Local Land Management Research Articles

Social dimensions of land rights reform in Liberia: Some unresolved issues and policy dilemmas

AbstractThis article is concerned with coherence in public policy in highly differentiated societies. It explores the challenges faced when seeking to develop policy in ways which both respond to progressive thinking and protect the interests of the poor. Land policy in Liberia illustrates the theme, specifically the 2013 ‘Land Rights Policy.’ The article shows how pressures for reform of customary governance and gender relations may undermine the institutions of local land management, and threaten the ability of the rural poor to defend their interests. This is of particular concern at the present time, given the appetite of external capital for land acquisition in Liberia, and the close alliances which it is forging with the Liberian elite.

Methodological foundations of the conceptual basis of institutional provision of land management and land management at the local level

The theoretical basis of land management at local level has already been sufficiently worked out, but it can be argued that they have not yet been finally resolved with regard to institutional provision. Therefore, it is expedient to propose an author's vision regarding essential definition of this concept. In classical form, this term was used many decades ago and literally meant foundation, the foundation. It has been established that balanced development of land management as a mechanism for development of socio-economic, ecological and legal system of land use in respective territory is ensured by interaction between whole set of conditions and factors that can be grouped according to qualitative characteristics in six blocks: 1) needs, development goals, developmental tasks ; 2) innovations in development of land management and land management NTP for land use development; 3) state land policy, land policy of territorial communities; organizational structure of land management system; 4) normative-legal infrastructure; 5) mentality, culture, public consciousness; 6) economic mechanism, system of social and economic development. Institutional provision of balanced development of land management and land management of territories of territorial communities is possible only if it is possible to achieve coherence and complementarity of all six blocks and unidirectionality of their development. Institutional provision of land management and land management at local level is a set of social interests, elements, actions and institutions aimed at building land relations and land system systems that ensure harmonious functioning of land use at local and other hierarchical levels of economic development of respective territories. Conceptual basis of institutional provision of land management and land management at local level in conditions of new land relations and decentralization of power, which includes local land use development programs, land management and urban planning, land formation and land management, and infrastructure provision of land management. Keywords. Land management, land management, institutional provision, land use, territorial community

Translating national level forest service goals to local level land management: carbon sequestration

The USDA Forest Service has many national level policies related to multiple use management. However, translating national policy to stand level forest management can be difficult. As an example of how a national policy can be put into action, we examined three case studies in which a desired future condition is evaluated at the national, region, and local scale. We chose to use carbon sequestration as the desired future condition because climate change has become a major area of concern during the last decade. Several studies have determined that the 193 million acres of US national forest land currently sequester 11 to 15% of the total carbon emitted as a nation. This paper provides a framework by which national scale strategies for maintaining or enhancing forest carbon sequestration is translated through regional considerations and local constraints in adaptive management practices. Although this framework used the carbon sequestration as a case study, this framework could be used with other national level priorities such as the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) or the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

Policy, practice, and partnerships for climate change adaptation on US national forests

Climate change presents a challenge to land management agencies tasked with managing landscapes to protect natural resources and provide key goods and services in the face of ecological change, complexity, and uncertainty. Land management agencies, like the U.S. Forest Service, have developed multi-faceted strategies that utilize concepts like resilience and ecological integrity to guide adaptation. To address an extant research need, we conducted a qualitative case study, consisting of interviews with Forest Service staff in the Rocky Mountain Region, to explore how local federal land managers approach adaptation. Our goals were to understand what impacts managers are finding salient, perceptions of current agency strategies, and aspects of policy and practice that support effective adaptation planning. Interview participants anticipate impacts to disturbance regimes, wildlife species, and human uses. Participants intend to draw on agency policies, like its climate change scorecard and its land management planning regulations. However, the participants note that ambiguous concepts, uncertainty, and institutional variables make adaptation planning challenging in practice. A major theme apparent in the interviews was the use of partnerships with a range of other entities to address climate change. Ambiguity associated with concepts like resilience and ecological integrity allow them to function as boundary concepts; however, this ambiguity makes it challenging for managers to operationalize these concepts. These findings revealed that climate change adaptation is leading to and revealing the need for broader governance change. Moving forward, it will be crucial to adjust current governance structures to support long-term partnerships adept at translating scientific knowledge into actions and implementing complex boundary concepts.

Spatial aggregation of soil property predictions in support of local land management

AbstractOver the past decades, numerous practical applications of Digital Soil Mapping have emerged to respond to the need of land managers. One important contribution to this effort is the release of regional‐scale soil maps from the GlobalSoilMap (GSM) project. While the GSM project aims at producing soil property predictions on a fine 90 × 90 m grid at the global scale, land managers often require aggregated information over larger areas of interest (e.g. farms, watersheds, municipalities). This study evaluated a geostatistical procedure aiming at aggregating GSM grids to a land management scale, thereby providing land suitability maps with associated uncertainty for the French region ‘Languedoc‐Roussillon’ (27 236 km2). Specifically, maps were derived from three GSM prediction grids (pH, organic carbon and clay content) by calculating the proportion of ‘suitable’ agricultural land within a municipality, where suitability was defined as having soil property values below or above a predefined threshold (pH < 5.5, OC < 10 g/kg, clay > 375 g/kg). Calculation of these nonlinear spatial aggregates and the associated uncertainty involved a three‐step approach: (i) sampling from the conditional probability distributions of the soil properties at all grid cells by means of sequential Gaussian simulation applied to a regression kriging model, (ii) transformation of soil properties to suitability indicators for all grid cell samples generated in the first step and (iii) spatial aggregation of the suitability indicators from grid cells to municipalities. The maps produced show large differences between municipality areas for all three land suitability indicators. The uncertainties associated with the aggregated suitability indicators were moderate. This approach demonstrated that fine‐scale GSM products may also fulfil user demands at coarser land management scales, without jeopardizing uncertainty quantification requirements.

Halting the isolation of jaguars: where to act locally to sustain connectivity in their southernmost population

AbstractHabitat loss and fragmentation are among the major threats to the conservation of biodiversity. Improvement of landscape connectivity becomes one of the main strategies for alleviating these threats and is an increasingly used target in management policies worldwide. However, implementation of connectivity principles in local management actions often implies great difficulties derived from the different criteria used by connectivity analysts and policy makers. We generated a management tool to incorporate connectivity criteria for large carnivores in landscape conservation planning at a local scale. Focusing on the southernmost population of jaguars Panthera onca, we use a graph‐based connectivity approach to (1) analyze habitat connectivity and availability in five areas previously identified as main corridors; (2) detect priority forest patches for maintaining connectivity, and (3) propose specific management strategies for each area matching the relative importance and role of the forest patches in it. For this purpose, we defined the patches as the local land management units (properties) and used information on land cover and jaguar movement for determining the probabilities of connectivity metric. We identified the key patches that represent 90% of the total contribution to connectivity in the study areas; these patches were less than half of the total number of patches in each corridor. Based on this forest patch prioritization, we identified the most critical areas and specific patches where urgent conservation measures need to be implemented. The percentage of patches and the total area they covered varied among the five analyzed corridors showing contrasting situations for connectivity management and highlighting the importance of the proposed approach to understand the impact of patch‐level actions in a broader connectivity context. This approach might serve as a model to account for habitat connectivity for large carnivores in the design of landscape management and land‐use plans at a local scale.

Public parks usage near hydraulic fracturing operations

Following the advent of hydraulic fracturing to effectively collect natural gas and oil, there has been growing interest in placing exploration and extraction wells in or adjacent to public park and forest systems across North America and Europe. At the heart of the debate about leasing public parkland is the concern that park acreage and accessibility will be lost to fracking operations, thereby decreasing park attendance. In this study, we apply value-belief-norm theory to evaluate park users’ general attitudes toward fracking and public policy and their perceptions of fracking's impact on their recreational activity. A survey of 255 park users in the Appalachian Basin of the United States indicated that individuals holding strong pro-environmental attitudes in general would likely avoid parklands that are affected by fracking operations. Additionally, a majority of respondents reported concern that fracking would disrupt park access and thusly supported legislative bans of fracking in public parklands. Management implicationsThis study provides initial insight into park users’ attitudes toward hydraulic fracturing, especially how it relates to their recreational usage. Specially, the results indicate:•Park users are concerned that fracking operations near local, state, or national parks would disrupt the accessibility and usage of those parks.•Knowledge of fracking and the technological processes behind it is mixed among park users, suggesting that educational outreach efforts may contribute to greater support of or opposition to fracking projects.•Local, state, or federal land managers considering leasing public land for oil or gas exploration must work with policymakers and energy operators to mitigate both the actual and perceived impacts on park usage and recreational pursuits.•Additional research is necessary to evaluate the degree to which park usage has been impacted by park-proximate fracking operations.

Impacts of land clearance by fire on spatial variation of mountain cedar pollen concentrations in Texas

Austin, Texas, is one of the worst places with respect to allergies. In winter, mountain cedar (Juniperus ashei) is producing high pollen amounts exerting the so-called cedar fever in individuals allergic to this pollen species. In this study, we evaluated to which extent the effect of prescribed fires in a semi-arid ecosystem decreases pollen concentrations at the local scale.The study was performed on patches characterized by human-induced fire disturbances and unmanaged areas (control sites) in the southwest of Austin. Pollen was sampled on four consecutive days in January 2015 using ten pollen traps installed at 1.5m a.g.l. Microscope slides were inserted every second hour during 8 am and 6 pm. Each station was equipped with meteorological devices to account for influencing factors such as wind speed and direction.Mean cedar pollen concentrations differed across the studied days and plots and ranged between 633 (16th January) and 126,400 pollen grains/m3 (17th January). We determined diurnal patterns with peak values between 2 and 3 pm. Pollen concentrations were on average 15% lower at burnt vs. control plots. Comparing pairs of adjacent plots even revealed a reduction of up to 50%.Therefore, local land management can alter pollen concentrations drastically. A walk across previously burnt areas may trigger less severe symptoms for allergic people during the flowering period of mountain cedar. Our results add to the knowledge about individual cedar pollen exposure in heterogeneous areas and help improving mitigation strategies.

The Impact of Rural Electric Access on Deforestation Rates

Summary Overpopulation and economic industrialization are two common explanations for deforestation. Political ecology, however, highlights that good governance and effective land management at the local level can offset the impact of population growth and development on environmental degradation. In this paper, we provide an innovative argument derived from political ecology to explain deforestation, but rather than pursing a “bottom up” approach to governance, we take a “top down” approach. We argue that the state can ease deforestation rates by weaning rural populations off of the consumption of biomass for their energy needs by expanding rural electrification access. Using a panel analysis of 158 countries for the years 1990, 2000, and 2010, we find that not only does rural electrification cause deforestation rates to decrease, but also that it is more robust in explaining deforestation than population growth or development. Our study provides two innovations to political ecology: it highlights that the state can help, rather than hinder, local populations with managing their local environments in a more sustainable way by providing them with (public goods-based) energy alternatives, and; it supplements political ecology’s qualitative focus on environmental degradation with a generalized quantitative analysis of state-based initiatives on deforestation. Our results suggest that current global initiatives addressing deforestation—specifically the Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) agenda of the United Nations’ Framework Convention on Climate Change—should not only assist local land managers, but also work with the state to ensure universal access to electricity.

Spatio-temporal analysis and simulation pattern of land use/cover changes, case study: Naghadeh, Iran

As a result of the growing impacts on global environments, it has become important for land use planners to extract, detect, monitor and predict land use/cover changes (LUCCs). The monitoring of LUCCs within a certain time period and predicting future trends of temporal and spatial changes are absolutely necessary. The aim of this research was to analyze and monitor LUCCs in Naghadeh County, Iran over a time span of 27 years and predict the future trend of changes during the period of 2014–2041. Land use/cover (LULC) maps were extracted (as built-up regions, water body, agricultural and bare lands) for 1987, 2000 and 2014 via RS images obtained from Landsat TM, ETM+ and OLI, respectively. The overall classification and Kappa index for all the classified maps were over 85% and 0.8, respectively. The C-A Markov model was used to predict future trend of LULC for the next 27-years. The obtained Kappa agreement statistics results from comparing actual and simulated maps of 2014 suggested the high capability of the model in LUCCs simulation in the study area. The results indicated the growth of built-up regions (urban area) from 1989 to 2014, while there was decrease in bare land. The projected land use for 2041 revealed more urbanization with potential expansion in agricultural and bare lands. Therefore, if the current management trends continue without any attention to sustainability measures, remnant water body and bare lands decline will ensue. This research provides useful and up-to-date information to local land use planners, managers and policy-makers to step up towards sustainable development in the study area.

Using multiple watershed models to assess the water quality impacts of alternate land development scenarios for a small community

Chesapeake Bay, the largest estuary in North America, is impaired by excess nutrient discharges, especially from urban and agricultural land. Watershed simulation models have provided key insights to understanding land-to-water connections, but rarely are these models applied to guide local land management to explore and communicate uncertainty in the model predictions. In this study, three watershed simulation models; the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT), the Generalized Watershed Loading Function (GWLF) model, and the Chesapeake Bay Program's Chesapeake Watershed Model (CBP-CWM) were implemented to predict water, total nitrogen, and total phosphorus discharges from small tributaries in the town of Queenstown, Maryland, USA. Based on our evaluation metrics, none of the models consistently provided better results. In general, there was a good agreement on annual average water flow between the SWAT and CBP-CWM models, and the GWLF and CBP-CWM models predicted similar TN and TP loads. Each model has strengths and weaknesses in flow and nutrient predictions, and predictions differed among models even when models were initialized with the same data. Using multiple models may enhance the quality of model predictions and the decision making process. However, it could also be the case that the complexity of implemented watershed models and resolution of our understanding currently are not yet suited to provide scientifically credible solutions.

Spatial-Temporal Changes of Soil Organic Carbon Content in Wafangdian, China

Soil organic carbon (SOC) plays an important role in soil fertility and the global carbon cycle. A better understanding of spatial-temporal changes of SOC content is essential for soil resource management, emission studies, and carbon accounting. In this study, we used a boosted regression trees (BRT) model to map distributions of SOC content in the topsoil (0–20 cm) and evaluated its temporal dynamics from 1990–2010 in Wafangdian City, northeast of China. A set of 110 (1990) and 127 (2010) soil samples were collected and nine environment variables (including topography and vegetation) were used. A 10-fold cross-validation was used to evaluate model performance as well as predictive uncertainty. Accuracy assessments showed that R2 of 0.53 and RMSE (Root-mean-square error) of 9.7 g∙kg−1 for 1990, and 0.55, and 5.2 g∙kg−1 for 2010. Elevation and NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) were the two important variables affecting SOC distribution. Results showed that mean SOC content decreased from 19 ± 14 to 18 ± 8 g∙kg−1 over a 20 year period. The maps of SOC represented a decreasing trend from south to north across the study area in both periods. Rapid urbanization and land-use changes were accountable for declining SOC levels. We believe predicted maps of SOC can help local land managers and government agencies to evaluate soil quality and assess carbon sequestration potential and carbon credits.

Bird Communities and Environmental Correlates in Southern Oregon and Northern California, USA.

We examined avian community ecology in the Klamath Ecoregion and determined that individual bird species co-exist spatially to form 29 statistically distinguishable bird groups. We identified climate, geography, and vegetation metrics that are correlated with these 29 bird groups at three scales: Klamath Ecoregion, vegetation formation (agriculture, conifer, mixed conifer/hardwood, shrubland), and National Park Service unit. Two climate variables (breeding season mean temperature and temperature range) and one geography variable (elevation) were correlated at all scales, suggesting that for some vegetation formations and park units there is sufficient variation in climate and geography to be an important driver of bird communities, a level of variation we expected only at the broader scale. We found vegetation to be important at all scales, with coarse metrics (environmental site potential and existing vegetation formation) meaningful across all scales and structural vegetation patterns (e.g. succession, disturbance) important only at the scale of vegetation formation or park unit. Additionally, we examined how well six National Park Service units represent bird communities in the broader Klamath Ecoregion. Park units are inclusive of most bird communities with the exception of the oak woodland community; mature conifer forests are well represented, primarily associated with conifer canopy and lacking multi-layered structure. Identifying environmental factors that shape bird communities at three scales within this region is important; such insights can inform local and regional land management decisions necessary to ensure bird conservation in this globally significant region.

Landscape and Local Habitat Correlates of Lady Beetle Abundance and Species Richness in Urban Agriculture

Landscape surroundings and local habitat management affect patterns of insect biodiversity. Knowing which landscape and local factors are more important for insect species diversity informs landscape and local scale land management, yet can be challenging to disentangle. We sought to identify 1) which landscape factors surrounding, and 2) which local habitat factors within urban community gardens influence patterns in lady beetle (Coccinellidae) abundance and species richness. We assessed lady beetle abundance and taxonomic diversity, garden habitat characteristics, and the surrounding landscape composition in 19 gardens over two consecutive years. We found that the amount of natural area surrounding gardens at 3 km was the strongest correlate of abundance and species richness. Specifically, gardens surrounded by less natural area (gardens embedded in more urban landscapes) had higher lady beetle abundance and richness. In gardens embedded in landscapes with more amounts of natural land, local habitat features such as ornamental abundance and crop diversity may become more important for maintaining lady beetle abundance and richness. Our results suggest that within more urban landscapes, lady beetles may aggregate and accumulate in relatively resource-rich habitats like gardens. Thus, urban landscape quality and local habitat management may all interact to shape lady beetle communities within gardens.

Putting indigenous conservation policy into practice delivers biodiversity and cultural benefits

In the midst of global species loss, Indigenous languages and culture are experiencing similar declines. Current international policies and programs advocate the involvement of local and Indigenous people in sustaining biodiversity and culture, but the anticipated benefits are not always realized or assessed. This paper draws on three objectives of current international and Australian policy to explore the biological and cultural benefits of a collaborative cross-cultural biodiversity project of Indigenous rangers and university ecologists in remote northern Australia. Policies promoting blends of biological and cultural conservation from International to national scale share the following objectives: (1) involve Indigenous Peoples in biodiversity conservation; (2) maintain and develop Indigenous knowledge and culture; and (3) recognize and promote Indigenous natural and cultural resource management and traditional knowledge. This paper reflects on the project benefits in the context of these objectives, with the aim of informing future policy and program development. Biodiversity benefits of the cross-cultural project included new public records for a relatively poorly known but species rich area that are being used to inform local Indigenous land management, as well as specimens and tissue samples with which to explore the genetic diversity and evolutionary history of the region. Cultural benefits included compiling a local field guide that contains ten different languages and engaging young people to facilitate intergenerational transfer of threatened traditional knowledge. Promotion of the work at local to national fora addressed the third objective and enhanced Indigenous involvement. We demonstrate that top-down policy directives can be implemented to deliver on-ground mutual benefits for science and Indigenous communities.

Failure to Communicate: Inefficiencies in Voluntary Incentive Programs for Private Forest Owners in Michigan

Coordinating forest management across thousands of nonindustrial private forest (NIPF) owners is a difficult yet necessary task for state land management agencies. Voluntary Incentive Programs (VIPs) can coordinate the decentralized activities of these owners in return for services or financial incentives. However, many VIPs typically have low enrollment. Our study investigates the implementation of VIPs to increase forest management coordination among NIPFs in Michigan. We present findings from 20 semi-structured interviews with leaders of state and local land management organizations, and government officials at state natural resource agencies, and contrast their answers with those recorded from 37 interviews of NIPF owners regarding their knowledge and attitudes toward VIPs. Our interviews highlight a critical disconnect between NIPF owner motivations and VIP incentives, as well as misallocated resources for VIP promotion by state agencies, driving low enrollment. At the core, low enrollment in VIPs is generated by inadequate communication between NIPF owners and program managers, along with distrust of government agency objectives. Viewing managers as “street level bureaucrats”, civil servants whose job discretion is impacted heavily by available resources, may increase our understanding of the issues plaguing VIPs and help identify improvements to VIP design and implementation.

‘Saved from the sordid axe’: representation and understanding of pine trees by English visitors to Italy in the eighteenth and nineteenth century

ABSTRACTPine trees were frequently depicted and celebrated by nineteenth-century English artists and travellers in Italy. This paper examines how British visitors gained knowledge of Italian trees through drawings, paintings and prints, before and during their visits to Italy. It considers knowledge of pines by late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century authorities such as William Gilpin and John Claudius Loudon and then focuses on the representation and understanding of pines in three contrasting sites: the pines of Rome, the coastal pines of Liguria and finally the famous pine wood of Ravenna. These trees were also an important element of local agriculture and the authors combine the analysis of local land management records, paintings and travellers’ accounts to reclaim differing understandings of the role of the pine in nineteenth-century Italy.

A comparison of influences on the landscape of two social-ecological systems

Case studies of social-ecological landscapes that consider local, spatially explicit land cover changes are necessary for the development of generalised knowledge on deforestation. This study focussed on two indigenous territories of eastern Panama that share the same settlement history, size and location but are perceived by local dwellers to differ in terms of land cover. By considering the territories social-ecological systems made up of Resource Systems, Resource Units, Actors and Governance Structures, following Ostrom’s framework for analysing the sustainability of social-ecological systems (McGinnis and Ostrom, 2014), we sought to determine which social-ecological factors could have led to divergent land cover outcomes to address local leaders’ concerns and inform future land management strategies. We conducted quantitative, spatial analysis using ArcGIS and multivariate statistics from numerical ecology on land cover data from participatory maps, and household level socio-economic data from semi-structured interviews and surveys. Results illustrate that the Resource System’s topography and Actors’ socioeconomics, namely number of people at home and household land ownership, are constraining variables on land cover and help explain divergent forest cover. To reconstruct the influence of history and Governance Structure on the landscapes, we conducted qualitative data collection, namely participatory pebble scoring of historical land cover, interviews with key informants, an archival search, and creation of a participatory historical timeline. Historical governmental timber extraction in the region pre-settlement, guided by topography constraints, may have led to degraded Resource Units (forests) susceptible to clearing. The Governance Structure’s self-organizing, monitoring and networking activities with outside institutions in scientific projects, enabled by Actors’ leadership and social capital, likely encouraged forest conservation in the forest-rich territory. Future land management could therefore benefit from establishment of a local non-governmental organisation to coordinate a communal vision of management and harness external conservation resources. Our findings suggest that inputting both qualitative and quantitative data obtained by participatory methods into Ostrom’s framework can help diagnose territories with divergent landscapes, and thereby inform both forest conservation science and local land management.

Land Management Strategies and their Implications for Mazahua Farmers’ Livelihoods in the Highlands of Central Mexico

Abstract This paper presents a case study from a Mazahua indigenous community in the rural Highlands of Central Mexico. It analyses Mazahua farming livelihoods characterised by subsistence agriculture, marginality, poverty and severe land degradation. Mazahua farmers face constrained environmental, socioeconomic and cultural conditions, which influence their local decisions on natural resource management. The results describe the capital assets base used, where land, livestock and crop production are imperative assets to support farmers’ livelihood strategies. It analyses local management practices to achieve livelihood outcomes in the short/long term, and to improve or undermine land characteristics and other related assets. It also presents a farmer typology constructed by local perceptions, a controversial element to drive sustainable development strategies at the local level. Finally, it discusses how local land management practices are adopted and their importance in developing alternatives to encourage positive trade-offs between conservation and production in order to improve rural livelihoods.

Addressing biodiversity impacts of land use in life cycle assessment of forest biomass harvesting

Forests are an increasingly important source of feedstock for bioenergy as global efforts to mitigate atmospheric CO2 concentrations increase. In keeping with the principles of sustainable forest management, it is important that feedstock procurement not have negative impacts on the environment, including biodiversity. Impacts of land use, including forest management, can be evaluated along all stages in the production of these goods and services, using life cycle assessment (LCA), which is a potentially powerful tool for organizing and evaluating the impacts of production. There is growing recognition of the need to integrate land‐use impacts into LCA for forest products such as bioenergy, especially on biodiversity. Integrating quantitative indicators of biodiversity into LCAs of biomass production systems is particularly challenging because biodiversity is a multidimensional concept that can never be fully represented by a single number, and yet many proposed approaches rely on this. Reliance on a single metric oversimplifies ‘biodiversity’ and might lead to inappropriate conclusions on local land management practices. LCA is not suited to providing reliable site‐specific assessment of forest product systems in regard to the complexities of biodiversity. Nevertheless, the global and comprehensive nature of LCA makes it a useful tool for preventing a shift in environmental problems or burdens across the value chain because of local land management decisions. In this context, complementary site‐specific and/or regional studies or analyses may help mitigate against inaccurate conclusions being drawn from LCA. WIREs Energy Environ 2016, 5:670–683. doi: 10.1002/wene.211This article is categorized under: Bioenergy > Climate and Environment Energy and Development > Climate and Environment