effectively on either front. This means that dominant social institutions and structures must be willing to contemplate their own transformation as the result of transcultural engagement, rather than merely insisting, as is often the case, that ‘other’ cultures and communities conform to existing hegemonic paradigms of being and of living. In many ways, this is the most critical step of all. A resilience model and strategy that questions its own culturally informed yet taken-for-granted assumptions and premises, goes out into communities to test and refine these, and returns to redesign its approach based on the new knowledge it acquires, would reflect genuine progress toward an effective transculturational approach to community resilience in culturally diverse contexts.References Adger, W. Neil, Terry P. Hughes, Carl Folke, Stephen R. 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NotesThe concept of ‘resilience capital’ I offer here is in line with one strand of contemporary theorising around resilience – that of resilience as social or socio-ecological capital – but moves beyond the idea of enhancing general social connectedness and community cohesion by emphasising the ways in which culturally diverse communities may already be robustly networked and resourceful within micro-communal settings, with new resources and knowledge both to draw on and to offer other communities or the ‘national community’ at large. In effect, ‘resilience capital’ speaks to the importance of finding ‘the communities within the community’ (Bartowiak-Théron and Crehan 11) and recognising their capacity to contribute to broad-scale resilience and recovery.I am indebted for the discussion of the literature on resilience here to Dr Peta Stephenson, Centre for Cultural Diversity and Wellbeing, Victoria University, who is working on a related project (M. Grossman and H. Tahiri, Harnessing Resilience Capital in Culturally Diverse Communities to Counter Violent Extremism, forthcoming 2014).