Pragmatic Conservation Research Articles

Global patterns of human-wildlife spatial associations and implications for differentiating conservation strategies.

Understanding the global patterns of human and wildlife spatial associations is essential for pragmatic conservation implementation, yet analytical foundations and indicator-based assessments that would further this understanding are lacking. We integrated the global distributions of 30,664 terrestrial vertebrates and human pressures to map human-nature index (HNI) categories that indicate the extent and intensity of human-wildlife interactions. Along the 2 dimensions of biodiversity and human activity, the HNI allowed placement of terrestrial areas worldwide in one of 4 HNI categories: anthropic (human-dominated areas), wildlife-dominated (little human influence and rich in wildlife), co-occurring (substantial presence of humans and wildlife), and harsh-environment (limited presence of humans and wildlife) areas. The HNI varied considerably among taxonomic groups, and the leading driver of HNI was global climate patterns. Co-occurring regions were the most prevalent (35.9%), and wildlife-dominated and anthropic regions encompassed 26.45% and 6.50% of land area, respectively. Our results highlight the necessity for customizing conservation strategies to regions based on human-wildlife spatial associations and the distribution of existing protected area networks. Human activity and biodiversity should be integrated for complementary strategies to support conservation toward ambitious and pragmatic 30×30 goals.

Detecting low fragmented sites surrounding European protected areas – Implications for expansion of the Natura 2000 network

EU member states have set an ambitious goal of establishing additional protected areas (PAs) preserving 30 % of terrestrial land by 2030, specifying that additions should be of high ecological quality. A targeted selection of existing PA expansions into surroundings marginally fragmented by human infrastructure, may be an efficacious strategy to secure high ecological quality by maximizing PA area, accommodating species movement, and boosting climate change resilience. We used high-resolution data on effective mesh density, a metric measuring landscape fragmentation, in the vicinity of Natura 2000 PAs (N2k) to assess their potential for expansion. Our results show that contrary to most of Central Europe, mountainous and remote territories exhibit the lowest degree of fragmentation in N2k surroundings. Fragmentation in N2k surroundings is highly correlated with national population density, while economic wealth, measured by GDP per capita, plays a minor role. To address the long-standing dilemma of where scarce economic resources in nature conservation do the most-good, we conducted a country-level comparison between fragmentation in N2k surroundings and national expenditures on nature conservation relative to N2k area. Our results show a vast incongruity in resource availability for nature conservation among EU countries. Eastern European states, especially Romania, host underfunded N2k PAs while holding the highest potential for expanding N2k PAs into low fragmented lands. If protecting low fragmented lands is accepted as an efficacious strategy to meet EU biodiversity targets our results could be used to formulate pragmatic conservation decisions, while also ensuring high ecological quality of PA additions under climate change.

Integrated management of heritage sites: scale development and validation

PurposeThe study explores the possibility of developing a valid scale for integrated management of heritage sites to bring a holistic approach to heritage properties' conservation practices.Design/methodology/approachThe study followed the exploratory sequential method. An in-depth interview was adopted for exploring indicators, and a questionnaire survey was administered for descriptive analysis.FindingsCultural resources conservation strategies have been analyzed from a tourist, local communities and stakeholder's perspective with local-specific indicators. The study indicates that a multi-dimensional approach that integrates tourists, local communities and other stakeholders-based indicators can be developed at the destination level for the integrated management of heritage properties. Tourist-centric, local community-specific and stakeholder-oriented approaches could act as catalysts for more pragmatic conservation practices in the local areas based on the site-specific indicators.Research limitations/implicationsThe study is limited to lesser-known heritage sites located in the southern provincial states of India. The technical conservation strategies on the structure and architecture are not part of the study. Theoretical implications on the study of this kind can contribute to the literature as it throws light on future studies seeking local-centric conservation and management practices of heritage sites hitherto less explored in the domain of conservation science. The scale provides insight into the appropriate form of intervention that the local communities, tourists and other stakeholders can do at the heritage sites, hence the possibility of garnering the attention of other discipline strivings towards the conservation of heritage sites and to apply along with other relevant variables. It is expected that the study might expedite the knowledge accumulation in conservation science.Practical implicationsThe scale can be used in a similar context for the integrated management of heritage sites. The study can assist the policymakers and planners in seeking the support of stakeholders, local communities and tourists for the implementation of heritage conservation and management programs. Such a local-centric management strategy promoting responsible consumption and production could contribute to SDG 12. Further, the study can also contribute towards SDG 11.4, which calls for strengthening the effort to protect and safeguard cultural and natural heritage. This scale can be a tool for destination management organizations (DMOs) to understand the level of intervention of local communities, tourists and other stakeholders at the heritage site.Social implicationsThe integrated management approach of heritage conservation immensely helps the lesser-known heritage sites the world over as such structures are out of the focal point of government funding and other conservation efforts. The synergy of the integrated approach could protect lesser-known unfunded heritage sites, and thereby, the cultural reflections of the community concerned can be made available for future visitors’ consumption.Originality/valueThe study attempted to understand the conservation approaches for lesser-known heritage sites with the support of both demand and supply-side stakeholders. Such a collaborative approach is the first of this kind in the conservation of heritage sites in India.

Marine Mammal Interactions With Fisheries: Review of Research and Management Trends Across Commercial and Small-Scale Fisheries

Marine mammal interactions with fisheries, such as bycatch and depredation, are a common occurrence across commercial and small-scale fisheries. We conducted a systematic review to assess the management responses to marine mammal interactions with fisheries. We analyzed literature between 1995 and 2021 to measure research trends in studies on direct and indirect interactions for: (i) high and low to middle-income countries, (ii) fishery operations (commercial and small-scale), and (iii) taxonomic groups. Management responses were categorized using the framework described previously in peer-reviewed studies. Marine mammal bycatch remains a major conservation concern, followed by marine mammal depredation of fishing gear. A high proportion of studies concentrated on commercial fisheries in high-income countries, with an increase in small-scale fisheries in low to middle-income countries between 1999 and 2020. The insufficient understanding of the social dimensions of interactions and the inevitable uncertainties concerning animal and human behaviors are major challenges to effective management. Despite the key role of human behavior and socioeconomics, we found only eight articles that incorporate human dimensions in the management context. Integrating social dimensions of marine mammal interactions with fisheries could help in setting pragmatic conservation priorities based on enhanced understanding of critical knowledge gaps. An area-specific adaptive management framework could be an effective tool in reducing the risk to marine mammals from fisheries by coupling technical solutions with socio-economic and political interventions. We conclude that despite the vast body of literature on this subject, a “silver bullet” management solution to marine mammal interactions with fisheries does not yet exist.

Hydropoetics: The rewor(l)ding of rivers

AbstractValued in utilitarian terms as channels for industry, agriculture, and urban development, rivers are among the most biodiverse yet degraded ecosystems globally. In addition to pragmatic conservation measures, the long‐term wellbeing of rivers requires new perspectives on human–water relations that call attention to—and nurture—the cultural, social, and spiritual significance of riverscapes. Drawing from current thinking in the interdisciplinary environmental humanities, this article proposes the idea of hydropoetics as an outlook on rivers based on the ancient idea of poiesis. On a planet undergoing rapid environmental change, three features—embodiment, relationality, and multiscalarity—are important to a hydropoetics attuned to the urgencies of the present. Asserting the capacities of rivers themselves, this framework is developed in reference to contemporary poetry narrating human interdependencies with rivers, including poems by Indonesian, Papua New Guinean, Australian, and British writers. Rather than presuming to give voice to rivers, the framework developed in this article recognizes the inherent language of rivers and, in this way, presents a medium to hear their voice(s). Through the transformative capacity of language—new words, new worlds—hydropoetics inspires new visions of rivers inspiring openness to rivers as they exist as well as in their potential to emerge and transform.

An integrated spatial econometric approach in valuing soil conservation using contingent valuation

AbstractThe integration of soil value in agronomic micro‐level decision‐making and macro‐scale policy development has grown immensely in recent years. Major threats to soil resources and their impact on human well‐being require a comprehensive estimation of soil's economic worth, highlighting the need for sustainable and pragmatic conservation strategies. However, the absence of formal markets for numerous soil amenities, coupled with the heterogeneity of stakeholder cognition and spatio‐environmental factors, obfuscates the valuation process for soil and similar public goods. This paper aims to address such concerns by evaluating stakeholders’ willingness to pay (WTP) for soil conservation as a proxy indicator for its explicit value. Two contingent valuation method (CVM) formats, the payment card (PC) and the dichotomous choice (DC), were used to analyse WTP in Norzagaray, Philippines. Results suggest farmers’ income, education, land tenure type, level of environmental consciousness and proximity to amenities influence their inclination to spend on soil conservation measures. Econometric analyses indicate a compensating surplus corresponding to the mean WTP estimate of ₱79.98 (PC‐CVM) and a Turnbull WTP estimate of ₱99.47 (DC‐CVM). Estimated WTP values can be used in future benefit‐transfer studies, and the findings of the econometric models can be used in developing strategies that would promote greater stakeholder acceptance and participation. The approach presented here provides another step towards a more comprehensive characterization of soil value that integrates environmental valuation and econometric modelling with geospatial data.

Pragmatic conservation: Discourses of payments for ecosystem services in Colombia

Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes incentivise landowners to maintain, restore or enhance ecosystem services. Currently, there are more than 550 active PES programmes worldwide, expected to support conservation efforts and, ideally, to also reduce rural poverty. In this article we explore the discourses that underpin PES debates and practice in Colombia, a late-comer to the PES agenda in Latin-America. Informed by interviews with PES actors and Q-methodology (n = 41), we identify three PES discourses: conservation conduit, contextual conservation, and inconvenient conservation. The narratives diverge in their framing of deforestation processes; their most preferred PES design features; the likely role of payments in changing people’s motivations to conserve biodiversity over time; and the potential effectiveness of PES, specifically when the latter aim to contribute to peace-building efforts and reducing illicit crop cultivation. The conservation conduit and contextual discourse are by far the most popular, while the inconvenient conservation narrative is only endorsed by academic actors. This suggests the existence of a broad community which believes PES are a pragmatic conservation strategy and who supports PES because payments can correct the often-uneven distribution of conservation costs and benefits. This overall positive engagement with PES, we argue, may facilitate the increase and upscaling of PES initiatives throughout the country, provided that funding and other supporting social conditions are met.

Annotated checklist and conservation status of mammals of Fars Province, southern Iran

Our purpose in this study was to gather all previously published data and our own data of extensive field expeditions and camera trapping to present a general view of the Fars mammals. The mammals of Fars Province, southern Iran, comprise of 72 species in 53 genera, 28 families and seven orders. The most diverse order is Chiroptera with 23 species or 31.9% of the mammalian fauna, followed by Carnivora and Rodentia (each with 18 species, 25%). The most diverse family is Vespertilionidae with nine species or 12.5% of the mammalian fauna, followed by Rhinopomatidae and Muridae, each with eight species or 11.1% of the mammalian fauna, Felidae and Canidae (each with five species, 6.9%), respectively. Sixteen families have only one species each. The Fars Province is the type locality of Triaenops persicus Dobson, 1871, Eptesicus serotinus shiraziensis (Dobson, 1871), Microtus irani Thomas, 1921, and Apodemus witherbyi (Thomas, 1902). Five species are listed in the Appendix I, eight species in the Appendix II, and eight species in the Appendix III of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). In addition, three species are considered as endangered and nine species as protected species based on the rules and regulations/laws of the Iranian Department of the Environment (DOE). The Asiatic Lion Panthera leo persica Meyer, 1826 is extirpated in Iran. Among the reported species, 60 species (83.3%) are considered as Least Concern (LC), two species as Not Evaluated (2.7%), one species as Data Deficient (1.4%), six species (8.3%) as Vulnerable (VU), and three species (4.2%) as Near Threatened (NT) in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The current checklist shows that the mammalian fauna of Fars Province is rich and taxonomically diverse, and the provided information will be necessary for the development of competent and pragmatic management plans and effective conservation policies.

Deriving forest fire probability maps from the fusion of visible/infrared satellite data and geospatial data mining

Information on fire probability is of vital importance to environmental and ecological studies as well as to fire management. This study aimed at comparing two forest fire probability mapping techniques, one based primarily on freely distributed EO (Earth observation) data from Landsat imagery, and another one based purely on GIS modeling. The Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR) computed from Landsat data was used to detect the high fire severity and probability area based on the NBR difference between pre- and post-fire conditions. The GIS-based modeling was based on a multi criterion evaluation technique, into which other attributes like anthropogenic and natural sources were also incorporated. The ability of both techniques to map forest fire probability was evaluated for a region in India, for which suitable ancillary data had been previously acquired to support a rigorous validation. Subsequently, a conceptual framework for the prediction of high fire probability zones in an area based on a newly introduced herein data fusion technique was constructed. Overall, the EO-based technique was found to be the most suitable option, since it required less computational time and resources in comparison to the GIS-based modeling approach. Furthermore, the fusion approach offered an appropriate path for developing a forest fire probability identification model for long-term pragmatic conservation of forests. The potential fusion of these two modeling approaches may provide information that can be useful to forest fire mitigation policy makers, and assist at conservation and resilience practices.

Applying Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques to Assess Spatial-temporal Patterns of Land-Use and Land-Cover Changes in Thakhek District of Central Laos

In recent decades, Lao PDR has experienced notable land-use and land-cover changes in the form of tropical deforestation and urban and agriculture land expansion. Accurate measurements of the land-use and land-cover cover changes are crucial in the context of Lao PDR for understanding local and regional changes in climate, the impacts on biodiversity, ecological health, and human welfare. This study aimed at analysing land-use and land-cover changes in Thakhek District located in the central part of Laos for past three decades (1987-2016) using a combination of remote sensing and GIS techniques. Landsat images for individual years were acquired from freely available sources and classified individually using an unsupervised classification module with four land-use and land-cover types. The changes in land-use and land-cover were mapped and analysed using a pixel-based post classification comparison technique in GIS environment. The classification results revealed that dense forest was the dominant land-cover type in the study area, followed by agriculture and built-up, open forest and waterbodies. Between 1987 and 2016, more than 27% of the study area changed. The general trend observed was an increase in the extent of agriculture and built-up land, dense forests and waterbodies, and a decrease in the extent of open forests. Majority of the land conversions observed were mutual and reversible. The study demonstrated a practical approach of combining capabilities of remote sensing and GIS to monitor temporal land-use and land-cover changes in tropical montane environments. The findings of the study would form the basis of formulating pragmatic conservation and management strategies of land resources in Thakhek District and elsewhere. Keywords Change detection; Dense forest; Landsat; Land conversion; Spatial pattern of change DOI: https://doi.org/10.23953/cloud.ijarsg.354 Google ScholarCrossrefScilit (MDPI)ResearchGateMendeley (ELSEVIER)Academia

<b>Distribution and habitat use of the endangered Dhole <I>Cuon alpinus</I> (Pallas, 1811) (Mammalia: Canidae) in Jigme Dorji National Park, western Bhutan</b>

The Dhole is a little-studied wild canid with decreasing populations throughout its global range. We conducted this study in Bhutan’s Jigme Dorji National Park (JDNP) to establish baseline records of Dhole distribution and habitat use. We used trail transects and recorded animal presence via tracks, scats, direct sightings and camera traps. Ancillary habitat characteristics such as elevation, slope and vegetation cover were recorded to characterise habitat use. We used MaxEnt model to estimate distribution within JDNP. We recorded 609 indicators of Dhole presence over a 60-day survey period. The model estimated almost one-fourth of JDNP as having a high probability of Dhole occurrence, which closely corresponds to the distribution of cool broadleaved forests (CBLF) and areas close to human settlements. The highest number of indicators was obtained from CBLF, between slope ranges of 2 – 38 degree and elevation ranges of 1,468 m – 4,620 m above sea level, indicating a new record upper altitude limit for Dhole distribution across its global range. We highlight JDNP as an important Dhole conservation area in the Eastern Himalayas, and recommend drafting a pragmatic conservation plan that will strive to minimize conflicts with livestock owners and include key components such as farmer education and livestock insurance to cover Dhole kills.

Using environmental DNA to assess population-wide spatiotemporal reserve use.

Scientists increasingly rely on protected areas to assist in biodiversity conservation, yet the efficacy of these areas is rarely systematically assessed, often because of underfunding. Still, adaptive management strategies to maximize conservation success often rely on understanding the temporal and spatial dynamism of populations therein. Examination of environmental DNA (eDNA) is a time and cost-effective way to monitor species' distribution, and quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) provides information on organismal abundance. To date, however, such techniques remain underused for population assessments in protected areas. We determined eDNA concentration of the critically endangered Yangtze finless porpoise (Neophocaena asiaeorientalis asiaeorientalis) to describe its occurrence, range, and use of the Tian e-Zhou National Nature Reserve in Hubei, China, across seasons and hydrological depths. Despite the observation that total eDNA concentrations were highest in surface waters in summer, finless porpoise eDNA concentrations were significantly higher in deeper waters than in surface waters in summer. During the breeding season (spring), eDNA signals were site specific and restricted to the core area of the reserve. However, postbreeding eDNA concentrations were widespread across the reserve, encompassing sites previously thought to be unfrequented by the species. Our results suggest spatiotemporal idiosyncrasies in site, depth, and seasonal use of the reserve and a propensity for postbreeding population dispersal. With eDNA and qPCR we were able to assess an entire population's use of a protected area. Illuminating nuances in habitat use via eDNA could be valuable to set pragmatic conservation goals for this, and other, species.

Coral Battleground? Re-examining the ‘Save the Reef’ campaign in 1960s Australia

Today’s campaigns to protect the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) have parallels with historical campaigns. With hindsight, we can more clearly see the way environmental discourses are socially constructed as well as their outcomes. This is potentially insightful for contemporary environmentalists. Beginning in 1967, the Save the Reef campaign had a thoughtful media strategy and sought to socially construct the GBR as a precious ecosystem that was at risk from exploitation. Histories of this campaign remember environmentalists as a weak, David-like contender in a fight against the powerful Goliath of the Queensland government and extractive industries. Using the historical archives as our primary data source, however, reveals that these memories are overstated and that environmentalists actually enjoyed widespread support. Moreover, we see that the GBR has no explicit ‘opponents’; even those who sought to exploit it came from a position of pragmatic conservationism, believing exploitation and conservation could coexist. The historical struggle over power and control of the GBR shows the positive outcomes which emerged from broad coalitions, as opposed to an adversarial and combative approach to activism.

Rare, Endangered and Threatened (RET) climbers of Southern Western Ghats, India

The Mountains of the Western Ghats are the second most important shelter in the world for threatened species. The current paper is an attempt to study the conservation assessment of rare, endangered and threatened species (RET) of the southern Western Ghats. A species is endangered when it is threatened with extinction. Since time began, countless species have gone extinct from natural processes. The present study was conducted to identify the rare, endangered and threatened climbing plants in Southern Western Ghats of Tamil Nadu, India. The plant collection and identification of the RET listed climbing species of the Southern Western Ghats was done during 2011–2014. The collection and identified RET plant species from the study were selected from different hills (forest) of Tamil Nadu. During the work the selected study sites were visited, plant specimens were collected and systematically pressed, stored for identification. A total number of 285 climber species comprising 125 genera of 41 families were identified from Southern Western Ghats of Tamil Nadu. Out of 285, 33 species are listed as RET species like Ceropegia mannarana Umam. & Daniel and Gloriosa superba L. fond to be Endangered species and Celastrus paniculata Willd., Aganosma cymosa G.Don. Smilax wightii A. DC., Corallocarpus gracilipes Cong., are rare species. The most specious families include Asclepiadaceae (7 species), Convolvulaceae (5-species) followed by, Fabaceae (4-species), Cucurbitaceae and Liliaceae each 3-species, and all the other remaining families having two or one species each. Some of the threatened factors such as over-exploitation of natural resources and other anthropogenic activities adversely affect the existing ecosystem and it may lead to the rarity of many species in future. There is an urgent need for developing pragmatic conservation strategies for endemic plants in the southern Western Ghats, which may lead to their effective protection.

Social Science Teachers on Citizenship Education: A Comparative Study of Two Post-Communist Countries

This paper presents some of the results of a comparative study of high school social science teachers in two post-communist European countries: Bulgaria and Croatia. In both countries, citizenship education was implemented as a part of the EU accession efforts. I discuss the ways teachers deal with the everyday dilemmas of teaching in a field which is by definition controversial and loaded with diverse political meanings. The study involved teachers in the two countries using Q-methodology, a combination of quantitative and qualitative techniques. Five distinct ways of dealing with these questions, five types of views were found in Bulgaria: Pragmatic Conservatives, Deliberative Liberals, Local Social Guardians, Personal Growth Facilitators, and Global Future Debaters. In Croatia, the types of views were: Patriotic Conservatives, Liberal Democracy Mentors, Reflective Humanists, and Personal Growth Coaches. The differences and similarities between the teachers’ views in both countries are compared. The study highlights the crucial role of teachers, of their beliefs and experiences in shaping national and European citizenship education policies. The implications of the study findings for citizenship education policy, curriculum development, and teacher training are briefly discussed

The Muslim Brotherhood: Evolution of an Islamist movement by Carrie Rosefsky Wickham

Carrie Rosefsky Wickham The Muslim Brotherhood: Evolution of an Islamist movement New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2013. 384 pp., US $29.95 (cloth) ISBN 9780691 149400The Muslim Brotherhood is Carrie Rosefsky Wickham's second book based on research project she began in the early 1990s on the Egyptian Brotherhood's political mobilization. The objective of the book is trace the evolution of the Muslim Brotherhood's political participation within authoritarian settings. Wickham argues that political participation has engendered behavioural and ideational patterns of change within the Muslim Brotherhood. She emphasizes strategic responses the political environment as well as the internal organization and differentiation of the movement. The author's evidence is drawn from interviews conducted over 22 years of field research and historical analysis of the Muslim Brotherhood's more than 80 years of existence. The Muslim Brotherhood adds the literature on the Middle East, social movements, contentious politics, and the study of comparative politics at large.Wickham commences her analysis of the Muslim Brotherhood with historical overview of the organization's founding in 1928 and continues with its developments under Egypt's three authoritarian rulers. She focuses much of her attention on the Hosni Mubarak era, since it was Mubarak's promise of more openness that ushered in the Muslim Brotherhood's gradual political participation. By the late 1980s, only few years after the Muslim Brotherhood entered the political sphere, the organization had achieved tremendous success, becoming Egypt's largest official opposition. This success worried the regime, which responded with an anti-Brotherhood campaign and frustrated the Muslim Brotherhood's political activities. The movement made political recovery in the 2000s when international democratization efforts pressured Mubarak into political liberalization. However, brutal political repression followed these brief periods of political openness. Wickham compares the Brotherhood's strategy during this period to the swing of pendulum, seesawing between moments of self-assertion through forceful political participation, on the one hand, and moments of self-restraint with minimal political participation, in order avoid confrontations with the regime, on the other (96). In 2010 the Muslim Brotherhood abandoned this strategy and collaborated with other opposition forces push for concrete democratic changes.Analyzing the Muslim Brotherhood's practices since the group's inception, Wickham concludes that political participation has led change in the Muslim Brotherhood's rhetoric and practice. The group has toned down its commitment the application of sharia law and articulated liberal interpretations of Islam aligned with more general rather than conservative and literal principles. Another notable change is the Muslim Brotherhood's adoption of democracy, pluralism, and human rights as part of its agenda. In practice, change has been visible in its cooperation with, and sensitivity to, other segments of society, including secular and liberal forces. Wickham notes that the Muslim Brotherhood took pains emphasize that they wanted 'participate, not dominate' and joined other secular groups in the push for constitutional and political reforms (284). Some might interpret these changes as strategic and self-serving, yet Wickham holds that a strategic explanation of Islamist movement change does not capture its full range of causes (284). The changes also reflect an ideational shift induced by the Muslim Brotherhood's interactions with the rest of society.Wickham demonstrates the Muslim Brotherhood's ideational shift through an analysis of the group's internal dynamics, composition, variations, and developments-the second major contribution of her book. Rejecting the conventional view of the Brotherhood as unitary actor, Wickham portrays it as multilayered organization with three key factions: the old guard, the pragmatic conservatives, and the reformists. …

UNLIKELY SCENARIO: HALT OF IRANIAN NUCLEAR PROGRAMME

This article analyzes if a change in domestic political dynamics might lead to a change of attitude toward abandoning Iranian nuclear programme, focusing on the attitudes of Iranian political factions, namely radical conservatives, pragmatic conservatives and reformists toward the Iranian nuclear programme. Presently, there is a common agreement among the political factions on how to continue on nuclear programme. Though this difference among attitudes is known, there has not been much literature on this issue. The article aims to show that even though there might be a change in the inner political dynamics, it would be a mistake to expect a great change in the official policy of Iran on nuclear programme. Iran will not halt its nuclear programme. The article argues that with the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmedinejad in the June 2009 presidential elections, in the short-term, there will not be any change in Iran‟s official attitude regarding its nuclear programme. Besides in the long-term, it is underlined that even if Ahmedinejad administration might be replaced by „reformists‟, Iran will not abandon its aim to achieve nuclear power, only there may be moderation in Iran‟s official rhetoric, and negotiations with the international community might improve.

Conservation action in a changing climate

AbstractClimate change will pose new challenges to conserving Earth's natural ecosystems, due to incremental changes in temperature and weather patterns, and to increased frequency and intensity of extreme climate events. Addressing these challenges will require pragmatic conservation actions informed by site‐specific understanding of susceptibility to climate change and capacity of societies to cope with and adapt to change. Depending on a location's environmental susceptibility and social adaptive capacity, appropriate conservation actions will require some combination of: (1) large‐scale protection of ecosystems; (2) actively transforming and adapting social‐ecological systems; (3) building the capacity of communities to cope with change; and (4) government assistance focused on de‐coupling communities from dependence on natural resources. We apply a novel analytical framework to examine conservation actions in five western Indian Ocean countries, where climate‐mediated disturbance has impacted coral reefs and where adaptive capacity differs markedly. We find that current conservation strategies do not reflect adaptive capacity and are, therefore, ill prepared for climate change. We provide a vision for conservation policies that considers social adaptive capacity that copes with complexities of climate change better than the singular emphasis on government control and the creation of no‐take areas.

An Operational Model for Implementing Conservation Action

The preoccupation of many conservation planners with the refinement of systematic assessment techniques has manifested an "implementation crisis" in conservation planning. This preoccupation has provided systematic assessments with well-tested tools (e.g., area selection algorithms) and principles (e.g., representation, complementarity), but our understanding of these techniques currently far exceeds our ability to apply them effectively to pragmatic conservation problems. The science is informative about where one needs to do conservation, but silent on how to achieve it. Operational models, defined as simplified conceptualizations of processes for implementing conservation action at priority conservation areas, are essential for guiding conservation planning initiatives because they assist understanding of how these processes function. Operational models developed to date have largely been linear, simplistic, and focused on the systematic assessment of biological entities. Experience in the real world indicates that operational models for conducting conservation planning initiatives should explicitly complement a systematic conservation assessment with activities that empower individuals and institutions (enabling) and explicitly aim to secure conservation action (implementation). Specifically, implementing effective conservation action requires that systematic assessments be integrated functionally with a process for developing an implementation strategy and processes for stakeholder collaboration while maintaining a broad focus on the implementation of conservation action. A suite of hallmarks define effective operational models (e.g., stakeholder collaboration, links with land-use planning, social learning, and action research). Greater development and testing of the practical application of operational models should lead to higher levels of effective implementation and alleviate the implementation crisis. Social learning institutions are essential for ensuring ongoing improvement in the development and application of operational models that deliver effective conservation action.

Delay, deny, delete and destroy: American conservatism and environmental protection

In the American political lexicon, the term NIMBY has become quite prominent. To it should be added, NIMEY and NIMTO; i.e. not in my election year and not in my term of office. The current U.S. federal administration is dominated in all three branches by ideological and pragmatic conservatives. Hostility toward the national environmental agenda which they inherited has been masked by subtle rhetoric and skilful use of the levers of power. The Bush administration has used the powers of the Executive to delay implementation of pending environmental initiatives, deny access of traditional environmental players to the process, delete from public access critical information and destroy environmental protections via use of the regulatory authority, control of the budget and cooperation with a mostly compliant Congress. This paper explores the skillfully crafted big picture of the Bush agenda toward the environment and their efforts at de–legitimizing the American environmental movement. Special emphasis will be paid toward the Bush administration efforts at: 1) delaying implementation of national and international policies with regard to climate change in the name of science; 2) opening up military lands and bases from compliance with environmental laws in the name of military preparedness; 3) removing information vital to action in the courts and in the field with regard to environmental hazards in the name of national security; 4) development of national energy plans with no legitimate input from the environmental community; 5) delaying implementation of vital air quality initiatives while waiting on Congress to pass their Clean Skies initiative; 6) shrinking the budgets of key environmental agencies and sources of environmental information including EPA, NASA, NOAA, OSHA and others.