Environmental Management Regimes Research Articles

Research alignment in the U.S. national park system: Impact of transformative science policy on the supply and demand for scientific knowledge for protected area management

The US National Park System encompasses diverse environmental and tourism management regimes, together governed by the 1916 Organic Act and its dual mandate of conservation and provision of public enjoyment. However, with the introduction of transformative science policy in the 2000's, the mission scope has since expanded to promote overarching science-based objectives. Yet despite this paradigm shift instituting “science for parks, parks for science”, there is scant research exploring the impact of the National Park Science Policy on the provision of knowledge. We address this gap by developing a spatiotemporal framework for evaluating research alignment, here operationalized via quantifiable measures of supply and demand for scientific knowledge. Specifically, we apply a machine learning algorithm (Latent Dirichlet analysis) to a comprehensive park-specific text corpus (combining official needs statements -i.e. demand- and scientific research metadata -i.e. supply-) to define a joint topic space, which thereby facilitates quantifying the direction and degree of alignment at multiple levels. Results indicate an overall robust degree of research alignment, with misaligned topics tending to be over-researched (as opposed to over-demanded), which may be favorable to many parks, but is inefficient from the park system perspective. Results further indicate that the transformative science policy exacerbated the misalignment in mandated research domains. In light of these results, we argue for improved decision support mechanisms to achieve more timely alignment of research efforts towards distinctive park needs, thereby fostering convergent knowledge co-production and leveraging the full value of National Parks as living laboratories.

Assessing carbon storage capacity and saturation across six central US grasslands using data–model integration

Abstract. Future global changes will impact carbon (C) fluxes and pools in most terrestrial ecosystems and the feedback of terrestrial carbon cycling to atmospheric CO2. Determining the vulnerability of C in ecosystems to future environmental change is thus vital for targeted land management and policy. The C capacity of an ecosystem is a function of its C inputs (e.g., net primary productivity – NPP) and how long C remains in the system before being respired back to the atmosphere. The proportion of C capacity currently stored by an ecosystem (i.e., its C saturation) provides information about the potential for long-term C pools to be altered by environmental and land management regimes. We estimated C capacity, C saturation, NPP, and ecosystem C residence time in six US grasslands spanning temperature and precipitation gradients by integrating high temporal resolution C pool and flux data with a process-based C model. As expected, NPP across grasslands was strongly correlated with mean annual precipitation (MAP), yet C residence time was not related to MAP or mean annual temperature (MAT). We link soil temperature, soil moisture, and inherent C turnover rates (potentially due to microbial function and tissue quality) as determinants of carbon residence time. Overall, we found that intermediates between extremes in moisture and temperature had low C saturation, indicating that C in these grasslands may trend upwards and be buffered against global change impacts. Hot and dry grasslands had greatest C saturation due to both small C inputs through NPP and high C turnover rates during soil moisture conditions favorable for microbial activity. Additionally, leaching of soil C during monsoon events may lead to C loss. C saturation was also high in tallgrass prairie due to frequent fire that reduced inputs of aboveground plant material. Accordingly, we suggest that both hot, dry ecosystems and those frequently disturbed should be subject to careful land management and policy decisions to prevent losses of C stored in these systems.

The Complex Reality of National Park Development under Authoritarianism

Vietnam is simultaneously an aspiring environmental state and an authoritarian one. As such, it has clearly articulated policies for biodiversity protection, including measures to secure the livelihoods of communities adjacent to national parks. However, the realities on the ground often confound state environmental discourse. The national parks in the highlands were created through new forms of territorial domination after the war, while continued in-migration and development have made these parks contested spaces that are fraught with pervasive inequities and unsettled ethnic relations. Among the consequences of this weak legitimacy are illegal logging and poaching; indecisive management and protection; and rapidly declining biodiversity, with severe impacts on local livelihoods. Based on a study of two parks in southern Vietnam, this article explores the real-life complexities of national park development under authoritarianism, including the persistent gap between state environmental rhetoric and locally negotiated illegalities. It finds that the key characteristics of authoritarian environmentalism drive a bifurcation of environmental management regimes: a formal, top-down domain of policy- and law-making, serving multiple purposes of legitimation, and a contingent domain of provincial development priorities and locally negotiated use rights. Despite the apparent disorder, both are equally significant to the party-state’s resilience.

Open‐access renewable resources and pollution: Trade and policy implications in a two‐country model

AbstractWe examine the interaction between the relative inter‐industry pollution externality and resource stock externality of harvesting in deciding trade patterns and welfare gains from trade in a two‐country model (less‐developed countries) with renewable resources in the absence of resource management. This paper focuses on the impacts of trade policies on resource conservation and welfare outcomes in two countries with different environmental management regimes. Differences in pollution management standards between both countries determine the direction of trade flow and gains from trade in a diversified production case. The country with a lower pollution intensity parameter, an exporter of resource goods, certainly experiences welfare loss in the post‐trade steady‐state and may also suffer a decline in utility throughout the transition path. However, a country with higher pollution intensity and importers of resource goods tend to gain from trade. Under national open‐access resources, given that pollution is regulated up to a certain point in both countries, this study finds that implementing better restrictions on only one externality factor is not optimal from a post‐trade welfare perspective. Lastly, from the point of view of policy suggestion, this paper offers an optimal trade policy that the economic and environmental effects of enforcing import tax on resource goods are likely to be Pareto‐improving consequences compared to the implications of using an export tax.

More than a ‘voice’: Indigenous transmission in the Murray-Darling Basin Plan

The Uluru Statement (2017) has recently focused attention on Indigenous state relations as an Indigenous ‘voice’ to government. For decades, Indigenous peoples in Australia have sought a meaningful voice in settler state environmental planning and management regimes, with limited success. Little attention has been paid to what constitutes an effective Indigenous voice. I conceptualise Australian Indigenous environmental planning and management as a dual deliberative system where Indigenous groups must transmit their messages into settler institutions and processes. I analyse the democratic quality of this transmission between two Indigenous deliberative forums, Northern Basin Aboriginal Nations and the Murray Lower Darling Rivers Indigenous Nations and the commonwealth Murray-Darling Basin Authority in developing the controversial Murray-Darling Basin Plan (2012). These deliberative forums improve the transmission quality of Indigenous environmental discourses. They are more than a voice; they are a democratic innovation which goes beyond the limits of state ‘inclusion’ of Indigenous environmental values.

Vegetation Changes Following Large-scale Fence Removal Across a Protected Area Network Within the Kruger to Canyons Biosphere Reserve, South Africa

In the early 1990’s, reserves adjacent to Kruger National Park (KNP) removed their fences to create a continuous landscape within the Kruger to Canyons Biosphere Reserve. Understanding how these interconnected multi-management systems responded to changes in environmental factors and management regimes can help to maintain natural large-scale landscape heterogeneity and ecological resilience. Our objective was to analyze remote sensing-derived vegetation metric changes between the different management types pre- and post-fence removal. The study area included fourteen reserves and the central section of KNP. We calculated the residuals between TIMESAT-derived metrics (from AVHRR NDVI time series) and rainfall to analyze changes in vegetation from 1985 to 2006. We then compared vegetation-rainfall residuals between different management types pre- and post-fence removal using mean–variance plots, nonmetric multidimensional scaling plots, and permutational multivariate analysis of variance to statistically identify and analyze changes. All management types experienced increased greenness. Reserves that removed their fences had greater changes in vegetation post-fence removal compared to reserves that remained fenced and KNP. Our findings suggest managers may need to address landscape changes by implementing management regimes such as reducing artificial surface water to counterbalance increased grazing pressure as a result of increased animal mobility across artificially created resource gradients. Habitat connectivity within and between protected area networks can be achieved by removing fences across adjacent conservation areas thus potentially increasing ecological resilience, which is vital to effective long-term conservation.

The impact of environment on genetic and epigenetic variation in Trifolium pratense populations from two contrasting semi-natural grasslands.

Central European grasslands, such as calcareous grasslands and oat-grass meadows, are characterized by diverse environmental conditions and management regimes. Therefore, we aimed to determine potential differences in genetic and epigenetic variation patterns between the contrasting habitats and to identify the drivers of genetic and epigenetic variation. We investigated the genetic and epigenetic variation of the ecologically variable plant species Trifolium pratense L. applying amplified fragment length polymorphism and methylation-sensitive amplification polymorphism analyses. We observed low levels of genetic and epigenetic differentiation among populations and between habitat types. Genetic and epigenetic variations were not interdependent. Thus, genetic variation was significantly isolated by habitat dissimilarity, whereas epigenetic variation was affected by environment. More specifically, we observed a significant correlation of epigenetic diversity with soil moisture and soil pH (the latter potentially resulting in phosphorus limitation). Genetic variation was, therefore, affected more strongly by habitat-specific environmental conditions induced by land use-related disturbance and gene flow patterns, while epigenetic variation was driven by challenging environmental conditions.

Conservation Law in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean: the Antarctic Treaty System, conservation, and environmental protection

ABSTRACT The Antarctic Treaty System provides the corpus of law that governs the obligations of its Parties to protect and conserve the Antarctic environment. The System consists principally of the Antarctic Treaty (the Treaty), the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CAMLR Convention), and the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty (Environmental Protocol). The Antarctic Treaty establishes the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting – the body that makes decisions under the provisions of the Treaty and Environmental Protocol. The CAMLR Convention establishes the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) – its decision-making body. Together, these two international bodies are responsible for the modern-day conservation and environmental management regimes for Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. This paper looks at the scope of law developed under the Antarctic Treaty System and its evolution; and at the interaction between the different components of the Antarctic Treaty System. The paper also forecasts some of the future challenges to conservation and environmental protection in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean.

Historical smellscapes in Aotearoa New Zealand: Intersections between colonial knowledges of smell, race, and wetlands

This paper explores European (Pākehā) settlers' perceptions of smells and why certain smells were labelled as threatening and transgressive, whereas others were deemed desirable and health-inducing. Whether it was the stench of dried fish, the musky odours of wetlands or the scent of flowers, representations of smell pervade the writings of Pākehā in Aotearoa New Zealand. In this paper, we draw attention to the critical role smells played in Pākehā settlers' perceptions of and efforts to radically remake terrestrial and freshwater systems of the Waipā and Waikato Rivers (located in the North Island of Aotearoa New Zealand) in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Smells, scents, and aromas were all-powerful aides connected to Pākehā settlers' understandings of health and disease. They influenced individual settlers and settler colonial government actions to remake landscapes and waterscapes. Nevertheless, smellscapes are largely overlooked by scholars when discussing environmental change and management regimes.

Major insect groups show distinct responses to local and regional attributes of urban green spaces

Urban green spaces vary in their local and regional attributes, and this variation can have contrasting effects on the ability of urban green spaces to support biodiversity. Here we assess the response of four insect taxa to urban development in Sydney, Australia, using a multiscale approach. We sampled four insect orders (Coleoptera, Diptera, Hemiptera and Hymenoptera) at 19 sites and employed a) multivariate analyses to test the responses of insect communities to environmental management regimes, and b) generalised linear models to determine taxa responses to urban green spaces at local and regional scales. We hypothesised that environmental management regimes (forest, urban forest remnant, and recreational park) affected the species composition of insect communities but found no evidence to support this hypothesis. Only species composition of hemipteran communities responded at this scale, with assemblages in urban forest remnants distinct to those in forests and recreational parks. Conversely, site attributes at local and regional scales had distinct effects on each insect group. While species richness of all taxa was positively related to local flower species richness, they exhibited variable responses to regional attributes such as greenspace proportion and site area. The taxon-specific response to local and regional attributes of urban green spaces suggest that there is no silver-bullet for managing local or regional traits to promote diversity of major insect groups in urban areas. These results highlight the opportunities for managers and planners to develop unique and targeted taxon-specific interventions aiming to enhance urban insect diversity.

Positive Effects of Legumes on Soil Organic Carbon Stocks Disappear at High Legume Proportions Across Natural Grasslands in the Pyrenees

Soil is the largest terrestrial carbon pool, making it crucial for climate change mitigation. Soil organic carbon (SOC) is suggested to depend on biodiversity components, but much evidence comes from diversity-function experiments. To disentangle the relationships of plant guild diversity with SOC storage (kg m−2) at broad spatial scales, we applied diversity-interaction models to a regional grassland database (n = 96) including wide environmental conditions and management regimes. The questions were: (1) Are the effects of plant guilds on SOC stocks in natural grasslands consistent with those found in experimental systems? (2) Are plant guild effects on SOC stocks independent of each other or do they show interactive—synergistic or antagonistic—effects? (3) Do environmental variables, including abiotic and management, modify guild effects on SOC stocks? Among our most novel results we found, legume effects on grassland SOC vary depending on legume proportion consistently across broad spatial scales. SOC increased with legume proportion up to 7–17%, then decreased. Additionally, these effects were strengthened when grasses and forbs were codominant. Grazing intensity modulated grass proportion effects on SOC, being maximum at relatively high intensities. Interpreting our results in terms of existing contrasted ecological theories, we confirmed at broad spatial scales and under wide-ranging environmental conditions the positive effects of plant guild diversity on SOC, and we showed how legumes exert a keystone effect on SOC in natural grasslands, probably related to their ability to fix inorganic N. Niche complementarity effects were illustrated when codominance of forbs and grasses at optimum legume proportions boosted SOC storage, whereas grass dominance increased SOC stocks at medium–high grazing intensities. These findings can facilitate the preparation of regional and local strategies to ameliorate the soil capacity to absorb carbon.

Environmental Impact Assessment of the Spatial Organization of the Nizhnekhopersky Natural Park of the Volgograd Region

The article considers the problem of territorial protection of nature as a factor impeding the socioeconomic development of settlements located within the borders of the Nizhnekhopersky natural park. The key problem of the functioning of regional specially protected natural territories is the contradiction between the need to protect undisturbed natural-territorial complexes and the development of settlement territories that find themselves in the zone of limited economic activity. The development of settlement territories involves the removal of existing restrictions on the civil circulation of land plots, the construction and reconstruction of capital construction facilities. Solving the problem of economic stagnation by adjusting borders and excluding settlements from the natural park entails the need to conduct an environmental impact assessment of future economic activities in areas seized from specially protected natural areas. The forecast assessment of the consequences of possible anthropogenic impacts on the landscapes and ecosystems of the Nizhnekhopersky natural park after changing its area, functional organization and environmental management regimes in the allocated areas was carried out using a modified network method. The results of the research showed that the strengthening of the anthropogenic press as a result of the implementation of measures for the deployment of processing production, the construction of roads and engineering communications (electrification, gasification), housing construction, as well as due to the increase in recreational load, including the spread of uncontrolled recreation, the environmental efficiency of the natural park will naturally decrease.

Linking Territorial and Coastal Planning: Conservation Status and Management of Mangrove Ecosystem at the Egyptian - African Red Sea Coast

The present study was conducted to get proper knowledge regarding the mangrove forests areas, boundaries, growing geomorphologic forms, understand mangrove importance and threats in Egypt and to helping suggest the remedial measures needed for proper conservation of mangrove ecosystem in Egypt. The major threats to mangroves in Egypt are the exploitation of it for coastal development (as removal for constructing hotels, roads and other infrastructureas), firewood, camel feed and timber. by human beings, this leads to a great loss of mangrove biodiversity. Knowledge of mangrove species zonation is essential in determining suitable areas of different species. Where, it is difficult to generalize planting sites for successful mangrove restoration, as this will depend on local environmental conditions and the species to be planted. Therefore, urgently need to evaluate the success of rehabilitation trials of mangroves that implemented before along Red Sea coast to contribute in success of current and future conservation activities for mangroves. In current study, since the results of restoration activities may vary within the environmental condition and management regime, assessment of the efficiency of restoration activities in different scenarios is necessary. Thus, our focus should be extended from developing the regulatory framework of carbon accounting to improving management and policy in mangrove restoration as forest carbon stock enhancement. This holistic effort would increase the benefit of mangrove ecosystem services for communities.

The Greening of Antarctica: Assembling an International Environment by Alessandro Antonello

Reviewed by: The Greening of Antarctica: Assembling an International Environment by Alessandro Antonello John McCannon The Greening of Antarctica: Assembling an International Environment. By alessandro antonello. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. 264 pp. ISBN 9780190907174. $78.00. A perennial challenge in the writing of polar history involves the need to push back against popular perceptions of circumpolar regions as unchanging spaces, largely (if not wholly) empty of human habitation and peripheral to the concerns of all but a few remote communities. And the scholars burdened most by this challenge are those who research the Antarctic, which—unlike the various sectors of the Arctic—lacks any indigenous population or any direct physical or socio-political ties with the nation-states of more temperate zones. Indeed, not until the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries did the continent even enter the bounds of human awareness. To combat the prevailing sense of Antarctica as marginal and timeless—in other words, to make it a truly historical subject—has never been an easy task. [End Page 727] Difficult or not, this is one of the several goals that Alessandro Antonello sets for himself in The Greening of Antarctica. This clearly written and cogently argued monograph effectively blends environmental studies and diplomatic history to show how treaty-making and scientific agenda-setting between 1959 and 1980 transformed Antarctica "from a cold, abiotic, and sterile wilderness [and] a lifeless and inert stage for geopolitical competition" into "a fragile environment and ecosystem demanding international protection and management" (p. 4). Nothing about this process, especially its outcome, was preordained: although Antarctica's near-inviolability is generally taken for granted today, thanks to the treaty system that safeguards it so closely, it did not come into being automatically, and the continent could just as easily—arguably, more easily—have met an entirely different fate. Antonello takes pains to show the decades of debate and negotiation it took to secure the continent's status as a protected ecosystem, free of claims to sovereignty. To alter, then stabilize, "the idea of what Antarctica is," as Antonello puts it, required the complex interplay of "ever-increasing knowledge of the Antarctic, a larger place for scientific voices, profound changes in concepts of the global environment, changes in international political economy, and the continuing reality of national self-interest" (pp. 3–4). The Greening of Antarctica is logically organized into five chapters, preceded by an introduction and followed by a short epilogue. In addition to describing Antonello's approaches to his topic, the introduction provides a useful thumbnail sketch of Antarctic history, leading up to and including 1959, when the Antarctic Treaty was brought into being by its twelve original signatories (Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Chile, France, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the USSR). The introduction also explains why Antonello has chosen to focus on the period between 1959 and 1980: although much of the scholarly consensus identifies 1991—when the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty opened for signature—as the pivotal moment in the history of Antarctic conservation, Antonello wishes to draw attention to earlier moments that are, in his view, not just equally decisive, but foundational. The "seeds" of today's "comprehensive environmental protection and management regime," he argues, "can be found in the 1960s and 1970s" (p. 17). With one exception, each of the book's core chapters examines a key protocol or agreement, illustrating along the way how diplomats and politicians from over a dozen countries, scientists from numerous [End Page 728] disciplines, commercial interests from all over the world, environmental NGOs, and the general public all exercised various degrees of influence over the eventual "greening" of Antarctica—sometimes in support of that goal, sometimes in opposition to it. Chapter One traces the emergence of SCAR, the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, and the way it claimed a role for itself in shaping the continent's fate, alongside (and often in conflict with) the official delegations that negotiated and refined the 1959 Antarctic Treaty. Several of SCAR's biologists, particularly Robert Carrick of Australia, campaigned against the utilitarian impulses that threatened to dominate Antarctic policymaking and brought conservation...

Sustainable Forest Management Tools for the Moscow Region

The paper presents an inventory of current forest formations and a map of forest vegetation in the Moscow region. To assess current forest formations, an approach integrating both ground- and remote sensing data was applied. The transformation of forests in the Moscow region was evaluated by the criteria of changing the quality, quantity and spatial configuration of forests, in accordance with the model SLOSS (Single Large or Several Small). The conceptual model "Pressure-State-Response" (hereinafter PRS) was used to develop appropriate tools for sustainable environmental management in the region. The use of this model made it possible not only to assess the state of forests but also to determine the main impacts affecting them, as well as the effectiveness of measures aimed at optimizing environmental management regimes in order to maintain forest biodiversity. Complex assessment of sets of indicators for each group of PRS criteria is performed for the integrated multicriteria assessment of sustainable forest management within the boundaries of urban districts. The average normalized score was calculated for each group of criteria. Correlation between the scores of the groups of criteria evaluated and classification of administrative units according to the ratio of groups of the K-means method criteria performed. As a result of component-by-component evaluation, the values of indicators are presented in form of tables and map сharts. Benchmarking of Specially Protected Natural Area (SPNA) system and reforestation activities is performed regarding to the forest biodiversity conservation in the urban districts. It is shown that single integrated assessment of the ecological value of the territory (the "State" criterion), an integrated assessment of impact factors (the "Load") and appropriate actions to maintain forest biodiversity (the "Response" criterion) can be considered as an expression of generalized information directly used in decision-making and assessment of current trends for a particular region.

Genetic diversity and differentiation of even-aged Norway spruce stands in Latvia

Norway spruce (Picea abies L. Karst.) is an important species in Latvia both ecologically and economically, and has been subjected to silvicultural management in Latvia since at least the middle of the 19th century. Forest regeneration activities starting in the 1960s resulted in the establishment of spruce stands with uncertified and often undocumented reproductive material. These spruce stands were often established by sowing, and no research or clear guidelines regarding the optimal density were available. As a result, many spruce stands were established and maintained at a high density. The growth of young spruce stands is initially slow, with annual height increment of 10-20 cm until the trees reach height of approximately two meters and in favourable growth conditions this stage is followed by a rapid increase in all stand parameters. However, the growth of some even-aged pure spruce stands abruptly declines at the age of approximately 40 years, while in other stands of similar age and composition this decrease or collapse is not observed. A comprehensive survey of even-aged spruce stands in Latvia has been undertaken, and factors influencing this decline in the growth potential of even-aged spruce stands have also been investigated, however, the genetic diversity and differentiation of even-aged spruce stands has not been investigated. A total of 19 SSR markers were utilised to genotype the 7 even aged spruce stands with differing growth potential. The genetic analysis and comparison of the perspective and non-perspective even-aged spruce stands indicated that the genetic diversity was not decreased in the non-perspective stands, and that genetic differentiation between stands and groups with differing growth potential assessments was low. The results obtained in this study suggest that the growth potential of even-aged Norway spruce stands is more dependent on the influence of environmental factors and management regime than genetic factors. This is a positive message, as in this case the conditions may be changed by the application of suitable management regime.

Greater goods: ethics, energy, and other‐than‐human speech

AbstractRenewable energy projects are ethically laudable for their cleansing intentions, but they also produce effects upon other‐than‐human beings in their orbit. Taking the case of Mexico's Isthmus of Tehuantepec, which is home to the densest concentration of on‐shore wind parks anywhere in the world, and following Foucault's reading of the speech form ‘parrhesia’, this essay argues that the bodies of affected nonhuman beings, particularly those whose existence is actively balanced against a ‘greater good’ for humanity, enact a form of other‐than‐human speech, first in their threatened status and, secondly, through environmental management regimes that seek to synchronize human and nonhuman lives in settings of both local and global ecological failures.

Resilience to exogenous shocks in environmental management regimes in the Arctic – lessons learned from survivors

ABSTRACT A changing climate will impact not only the environment but all levels of governance thereof, including the context of the close to 400 multilateral environmental management agreements signed since the year 2000. For the Ocean, researchers project that the increasing sea surface temperatures will facilitate large changes in the marine food web, including large shifts in distribution patterns of marine life towards the north and cooler waters. These new distributions of marine resources have political consequences. But to what extent will these climatic stressors act as an external ‘shock’ to existing management regimes in the Arctic? How resilient are the current Arctic management regimes? We illustrate these questions with a particular on-going case of the sharing of the Northeast Atlantic mackerel quota. The negotiation difficulties among Norway, the EU, Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland and Russia initiated by the the vast expansion its distribution pattern gives us a hint of what is to come if business-as-usual scenarios of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) come to pass. We further focus our analysis on the Svalbard Fisheries Protection Zone, to learn from other environmental management regimes that have lived through exogenous shocks. Finally, we discuss the impact exogenous shocks have had on three different environmental management regimes: the impact of the ozone hole on the ozone regime, the impact of Black Forest death (‘Waldsterben’) on the Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution, and the impact on Regional Fisheries Management Organizations of the creation of Exclusive Economic Zones under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Complementarity of indigenous and western scientific approaches for monitoring forest state.

Cross-cultural environmental monitoring systems inform on a broad suite of indicators relevant to both scientific and local communities. In this study, we used forest-plot-based survey measures developed by western scientists and a set of community-based survey indicators developed by Māori, the indigenous people of New Zealand (NZ), to compare the current state of two ecologically congruent forests (Whirinaki and Ruatāhuna), as they related to a historic Ruatāhuna forest state (Baseline; 1955-1975) in NZ. Both the plot-based and community-based field surveys indicated that the Whirinaki forest was in a better state than the Ruatāhuna forest. This was supported by a stronger mauri (concept of life essence) rating assigned by Māori elders to the Whirinaki forest compared with the Ruatāhuna forests. However, both the Ruatāhuna and Whirinaki forests were deemed to be in a significantly poorer state than the Baseline forest. A cross-cultural monitoring system provides understanding of forest state that both managers and communities can use for decision-making. Historical baselines of forest state can provide ecological targets for restoration initiatives and also identify where on the restoration continuum current forest indicators lie. The alignment of plot-based measures with community-based indicators offers possibilities for future-proofing a cross-cultural monitoring system and buffering it from intergenerational shifts in ecological baselines. The opportunity for indigenous peoples and local communities to apply their traditional ways of knowing, and interpret and act on information they understand are crucial components of cross-cultural environmental management regimes.

Comparing forest structure and biodiversity on private and public land: secondary tropical dry forests in Costa Rica

AbstractSecondary forests constitute a substantial proportion of tropical forestlands. These forests occur on both public and private lands and different underlying environmental variables and management regimes may affect post‐abandonment successional processes and resultant forest structure and biodiversity. We examined whether differences in ownership led to differences in forest structure, tree diversity, and tree species composition across a gradient of soil fertility and forest age. We collected soil samples and surveyed all trees in 82 public and 66 private 0.1‐ha forest plots arrayed across forest age and soil gradients in Guanacaste, Costa Rica. We found that soil fertility appeared to drive the spatial structure of public vs. private ownership; public conservation lands appeared to be non‐randomly located on areas of lower soil fertility. On private lands, areas of crops/pasture appeared to be non‐randomly located on higher soil fertility areas while forests occupied areas of lower soil fertility. We found that forest structure and tree species diversity did not differ significantly between public and private ownership. However, public and private forests differed in tree species composition: 11 percent were more prevalent in public forest and 7 percent were more prevalent in private forest. Swietenia macrophylla, Cedrela odorata, and Astronium graveolens were more prevalent in public forests likely because public forests provide stronger protection for these highly prized timber species. Guazuma ulmifolia was the most abundant tree in private forests likely because this species is widely consumed and dispersed by cattle. Furthermore, some compositional differences appear to result from soil fertility differences due to non‐random placement of public and private land holdings with respect to soil fertility. Land ownership creates a distinctive species composition signature that is likely the result of differences in soil fertility and management between the ownership types. Both biophysical and social variables should be considered to advance understanding of tropical secondary forest structure and biodiversity.