The Conservation of Maya Cultural Heritage: Searching for Solutions in a Troubled Region

Abstract

Maya archaeological heritage continues to be a victim of looting, urbanization, and development despite the increased visibility of the issue within the field of archaeology. This article provides a generalized network analysis of the destruction of Maya cultural heritage in southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, western Honduras, and EI Salvador based on interviews conducted in 2006 by the Maya Area Cultural Heritage Initiative (MACHI) with archaeologists, government officials, non-governmental organizations, and Maya leaders. According to informants, interest among local people to conserve archaeological sites has been deeply affected by a lack of education about both Maya archaeology and the national and international laws assuring protection of cultural heritage; many local people, including members of modern Maya groups, see little value in the conservation of the Precolumbian past. MACHI suggests that an effective way to mitigate looting and the wanton destruction of Maya cultural heritage is through the promotion of a variety of educational initiatives (ranging from informal to institutional, for both children and adults) that seek to combine the knowledge of Western archaeological science with indigenous ways of knowing the past. Such initiatives could encourage the construction of positive relationships between indigenous and other local peoples and archaeological remains.     

Management of Historic Shipwrecks Through a Combination of Significance and Conservation Assessments

Abstract

Corrosion modelling of decay rates of the iron wrecks in Port Phillip Bay, Victoria, has enabled an estimation of the speed at which the historic resource of iron shipwrecks is disappearing. Use of the significance ranking of the iron wrecks, based on the Australian National Standards for significance assessment, provides a useful guide to decision-making, but decisions based solely on these criteria can lead to less than optimal results. From the corrosion rates and the amount of residual metal thickness in structural elements it is possible to determine a conservation ranking that is based on the need for intervention and the chances of being successful in stabilizing the wrecks. The arithmetic product of the significance and conservation rankings defines the treatment score or ranking which forms the basis for rational decision making about deployment of resources.     

Policies for Biodiversity Conservation: The Case of Sub-Saharan Africa

Why does biodiversity conservation matter, and what can be done about it? The article discusses the options in the case of Sub-Saharan Africa, drawing on the results of a Darwin Initiative project on the ecology and economics of biodiversity conservation in the continent. It uses the case of Sub-Saharan Africa to illustrate both the consequences of biodiversity loss and the constraints within which policy-makers operate. To most people the biodiversity loss that matters is not the global extinction of species, but the effects of local change in flora and fauna on watershed protection, soil conservation, habitat, productivity and amenity. For this reason, biodiversity conservation concerns even the poorest communities. But because poverty, indebtedness, insecurity of land tenure and other social conditions affect the way in which people respond to incentives, the policy options for biodiversity conservation may be different in different parts of the world.     

Community Formation and Fisheries Conservation in Southern Thailand

This article explores theories of community, common property and collective action by reflecting upon the management and enclosure of a coastal fishery in Southern Thailand. Its aims are threefold. First, it explores the incentives that motivated villagers to support and enforce this common property regime. Second, it considers the issue of leadership, investigating why certain individuals were willing to bear considerable costs on behalf of the fishery, while others were not. Finally, it examines the ways in which religion and ethnic identity helped to forge ‘an image of community’ on which collective action could thrive. It argues that age, gender and class had a profound impact on the extent to which individuals could engage in this important socio–political activity. In so doing, it illustrates the dynamic ways in which power, structure and historical social relations can shape community, common property and collective action.     

Hybrid Outcomes of Payments for Ecosystem Services Policies in Vietnam: Between Theory and Practice

Vietnam has had a national Payments for Forest Environmental Services (PFES) policy in place since 2010, which transfers money for forest protection from water and energy users to households who live in upland watersheds. However, despite a loose resemblance to general Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) principles, implementation in Vietnam differs strongly from a theoretical ideal, and has a number of unique features, including: strong state involvement in transactions; no use of markets to set payments; poor definition and monitoring of ecosystem services; and the adoption of non-conditional incentives that strongly resemble livelihood subsidies for poor rural areas. The form that PES takes in Vietnam has been shaped by institutional histories of forest management that have envisioned a strong role for the state and for financial transfers to the rural uplands. At the same time, PES has also been influenced by active engagement and agency of central and local government actors, and local payment recipients, and key areas in which they have impacted PES design include shared governance and more equitable benefit distribution models. These institutional priorities and local values that have shaped PES policy and implementation in Vietnam have led to a hybrid model, full of contradictions and compromises, that neither fits a classical definition nor resembles neoliberal conservation outcomes, and whose success is difficult to judge.     

Community Conservation and the (Mis)appropriation of Taboo

Community conservation initiatives have long struggled to forge productive relationships with the people living in and around protected areas. Currently, there is enthusiasm among conservation researchers and practitioners regarding local cultural taboos, which often appear to conserve species and landscapes of ecological importance. However, in incorporating local taboos into conservation programmes, there is the risk that these culturally sophisticated institutions are used in a highly reductionist manner. Drawing from ethnographic work in Madagascar, this article highlights how the simplification of cultural taboos can exasperate already fraught relationships between communities and conservation organizations, and undermine the very environmental outcomes that groups seek to promote. This reductionist approach can also lead to the harmful appropriation of local meanings and resources. Overall, while working with local taboos may potentially offer an alternative to neoliberal models of conservation, scholars and practitioners should recognize the dynamic and interconnected processes connected with taboos, instead of regarding them as static and interchangeable products.     

People in Between: Conversion and Conservation of Forest Lands in Thailand

The analysis of ‘ambiguous lands’ and the people who inhabit them is most revealing for understanding environmental deterioration in Thailand. ‘Ambiguous lands’ are those which are legally owned by the state, but are used and cultivated by local people. Land with an ambiguous property status attracts many different actors: villagers hungry for unoccupied arable lands in the frontiers; government departments looking for new project sites; and conservation agencies searching for new areas to be protected. This article shows, first, how two types of ambiguous land — state‐owned but privately‐cultivated land, and communal lands — were created. It then examines how the Karen, one of the hill peoples living on the ambiguous lands, have been struggling to survive between the forces of capitalistic development and forest conservation. Using a detailed study of forest use and dependency conducted in two Karen villages, I argue that the state’s efforts to reduce the Karen’s forest dependency, or even to evict them from the forests, are not leading to the stated objective of conservation. Finally, I draw some wider implications with reference to James Scott’s thesis on state simplification.     

Spatial Analysis of Library System and Proposal for New Libraries in Istanbul

Over the past several decades, the rapid growth of Istanbul has resulted in a tremendous gap between the need and provision of social facilities. Growing societal and community needs in the information age and the desire to become a member of the European Union (EU) have stimulated public officials to upgrade the existing libraries and to increase their numbers so as to reach European standards. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to evaluate the spatial distribution of existing libraries and to propose new ones where they are needed. Volume is the most important and the population of the districts is the second important factor to affect library use. Thus, it is crucial to support library construction, especially in the periphery of the city for future development, and to improve the level of service of the existing libraries.     

寻秘藏地之“蝠”

从SARS到MERS,再到新型冠状病毒,果子狸、骆驼、竹鼠、獾、蛇、水貂、穿山甲……一个个地被确认或怀疑为病毒的中间宿主,而这些新发病毒的储存宿主或天然宿主,却指向了同_个目标蝙蝠。蝙蝠曾是中华民族喜闻乐见的吉祥符号,在中国古代,享有其他动物无可比拟的尊荣。     

1957-1966年党的个体私营经济政策述评

个体私营经济问题,是我国社会主义建设过程中必须认真对待和正确处理的一个重要问题.本文对"三大改造"以后,"文化大革命"之前,即1957-1966年党关于个体私营经济的认识及政策演变作了认真的分析,对农村自留地、家庭副业、个体手工业、小商小贩问题作了重点的论述,对这个时期党在个体私营经济问题上的失误与教训作了一定的总结.这项研究对进一步深化关于个体私营经济的认识,更加坚定不移贯彻执行当前发展个体私营经济的政策,具有深刻的历史启示和重要的现实意义.     

Revitalisation of the Main Street of a Distinguished Old Neighbourhood in Istanbul

This study investigates the revitalisation of the main street of Beyoglu, which was the westernised part of Istanbul's CBD in the nineteenth century. Beyoglu started to develop in the sixteenth century with the introduction of embassy buildings of European countries. Its development reached a climax during the nineteenth century as a result of increased European trade and cultural influence, remaining the most distinguished quarter of Istanbul until the 1960s. Thereafter, it suffered from decay, disinvestment and abandonment as a result of later suburbanisation and the multi-centre development of Istanbul. Revitalisation of the quarter started with the pedestrianisation of the main street. This study investigates the functional transformation and changes in land prices along the main street and surrounding neighbourhoods after the pedestrianisation. The factors which effect land prices are investigated by the use of regression analysis. According to the results, access to mass transit is the most important factor. Besides its convenient central-city location, with easy access to the city's main transportation arteries, no doubt also its distinguished architectural character contributed to its revitalisation. Although the revitalisation of the main street as a cooperative movement of public and private sectors, effectively, it was a market-lead restructuring afterwards. At the same time, international companies opening up stores reflecting the globalisation movement increased the attractiveness of the main street. The results of the study can be used by urban planners, policy-makers and investors for the revitalisation of other historical neighbourhoods in Istanbul and other cities. For further research, hierarchical analysis of spatial impacts of revitalisation areas is suggested.     

Social and political trust in Istanbul and Moscow: a comparative analysis of individual and neighbourhood effects

Aiming to bring local context into studies of social capital, our study uses samples of 4006 individuals in Istanbul and 3476 in Moscow using a comparable questionnaire. The stratification of each city's neighbourhoods on the basis of socio-economic characteristics provided the basis for the sampling. Using a multilevel modelling procedure, we show both that locality matters (neighbourhood effect proved significant) and that social capital may indeed be constituted in very particular ways in illiberal democracies such as Russia and Turkey. Social and political trust are frequently thought to contribute to social capital – that is, to provide social resources upon which individuals or groups may draw for their political efficacy. Trust in fellow citizens in Istanbul exhibits a positive relationship to associational activities (joining clubs etc.), while in Moscow social trust can be explained predominantly in terms of (lower) socio-economic status. At the same time, important similarities emerged between the two cases. For social trust, in both cities the 'cosmopolitanization thesis', which holds that those who associate more widely are also more trusting of fellow citizens, generally applied. Further, in both cities, residents with lower socio-economic status (though in Moscow this is complicated by education) and lower likelihoods of engagement in direct political action were more trustful of parliament . While this is the opposite of what we have been led to expect based on Western democratic polities, it is a reasonable outcome of illiberal democratic governance operating in these two cities.     

The Water Balance of the World's Continents and a Balance Estimate of the World's Freshwater Resources

The results of several years of investigation of the water balance of continents and the world's freshwater resources are presented. Through the use of interpolation relationships to make up for data gaps, maps are compiled for the basic elements of the water balance of the world: total runoff, including its surface and subsurface components, evaporation, gross wetness (soil moisture) and the coefficient of subsurface alimentation of streams, which reflects much of the stable component of streamflow. Revised estimates for the water-balance elements are offered for continents on the basis of revised data. The per capita water supply of continents is calculated, with separate listing of the stable component of runoff, consisting not only of the subsurface flow to streams but also the portion of surface streamflow that is regulated through lakes and reservoirs.     

Searching for a Younger Generation of Tibetan Minstrels to Sing the King Gesar

As time goes by,the development of epic performance cul-ture naturally fol-lows that the old blind minstrels who once specialized in singing the oral epic King Gesar(which they had memorized by their memories)are gradually dying out.Therefore, sooner or later,live performance of the oral epic King Gesar seems doomed to disappear.But does the successive loss of elite minstrels, such as the departure of Zhaba, Tsewang Jigme,Atak,Khetsa Zhaba,     

从教会契约文书看邵武美部会与民间社会的互动——兼论教会契约文书在地方史研究中的史料价值

以邵武美部会契约文书本文引用的契约文书均为福建师范大学社会历史学院所藏,引用时加注其原始编号。为研究范本,考察同治十二年(1873)至民国20年(1931)邵武美部会与民间社会围绕置产这一经济活动而发生的互动,认为教会契约文书可以提供教士回忆录、教会报刊杂志、年议会录等传统教会研究资料和正史、地方志等官修著述均未记载的历史资料,构建新的区域教会史研究范式,客观、真实、全面地展示区域教会发展历史,进而不断充实和丰富地方历史全貌。     

馆藏壁画的历史信息与现状调查

馆藏壁画是博物馆藏品中一类特殊的文物。在馆藏大召寺壁画、陕西唐墓壁画等现状调查研究的基础上,本文分析馆藏壁画区别于原址壁画的特殊性,并提出针对馆藏壁画特点进行历史信息与现状调查的内容框架。强调壁画揭取历史、修复史、搬运史和保存环境等历史信息的调查对于认知壁画的重要性：壁画的现状调查包括本体调查和病害调查两部分,能够帮助保护工作者以科学的视角综合评价壁画保存现状。本文分别论述调查各个方面的意义、具体内容和方法。调查结果无疑对于制定保护修复方案具有重要意义,为合理实施保护修复提供科学依据,并为后续研究和档案记录提供基础信息。     

Relationship Between Green Areas and Urban Conservation in Historical Areas and Its Reflections: Case of Diyarbakir City,Turkey

City planning is essential for providing physical environment for better community life and for providing green areas, while conserving historical heritage is an important achievement in city planning, particularly for historical cities such as Diyarbakir city. The focus of this paper is to outline how increasing the ratio of green area in the city centre of Diyarbakir, Turkey, with a land-use betterment model exemplified sustainable urbanism. We observed an applied urban design project that included both opening up free space to the public and increasing the amount of available green area. The project addressed an area adjacent to the Diyarbakir city walls, which are important not only for their history but also as reflections of the urbanization process of Diyarbak?r from prehistoric time to the twenty-first century. We have noticed that changes in the design area provided understanding of the city planning by public and supplied more green areas for children and women. Thus, the city became more desirable and more sustainable.     

Spatial Distribution of Shopping Malls and Analysis of their Trade Areas in Istanbul

This paper investigates the spatial distribution of shopping malls with respect to population and analyses the factors which effect the shopping mall location. According to the results, while the shopping mall space ratio is higher than population ratio in the intermediate zone, the reverse is true in the periphery. The relationships between the shopping mall space and income, population and distance to the central business district (CBD) of the locations are investigated by the use of regression analysis. The results reveal that income is the only factor affecting the location of shopping malls among those considered. In addition, three shopping malls from the inner and peripheral zones of Istanbul were analysed with respect to frequency to shopping centres and characteristics of trade areas. According to the results, the size of the catchment area of the shopping mall from the inner zone is larger then the peripheral ones due to higher accessibility with alternative transportation systems and supporting functions in its surrounding areas. The results fall within the concept of central place theory. Further research is suggested by expending the study to the other areas of the city with different characteristics to calculate their retail potential and their spatial implications.