Pastoral Nature Research Articles

THE CONTRIBUTION OF RURAL HOUSING TO ACHIEVING SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: A CASE STUDY OF BOUIRA PROVINCE

Through this research, we attempt to uncover the true situation of housing in the rural areas of the provinceand the effective means to rejuvenate it. We also examine the current status of this sector according to policy models and programs applied to it, aimed at developing this sensitive aspect in order to achieve population distribution balance and eliminate overcrowding in cities while revitalizing neglected regions. The province of Bouira is primarily characterized by its agricultural and pastoral nature, thanks to the distinctive features that define it. Given the necessity of developing rural areas, especially those rich in significant natural and human resources, to promote the housing sector in rural areas practically and seriously, Bouiraprovince stands out. We wanted to study this region because of its great importance, as it belongs to the high plateaus, a vital and extensive area around which the future of development in Algeria revolves. It is one of the regions that has received state attention in the field of rural housing through the First Five-Year Plan (2005- 2009) and the Second Five-Year Plan (2010-2014). It has become one of the attractive rural areas for residents, serving as a link between coastal areas and the high plateau region

Декомпозиция ретроспективных топографических карт для послойной оценки типов регионального природопользования

On the example of the most developed part of the lake Baikal basin, the decomposition of the digital coverage content from 12 sheets of the topographic map scale 1:84 000, compiled by the Corps of Military Topographers in 1896-1912, was performed. As a result of vectorization of retrospective layers of topographic objects and subsequent transformation of their shp files into classes of spatial objects of the ArcGIS environment, two cartographic sets of spatial object classes were formed that characterize two types of regional environmental management - traditional pastoral and invasive agricultural. As a result of layer-by-layer geoinformation modeling of cartographic sets on a modern topographic basis and a digital relief model, primary areas of settlement and economic use of the territory were established, physical and geographical characteristics of the past economic use of the territory were determined, and separate mapping of spatial and temporal life support structures of different types of nature management was performed. For operational digital visualization, a technological solution is proposed for storing and mapping sets of spatial object classes by organizing a file-based geodata of the ArcGIS information environment. Cartographic reconstructions of pastoral and agricultural nature management at the beginning of the 20th century are presented, as well as a general cartographic reconstruction of nature management on a landscape basis, which allows us to assert that traditional pastoral nature management does not involve the transformation of the Earth's surface and is characterized by continuous restorative dynamics of natural landscapes, and invasive nature management is based on the violation of soil cover, which later led to the emergence of areas of water and wind erosion.

Navigating and manipulating childbirth services in Afar, Ethiopia: A qualitative study of cultural safety in the birthing room

Access to maternal health services has increased in Ethiopia during the past decades. However, increasing the demand for government birthing facility use remains challenging. In Ethiopia's Afar Region, these challenges are amplified given the poorly developed infrastructure, pastoral nature of communities, distinct cultural traditions, and the more nascent health system. This paper features semi-structured interviews with 22 women who were purposively sampled to explore their experiences giving birth in government health facilities in Afar. We used thematic analysis informed by a cultural safety framework to interpret findings. Our findings highlight how women understand, wield, and relinquish power and agency in the delivery room in government health facilities in Afar, Ethiopia. We found that Afari women are treated as ‘others’, that they manipulate their care as they negotiate ‘cultural safety’ in the health system, and that they use trust as a pathway towards more cultural safety. As the cultural safety framework calls for recognizing and navigating the diverse and fluid power dynamics of healthcare settings, the onus of negotiating power dynamics cannot be placed on Afari women, who are already multiply marginalized due to their ethnicity and gender. Health systems must adopt cultural safety in order to ensure health quality. Providers, particularly in regions with rich cultural diversity, must be trained in the cultural safety framework in order to be aware of and challenge the multidimensional power dynamics present in health encounters.

Adapting to Climate Change in the Semi-Arid Northern Kenya

Climate change in the semi-arid northern Kenya is evidenced by increasing frequency and duration of severe droughts. The effects are devastating with the region experiencing massive loss of livestock, total crop failures and increased levels of hunger and starvation resulting in near collapse of livelihood sources which is mainly pastoralism. This study investigated the most appropriate drought adaptive strategies that pastoralists in the semi-arid northern Kenya depend on to subsist. Data was collected from the counties of Garissa, Samburu, Turkana, Isiolo, Marsabit, West Pokot, Laikipia and Baringo where drought is persistent. The study used a cross-sectional design where past and current data was obtained through face-to-face and telephone interviews from purposively sampled respondents and observations. Document information collected supplemented the information obtained from the respondents. The pastoralists embrace adaptive strategies that are easy, accessible and affordable. The traditional adaptive strategies such as food preservation and herd composition and management predominate. These strategies are preferred because of their ease of implementation and also culturally acceptable. With increasing drought severity and other factors like increase in population growth, there has been decline in grazing areas limiting transhumance activities. This has stemmed the adoption of non-pastoral activities such as crop farming, craftwork, poultry keeping, petty trade and dependence on external assistance. The traditional adaptive strategies play a key role in surviving the droughts. Due to their pastoral nature, the non-pastoral sedentary practices do not fit their lifestyles and are less practiced especially by men but taken up much better by women who are left at home. Therefore, efforts to enhance pastoral resilience in the semi-arid areas should strengthen the traditional practices as well as capacity building on the non-pastoral activities.

Grasses, Groves, and Gardens: Aphra Behn Goes Green

Laudien argues in “Grasses, Groves and Gardens: Aphra Behn Goes Green” that Behn moves beyond the stylized and artificial backdrops of most pastoral to explore the unique ways the landscape can be manipulated to investigate gender difference and the dynamics of desire and representation. Laudien suggests that in prioritizing the pastoral as political allegory in Behn, we overlook the descriptions of nature and the importance she places on the natural environments she creates. Through close readings of several of her pastoral poems, Laudien reveals that Behn’s landscapes destabilize existing notions of the pastoral space as an idealized and organized place and disorient the reader’s conventional expectations of pastoral nature.

Iron Age hunting and herding in coastal eastern Africa: ZooMS identification of domesticates and wild bovids at Panga ya Saidi, Kenya

The morphological differentiation of African bovids in highly fragmented zooarchaeological assemblages is a major hindrance to reconstructing the nature and spread of pastoralism in sub-Saharan Africa. Here we employ collagen peptide mass fingerprinting, known as Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS), coupled with recently published African ZooMS reference datasets, to identify domesticates and wild bovids in Iron Age assemblages at the cave site of Panga ya Saidi in southeast Kenya. Through ZooMS we have identified all three major African livestock—sheep (Ovis aries), goat (Capra hircus) and cattle (Bos taurus)—at the site for the first time. The results provide critical evidence for the use of domesticates by resident foraging populations during the Iron Age, the period associated with the arrival of food production in coastal Kenya. ZooMS results show that livestock at Panga ya Saidi form a minor component of the assemblage compared to wild bovids, demonstrating the persistence of hunting and the secondary role of acquiring livestock in hunter-gatherer foodways during the introduction of agro-pastoralism. This study sheds new light on the establishment of food production in coastal eastern Africa, particularly the role of interactions between hunter-gatherers and neighbouring agro-pastoral groups in what was a protracted regional transition to farming.

Upward elevational shift by breeding Whinchat Saxicola rubetra in response to cessation of grazing in upland grassland

ABSTRACT Capsule The distribution of breeding Whinchats Saxicola rubetra shifted uphill following the cessation of grazing, potentially compromising their breeding success through additional squeezing of suitable habitat and environmental niches. Aims To assess whether breeding territories occupied by a conservation-priority grassland bird followed changes in sward structure associated with environmental exposure following cessation of grazing. Methods Whinchat territories and breeding success were monitored at upland study sites in Scotland during a period of habitat transformation from livestock-grazed grassland to young woodland with herbivores excluded. Results After grazing was excluded, there was generally an upwards elevational shift of breeding attempts by Whinchats (by 43 m in 7 years at one site). While the study sites were grazed, breeding attempts were more successful at lower elevations. After grazing ceased, there was lower breeding success at lower elevations where the resulting taller, denser vegetation likely restricted available foraging habitat. Despite that, lower areas continued to be occupied by territorial Whinchats. Conclusions The conservation of grassland birds within afforestation schemes could be supported by the maintenance of some open habitats at suitable elevations. However wider conservation of grassland birds, including within forested and pastoral high nature value farmed landscapes would benefit from a better understanding of the mechanisms operating on breeding success and habitat choice within these dynamically changing habitats.

Plenary Council in the Czech Republic (1997—2005)

This article analyses the preparation, process and conclusions of the Plenary Council of the Catholic Church in the Czech Republic held in 1997—2005. The Plenary Council was one of the few manifestations of the collegiality of the Czech Church, because the diocesan synods are not used here as a tool. The Decree on convocation of the Assembly was announced by the Czech and Moravian bishops on 5 July 1997 in Velehrad. The council was also an opportunity for priests and laity in the country to realise their responsibility for the Church and the co-responsibility of the Church for the condition of society. The Council had a preparatory phase (1997—2003), a stage of the 1st Session (July 2003), and a second phase of the Session (July 2005) where the project was completed and followed by the process of post-conciliar steps. Three final messages were the immediate output from the Second Plenary Session: the Message of the Council to the Public; the Message of the Council to the Believers of the Catholic Church and the Message of the Council to Christians in the Czech Republic. The resulting document was published in 2007 under the title The Life and Mission of Christians in the Church and the World. It was a document of a pastoral nature, in no way of a normative nature (no rules were actually adopted despite the work of the commission and the proposals). The Czech situation is described as “post-Christian missionary territory” there and — estimated the course of the conciliar process and of the Council itself — as an introduction of more intensive implementation of synodality in the Czech Church.

Varieties of green: On aesthetic contestations over urban sustainability pathways in a Copenhagen community garden

Alongside kindred civic-driven and place-based urban greening initiatives, studies document an upsurge over the last decade in urban gardening and alternative food initiatives across a range of Euro-American settings. Meanwhile, historical and cultural inquiries into urban design, planning and politics suggest that the place and role of ‘nature’ in the city is now undergoing significant shifts. In this article, we deploy a case study of a civic-driven permaculture garden in Copenhagen in order to suggest a novel analytical grid of the imaginative and material domain of public aesthetic norms shaping current-day tensions over interventions in and valuations of the fabric of multiform green-spaces in the city. Reading across existing literatures, we model this domain along two structuring axes – of ‘orderliness’ versus ‘wildness’ and ‘pastoral nature’ versus city-nature ‘imbrication’ – and illustrate the usefulness of the resulting grid for making sense of internal debates and external criticisms in the Copenhagen permaculture gardening case. By assisting us in explaining how and why this garden struggled to carve out a legitimate space in a city otherwise committed to urban nature, we argue that attention to variable urban-green aesthetic commitments helps recast questions of urban sustainability politics in important ways.

Pastoralism and Development Policy in Ethiopia: A Review Study

Pastoralism is a culture, livelihoods system, extensive use of rangelands. It is the key production system practiced in the arid and semi-arid dryland areas. Recent estimates indicate that about 120 million pastoralists and agro-pastoralists life worldwide, of which 41.7% reside only in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Pastoralists live in areas often described as marginal, remote, conflict prone, food insecure and associated with high levels of vulnerability. Pastoral communities of Ethiopia occupy 61% of the total land mass and 97% of Ethiopian pastoralists found in low land areas of Afar, Somali, Oromiya, and SNNPR. In spite pastoral areas have significance role in national economy, yet very little consideration was given to pastoral development and policy makers often neglect them, focusing on the interests of agriculture and urban people. The constitution of Ethiopia gives pastoral communities the right to free land grazing, fair use of natural resources, have market access and receive fair price, and not displaced from their own lands. However, pastoralists have faced new problems in recent years, including competition for water and pasture; unrepresented in socio-economic and political activities, ethnic based conflicts, poverty, and uneven drought and climate changes. The government of Ethiopia began large scale efforts to develop the pastoral areas and initiated different projects, but pastoral development policies and strategies seem to be state centrally-driven. In Ethiopia the current nature of pastoralism and pastoral communities’ life style is changing. Therefore, government needs to develop policies and strategies which are based on local customs and practical knowledge.

Nature’s Own Remedies

This article examines American perceptions of Chinese herbalism as natural medicine in the Progressive Era. In doing so, it uses the lens of environmental history to consider three meanings of nature for Chinese medicine in the United States: First, as a material, trans-Pacific environment where medicinal ingredients were procured, distributed, and consumed; second, as part of the evolving distinction between modern, scientific “regular” medicine and anti-modern, unscientific “irregular” medicine that reached a moment of crisis at the turn of the twentieth century; and third, as a reflection of the racialization of Chinese health practices co-created by Asian practitioners and their American patients, who were conditioned by Orientalist stereotypes to perceive Chinese culture as close to a pastoral or primitive nature. The close association between herbs and nature enabled Chinese doctors to thrive as “irregular” or “alternative” practitioners in the American medical marketplace. While American patients may have perceived Chinese medicine as closer to nature, the many meanings of nature reveal the extent to which the association was a deliberate strategy for survival and success adopted by Chinese doctors in the United States.

O teološko-praktičnem pomenu odnosa med znanstveno paradigmo razumevanja človeka, sveta in vesolja ter paradigmo vere

One of the most actual theological and cultural questions nowadays is the question of a harmonious relation between the scientific-technological paradigm of the understanding of man, the world and the universe and the paradigm of faith. This question does not just have relevance of a biblical, dogmatic or ethical-moral nature, but it also has the relevance of a theological-practical or pastoral nature as well. This theological-practical field of discernment of the relation that is pointed out above is the primary object of this article. Undertaking a discernment of this kind, it is possible to start with the problem of the so-called cosmic pessimism. This problem has immeasurable consequences in the cultural and practical area of life and many other problems are connected to it. On the theological side of the coin, many segments of understanding the faith with respect to the paradigm of science today do not always show an attempt at the harmonious fitting of the elements of the faith into the totality of the realization of life. There is the issue of developing theology in the modern and postmodern periods and the often lack of recognition of the scientific picture of the world. There are also some other theological elements which are very challenging regarding this entire debate, such as the question of the motives for genuine moral living, relations to people with different beliefs and worldviews, some practical issues regarding the models of evangelization, and practical actions of the parish and the other Church communities, etc.

Insects in Folk Music

We undertook a study of folk music to examine values expressed toward arthropods in this medium. In an online archive, 0.27% of songs had arthropod-related titles. The most common taxa indicated in the titles were Hymenoptera, Diptera, and Lepidoptera, reflecting both positive (Hymenoptera, Lepidoptera) and negative (Diptera) attitudes in the lyrical content. Multiple insects (swarms and infestations) were commonly described, but reference to giant insects were rather rare. About 87% of non-instrumental songs with insects in the title were actually about insects. With a few exceptions, the patterns seen in folk music were similar to those observed in rock-and-roll music and other popular media with regard to insect representation. However, the pastoral nature of folk music was evident in the frequency of insect-titled songs and the variety of titles and lyrics for the same song.

Isotopic Evidence for Camelid Husbandry During the Formative Period at the Pacopampa Site, Peru

ABSTRACT Camelids were domesticated in the Andean highlands, such as in the puna habitat, and dispersed into lowland areas and the northern Central Andes. As camelids domesticated in a particular region would have had a greater economic benefit than visiting- or hunted wild camelids, it is important to reconstruct the dispersal of camelid husbandry from its initial site throughout the ancient Andean civilisation. We carried out multi-isotope analyses of animal remains recovered from the Pacopampa site to investigate the nature of camelid pastoralism and utilisation. Strontium and oxygen isotope ratios from tooth enamel suggested that camelids in the early Late Formative Period (800–500 BC) were born near the site and remained in the same habitat for up to three years. Although corresponding data for the Middle Formative Period (1200–800 BC) were not available, carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios were statistically different from those of the Late Formative Period, supporting the possibility that the camelids inhabited the highland plateau like puna. It is inferred that in the northern highlands camelids were initially rare and regarded as either tribute or ritual animals, or they were used as pack animals. Camelid husbandry using maize as fodder began during the Late Formative Period at Pacopampa.

Linking people, pixels, and pastures: A multi-method, interdisciplinary investigation of how rangeland management affects vegetation on the Tibetan Plateau

Studies of rangeland cover changes on the Tibetan Plateau have generally not taken pasture management into account beyond grazing pressure proxies. To address this gap we conducted a study in Qinghai Province, China that brings together results from four years of systematic vegetation sampling (2009–2012) with qualitative interview data and a time series of satellite imagery (1990–2010) to analyze the extent to which herders judged to have different levels of skill were able to manage for rangeland production over time. Our analysis demonstrated that NDVI-derived production estimates may have limited utility given their inability to distinguish between palatable and unpalatable vegetation. The analysis suggested that less skilled herders were less able to improve the productivity of their pastures over time relative to more skilled managers, but management was less significant than other environmental variables. At the same time, non-environmental factors weighed strongly in how households managed their land and livestock. The study illustrates some of the challenges of integrating social science, remotely sensed, and biophysical data, particularly in terms of the scale at which different types of data are collected and the nature of extensive pastoralism. Nevertheless linking people, pastures and pixels provides a more nuanced and complex understanding of human-environment relations on the Tibetan Plateau than reflected in current policy.

A ritual deposit of fox remains at Ovçular Tepesi (Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan) and its relation with the pastoral nature of Late Chalcolithic communities

The occurrence of wild carnivores remains among faunal assemblages constituted almost exclusively of domestic ruminants raise the question of the status of these rare species. Parts of two foxes were deposited in a jar discovered in a Late Chalcolithic (ca. 4300–3950cal. BCE) occupation layer at the site of Ovçular Tepesi (Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan). The skeletal elements were carefully dismembered, selected, exposed to fire for some of them, and disposed in an organised manner in the jar. A detailed analysis led us to suggest that this deposition could be related to rites performed during the periodic abandonment and reoccupation of the settlement. Foxes tend to play a peculiar symbolic role in some livestock-raising communities. It could be also the case in this possibly partly mobile pastoral group. This deposit sheds some light on how this community conceived the occupation of this settlement.

Die klassis en kerkvisitasie in drie kerkordes

The classis and the visitation of congregations in three church orders. It is said by reformed church politicians that the classis as a major assembly in reformed church polity is the cornerstone of the church as a denomination. In the tradition in which the church order of the wellknown Synod of Dordrecht of 1618–1619 plays an important role, the classis is used as an assembly of local congregations caring for one another and helping to become better churches. This means that the visit of a commission of the classis to a congregation to care for it should be of a pastoral nature. The pastoral caring and advice of the classis should enable a congregation to become a better church. The members of this commission are, however, not rated as superior or more important ministers. The acceptance of their competent advice by equals helps the latter only to fulfil their ecclesiastical calling.

The Elmenteitan Obsidian Quarry (GsJj50): New Perspectives on Obsidian Access and Exchange During the Pastoral Neolithic in Southern Kenya

Early pastoralists in southern Kenya exploited obsidian sources to supply large regional exchange networks that persisted from c. 3200 to 1400 years ago. Obsidian exchange networks have been a source for speculation on the social and political nature of early pastoralism in eastern Africa. Herders who produced a discrete set of material culture called “Elmenteitan” mainly relied on a particular obsidian quarry site on the upper slopes of Ol Doinyo Opuru (Mt. Eburru), in the Central Rift Valley. These implications of the Elmenteitan pattern for herder social organization have not been systematically investigated. This paper reports on recent surveys and initial excavations at the Elmenteitan Obsidian Quarry (GsJj50) on Mt. Eburru as the central node of a prehistoric herder exchange network. Research revealed a series of stratified extraction and workshopping loci concentrated across a roughly 200-m2 extent. Spatial, faunal, ceramic, and lithic datasets support communal resource access by small groups, rather than centralized control. This research has implications for interpreting the role of centralized quarries and resource nodes in the formation of mobile herder exchange and alliance. Networks were an important risk-reduction strategy in unpredictable environments and helped facilitate the spread of African pastoralism.

Rangeland Use Rights Privatisation Based on the Tragedy of the Commons: A Case Study from Tibet

Rangeland use rights privatisation based on a tragedy of the commons assumption has been the backbone of state policy on rangeland management and pastoralism in China. Through an empirical case study from Pelgon county, Tibet Autonomous Region in China, this paper provides an empirical analysis of rangeland use rights privatisation. It shows that the tragedy of the commons is not the correct model to apply to Tibetan pastoralism because pasture use in Tibet has never been an open-access institution. Thus, when the tragedy of the commons model is applied as a rationale for rangeland use rights privatisation, the result is not what is intended by the policy, but rather a misfit to features of pastoralism and thus disruption of the essence of pastoralism, i.e. mobility and flexibility. The paper further shows that a hybrid institution combining household rangeland tenure with community-based use with user fees is a restoration of the pastoralist institution. This demonstrates the capacity of pastoralists to create adaptive new institutions congruent with the interdependent and integrated nature of pastoralism consisting of three components: pastoralists, livestock, and rangeland.

Czy parafialne rady duszpasterskie w Polsce są rzeczywiście duszpasterskie?

The article discusses the issue of pastoral nature of the parish pastoral council. Reflection on this subject is due to the results of the national study, which reveals that the parish pastoral councils in Poland largely deal with economic and financial affairs. This is incompatible with the theological vision and legal norms, governing the specifics and the tasks of that council. The study identified some causes of that situation, and indicated several ways for its improvement. Contemporary challenges facing the parish, which derive from the new chapter of evangelization delineated by Pope Francis in his apostolic exhortation Evangelii gaudium, may find in parish pastoral council one of the major protagonists. This will be possible when the parish pastoral council will strengthen its pastoral character.