Ecological Prudence Research Articles

Study on Inheritance Gene of Ecological Civilization in Ancient Water Control Works of Zhejiang Province

It is very difficult to directly judge whether a new water conservancy project meets the requirements of ecological civilization. Based on the knowledge of engineering, archaeology, economics and history, this paper studies the ancient water control engineering by means of comparative analysis, literature review, field investigation, case study, simulation restoration and model demonstration. This paper explores the inheritance genes of water ecological civilization from three dimensions: water philosophy, engineering technology and institutional arrangements. It holds that network flow is the gene of water ecological civilization inherited by ancient water control works in China. Network flow — a flow of resources, economy, culture and value — realizes, to a great degree, the water control goals of physical grooming, economic equilibrium and ecological prudence. From the perspective of water philosophy, it displays a traditional philosophy which is systematic, prudent and dialectical. In terms of engineering technology, network flow uses astronomical-geographic information complex system to plan water sources, design structures to utilize hydro energy, regulate water quality, protect aquatic organisms, so as to form a natural-artificial water system network. In view of institutional arrangements, it constructs a hierarchical system at national, local and private levels, integrating the water conservancy practices of ancient Chinese and the essence of the traditional culture and ideology.

Institutional markets: commercialization and qualification of organic products

In order to encourage the production of healthy food, with ecological prudence, institutional food markets began to demand in their contracting products from organic agriculture. However, there are many difficulties of farmers in raising the logistics costs of their production, otherwise they will lose money through negligence. This study aimed toanalyze marketing channels for organic products from family farms engaged in supplying school lunches (PNAE) in order to propose an alternative to sustaining logistics costs in this process. The research was exploratory and descriptive, using aqualitative approach, based on a systematic literature review and a case study of a cooperative that receives and sells products from organic farmers to supply the PNAE, combined with a documentary analysis. The data were analyzed using content analysis. The results showed that logistics costs have a direct influence on the formation of the final price of products from organic farming, particularly those related to transport costs and administrative costs. The information presented may serve on the one hand, for Executing Entities at the moment of composing the reference prices of the products published in public calls, and on the other for farmers,so they can make a more informed assessment of the predefined prices.Keywords: institutional markets; organic agriculture; price formation; logistic costs.LEITÃO, Fabrício Oliveira; SILVA, Warley Henrique; DEL GROSSI, Mauro Eduardo. Mercados institucionais: comercialização e aferição de produtos orgânicos. Estudos Sociedade e Agricultura, v. 27, n. 3, p. 590-616, out. 2019.Submitted in February 2019.Accepted in August 2019.

Sustentabilidade no Brasil: Uma Análise nos Disclosure Socioambientais em Instituições Bancárias Privadas Signatárias da Gri

Na atualidade, existe um estímulo a práticas e politicas sustentáveis em torno das questões voltadas ao meio ambiente, o que exige mudanças de atitudes para um novo modelo de desenvolvimento, combinando: prudência ecológica, crescimento econômico e desenvolvimento sustentável. Esta pesquisa teve como objetivo, verificar quais são as principais iniciativas para mitigar impactos ao meio ambiente, sob a ótica socioambiental adotada pelas instituições bancária privadas no Brasil, bem como, identificar nos disclosures as ações que norteiam o desenvolvimento sustentável no modelo GRI. A metodologia utilizada foi por meio de análise de conteúdo e análise de correspondência (ANACOR), com o auxílio do software Atlas.ti e o software SPSS 20. Os resultados levam a concluir que as principais iniciativas são os programas que visam mitigar impactos ambientais direcionados a gestão das emissões, educação ambiental, programas de ecoeficiência e mecanismos de desenvolvimento limpo.

Birth and Growth of M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai

The M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) set up as a not-for-profit scientific trust with M. S. Swaminathan as the Founder-Chairman in 1988 is dedicated to sustainable agriculture, natural resources management and rural development. Relevant science and ecotechnologies are harnessed for fostering human livelihood and conservation of nature. MSSRF has developed biovillages and modern ICT-based Village Knowledge Centres (VKCs) for skill and knowledge empowerment respectively of the rural communities. Ecotechnologies are the resultant of lending frontier technologies with traditional knowledge and ecological prudence of the indigenous communities. These have pro-nature, pro-poor and prowomen orientation. The evergreen revolution of MSSRF is designed to fight both the famines of food and rural livelihoods. As against the bureaucratic 'top-down' approach, MSSRF practices 'bottom-up' and participatory approach. The VKCs with lab to land and land to lab linkages provide solutions almost instantaneously to the problems of the small and marginal farming, fishing and landless rural families. These are briefly discussed in the paper.

The new technological paradigm and sustainable development

A substantial shift is taking place in the handling of the energy problem. Centred at first on the scarcity of energy resources, strategic thinking later on moved to the tandem issues of energy saving and environmental conservation with economic growth rates and energy consumption increasingly getting decoupled: Now that strategic thinking is being concentrated on sustainable development, which tries to tie up economic development and energy consumption with ecological prudence In a qualitatively new way, scientific and technological advances form a decisive link that ensures this synergy will work provided the underlying philosophies of the new technological paradigm of intelligence–based production assert themselves. The streamlining of technological advance towards sustainable development poses specific challenges to be met in different parts of the world. In this global context the former East bloc countries in their transformation to market economies are at a policy crossroads. They face a choice of different approaches to the handling of energy and ecological problems which offers new opportunities and poses new risks.

Managing extreme natural disasters in coastal areas

Extreme natural hazards, particularly the hydro-meteorological disasters, are emerging as a cause of major concern in the coastal regions of India and a few other developing countries. These have become more frequent in the recent past, and are taking a heavy toll of life and livelihoods. Low level of technology development in the rural areas together with social, economic and gender inequities enhance the vulnerability of the largely illiterate, unskilled, and resource-poor fishing, farming and landless labour communities. Their resilience to bounce back to pre-disaster level of normality is highly limited. For the planet Earth at crossroads, the imminent threat, however, is from a vicious spiral among environmental degradation, poverty and climate change-related natural disasters interacting in a mutually reinforcing manner. These, in turn, retard sustainable development, and also wipe out any small gains made thereof. To counter this unacceptable trend, the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation has developed a biovillage paradigm and rural knowledge centres for ecotechnological and knowledge empowerment of the coastal communities at risk. Frontier science and technologies blended with traditional knowledge and ecological prudence result in ecotechnologies with pro-nature, pro-poor and pro-women orientation. The rural communities are given training and helped to develop capacity to adopt ecotechnologies for market-driven eco-enterprises. The modern information and communication-based rural knowledge centres largely operated by trained semi-literate young women provide time- and locale-specific information on weather, crop and animal husbandry, market trends and prices for local communities, healthcare, transport, education, etc. to the local communities. The ecotechnologies and time- and locale-specific information content development are need-based and chosen in a 'bottom-up' manner. The use of recombinant DNA technology for genetic shielding of agricultural crops for coastal regions against abiotic stress (induced by the water- and weather-related natural disasters), strengthens the foundations of sustainable agriculture undertaken by the resource-poor small farm families.

Sustainable Development of the Organic Waste Recycling System of Tachikawa Town, Yamagata

Human beings must establish a sustainable, recycling-based society, which is involved in the recycling of organic waste. We analyzed the sustainable development of the organic waste recycling system of Tachikawa Town in Yamagata on the basis of three standards of sustainable development—ecological prudence, economic efficiency, and social equity. The results are as follows. The evaluation of ecological prudence reveals that this system circulates the resources—from kitchen garbage to compost and from compost to rice products—without any leftovers. The evaluation of economic efficiency shows that the total benefit of this system is more than its total cost. The evaluation of social equity reveals that fiscal expenditure of the town on this system is proportional to the citizens' willingness to pay.

THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE AND THE BOOK OF PROVERBS: TOWARD AN ETHIC OF ECOLOGICAL PRUDENCE IN OCEAN MANAGEMENT

AbstractRecent catastrophes in environmental management, such as population collapses in oceanic fisheries, have led environmental activists and scholars to invoke the precautionary principle (PP). In its strong form, PP demands that no human-initiated change in an ecosystem be permitted unless it is certain it will do no harm; while, in its weak form, PP holds that if an action might be environmentally harmful, regulators may, on best evidence, limit human activities to avoid damaging ecosystem perturbations. Implementing PP, however, presents epistemological, logical and practical difficulties. This paper compares the function of PP to that of the Biblical Wisdom literature in encouraging ecological prudence, and argues that PP should be replaced by a series of guiding concepts, dealing with the limitations of ecological knowledge and the flaws in human character most likely to result in environmental disaster. The environmental cases analysed are from oceanic fisheries management.

Human Ecology in India Some Historical Perspectives

AbstractBefore the spread of extensive settled cultivation, the Indian subcontinent would have been inhabited by territorial hunter–gatherers and shifting cultivators with cultural traditions of prudent resource use. The disruption of closed material cycles by export of agricultural produce to centres of non-agricultural population would have weakened these traditions. Indeed, the fire-based sacrificial ritual and extensive agricultural settlements might have catalysed the destruction of forests and wildlife and the suppression of tribal peoples during the agricultural colonization of the Gangetic plains. Buddhism, Jainism and later the Hindu sects may have been responses to the need for a reassertion of ecological prudence once the more fertile lands were brought under cultivation. British rule radically changed the focus of the country's resource use pattern from production of a variety of biological resources for local consumption to the production of a few commodities largely for export. The resulting...

Cultural evolution of ecological prudence

Animals often behave in a profligate fashion and decimate the populations of plants and animals they depend upon. They may, however, evolve prudent behaviour under special conditions, namely when such prudence greatly enhances the success of populations that are not too prone to invasions by profligate individuals. Cultural evolution in human societies can also lead to the adoption of prudent practices under similar conditions. These are more likely to be realized in stable environments in which the human populations tend to grow close to the carrying capacity, when the human groups are closed, and when the technology is stagnant. These conditions probably prevailed in the hunter—gatherer societies of the tropics and subtropics, and led to the adoption of a number of socially imposed restraints on the use of plant and animal resources. Such practices were rationalized in the form of Nature-worship. The Indian caste society became so organized as to fulfill these conditions, and gave rise to two religions, Buddhism and Jainism, which emphasize compassion towards all forms of life. The pastoral nomads of the middle east, on the other hand, lived in an environment which militated against prudence, and these societies gave rise to religions like Christianity, which declared war on nature. As the ruling elite and state have grown in power, they have tried to wrest control of natural resources from the local communities. This has sometimes resulted in conservation and prudent use under guidance from the state, but has often led to conflicts with local populations to the detriment of prudent behaviour. Modern technological progress has also often removed the need for conservation, as when availability of coal permitted the deforestation of England. While modern scientific understanding has led to a better appreciation of the need for prudence, the prevailing social and economic conditions often militate against any implementation of the understanding, as is seen from the history of whaling. However, the imperative for survival of the poor from the Third-World countries may finally bring about conditions in which ecological prudence may once again come to dominate human cultures as it might once have done with stable societies of hunter—gatherers.

Civilization Project and Ecological Prudence

With the full development of Man as its central concern, this paper rejects both economism, which sees Nature as something to be appropriated without regard for its finiteness and fine balance, and ecologism, which treats the conservation of nature as an end in itself without regard for the well-being of the race. It steers clear of the false choice between economic growth and quality of life, and proposes, instead, a strategy of development that makes the maximum use of the flows of renewable resources but only a sparing use of Nature's capital stock, through the employment of prudent technological styles with the help of science and the devising of appropriate social organization at all levels. The strategy is relevant no less to the industrialized countries than to the countries of the Third World. The strategy calls for a ceiling on material consumption to ensure to everyone the satisfaction of basic human needs. It does not envisage a return to some past mythical golden age but takes the present situation as given, and then goes on to outline the steps by which a style of development can be attained that does not entail great social costs and that is consistent with enlarged social responsibility.