Constructing Sustainable Rural Landscapes: Oil Mallees and the Western Australian Wheatbelt

This paper considers the landscapes of the Western Australian wheatbelt and the possibilities for sustainability signified by the Oil Mallee Project. The Oil Mallee Project aims to develop commercially viable tree crops for the low rainfall wheatbelt region as a means of profitably managing dryland salinity. Interviews with farmers and other stakeholders in the Oil Mallee Project and agriculture are analysed to reveal important elements of landscape construction in the wheatbelt and stages in the emergence of the Project. These elements include historical land clearing, international chemical and machinery companies and the technologies they supply, land of marginal economic productivity, global food markets and alley farming systems. The paper uses material semiotics and actor‐network theory in describing the networks of relationships that shape wheatbelt landscapes. Breakdowns in the dominant networks of industrial agriculture provide spaces for the Oil Mallee Project to build relationships that reconnect industrial systems to the specific ecology of the wheatbelt landscape. However, the networks of industrial agriculture remain powerful and the Project has worked strategically to become integrated with existing agricultural systems, rather than aiming to directly resist or entirely displace dominant patterns of production in the wheatbelt.     

Women's and Men's Work: The Production and Marketing of Fresh Food and Export Crops in Papua New Guinea

Fresh food markets have been a fixture of the social and economic landscape of urban and rural PNG since colonial times. They were often the first points of engagement with the market economy, especially for women, who as small‐scale producers, sold surplus produce from their food gardens located on communally‐owned land. Although local food markets have remained an important livelihood for women, the later adoption and expansion of perennial export cash crops like coffee and cocoa overshadowed food production for local markets as men dominated export crop production on land alienated from communal ownership for decades or permanently. New forms of social relations of production and more exclusive forms of land tenure emerged to accommodate export crop production that were very different from those governing the production and marketing of fresh food. Market values and a trend towards individualisation of production with less capacity to mobilise labour through reciprocal labour exchange networks have characterised export crop production. With the income benefits captured largely by men, women began redirecting their labour to fresh food production where they were able to exercise more control of production and income while still mobilising labour through indigenous labour exchange arrangements. Attempts by men to appropriate the income of women and sons’ labour in export cropping were greater during flush periods when income levels were high, and they were less likely to attempt to appropriate this income in low crop periods when incomes were lower. However, with the recent emergence of female entrepreneurers earning relatively large sums of money in large‐scale, profit‐driven vegetable production, the moral frameworks governing food production are coming to resemble those governing export crops, and making labour more difficult to mobilise. Despite women being key players in these changes, we argue there is an emerging risk that men will attempt to assert control over this income or move into vegetable production themselves and possibly marginalise women in the process.     

Consumption,Environmental Sustainability and Human Geography in Australia: a Missing Research Agenda?

‘Consumption’ is a central concept in the global environmental sustainability agenda. However, one important argument from Agenda 21 — that all social actors must now practise ‘sustainable consumption’— has been publicly and politically marginalised in high‐income countries such as Australia. Geographers potentially have a role in bringing consumption back onto the agenda by constructing a critical geography of consumption. Such research can help understand how the contextual use of natural resources is perceived and practised, and how consumption helps to shape contemporary social relations. This body of knowledge is vital for building sustainable development into everyday lives. Yet a focus on urban consumption perceptions and practices appears somewhat lacking in Australian geography. Ways forward can be drawn from international geography, such as in the United Kingdom where a substantial body of work has drawn a complex picture of contemporary consumption and environmental understanding. It has also challenged prevailing ‘ecological modernisation’ policy approaches, which ignore consumption's cultural facets. In sum, considering consumption in Australia can offer insights into cultural practices expressed through consumption; can challenge and add to European geographical literatures, and can also contribute to sustainability debates by offering alternatives to currently ineffective policy discourses.     

Russia’s gas “Triopoly”: implications of a changing gas sector structure

The growth strategies of the two largest so-called independent Russian gas producers – Novatek and Rosneft – as well as developments in international markets and changing domestic energy needs have put pressure on the present Russian gas sector model dominated by Gazprom. The three companies are involved in a struggle over export liberalization as well as the conditions in the domestic market. Liquefied natural gas is top priority for Novatek and Rosneft’s main gas focus is on eastern Russia and Asia, but there is still room for considerable tension with Gazprom. The government wants to both improve Russia’s position in export markets and maintain stable domestic supplies, including to socially disadvantaged regions and institutions. Gazprom is insisting that if further access to export markets is granted to the Independents, then they must take greater responsibility for domestic market obligations. On the other hand, the key Independents seem intent on stopping or slowing down their expansion in the domestic market in order to prioritize export sales, and will certainly not take broader domestic supply responsibilities without better access to export markets. The balancing of policies involves strong players on the Russian economic and political scene, all with ties to the Kremlin.     

Front and Back Covers,Volume 32, Number 3. June 2016

Front and back cover caption, volume 32 issue 3 Front cover STANDSTILL Behzad Sarmadi tells the story of Dubai's descent into an economic crisis in 2009 by seizing on the financial concept of ‘standstill’. The government of Dubai publicly (and unilaterally) invoked this concept in late 2009 so as to pause the debt obligations of a ‘government‐related’ corporation in the face of immanent bankruptcy. This figurative use of standstill by the city‐state, however, soon manifested itself in the city. Cars once owned by over‐indebted foreign residents began to accumulate dust on the sides of roads and parking lots as they were abandoned to literally stand still. Sarmadi examines this process by repurposing the notion of standstill as a tool with which to ethnographically link the structural dimensions of a financial crisis and its lived experience. Back cover DISEASES OF THE SOUTH At night the chimneys of the Ilva steelworks loom behind a residential building in Taranto, southern Italy. The largest steelworks in Europe, and one of the few former state factories still standing in southern Italy, Ilva provides much needed employment in an impoverished region. However, it is also one of the worst polluters in Italy. Epidemiological studies have shown a high incidence of pulmonary cancers in the area, prompting Italian legal authorities to put the owners on trial for illegal polluting emissions. In spite of the unhealthy environment both in Taranto and in toxic waste‐ridden Terra dei fuochi, near Naples, the state's dominant message is for its residents to adopt ‘healthier lifestyles’. Biomedicine emphasizes individual, lifestyle‐linked factors of disease. Yet such an emphasis diminishes some of the most obvious underlying factors, such as pollution, over which individuals have little or no control, and which affects entire territories and populations. When a population is stigmatized or racialized as ‘backwards’, as southern Italians are, even the most obvious environmental injustices can be obfuscated in this way. In southern Italy, as in other areas hit by environmental injustice, marginality is compounded by a stigma that demonizes as irrational local environmental movements fighting pollution on their own doorstep. Effectively, people are blamed for aiding and abetting their own diseases. While the health‐or‐jobs dilemma is a classic issue of industrialization, companies have even more power to pollute once they are the only source of jobs left.     

New technologies in cultural institutions: theory,evidence and policy implications

Publicly-funded cultural institutions such as theatre companies, symphony orchestras, museums, libraries and so on are increasingly engaging with new technologies as a means of improving their operational efficiency and extending the range of ways in which they pursue their cultural missions. For example, opera companies are broadcasting performances by satellite to cinemas, and art museums are using the Internet to show virtual exhibitions. These developments have implications for funding authorities who need to update their policy approaches to encompass a range of new technological phenomena. This paper provides a framework for assessing technological innovation in cultural institutions, and discusses the ramifications of such a framework for cultural policy. The paper is illustrated using the results of a recent research project that evaluated the UK National Theatre’s NT Live experiment and the Tate Gallery’s use of a web-based exhibition as strategies to expand their audience reach.     

Sustainability Standards and the Water Question

Increased global trade in agricultural commodities has boosted fresh water consumption. This export of ‘virtual water’, embedded in products sold abroad, has increasingly affected local communities and ecosystems, especially in arid regions. Recent initiatives to certify agricultural production are showing a rapidly growing interest in considering water issues within schemes of quality assurance, sustainable production and fair trade. This article scrutinizes current water sustainability certification schemes, and how they affect local water user communities. The authors use three notions of governmentality to examine water sustainability standards and how they aim ‘to conduct the conduct’ of water users: (1) standards as ‘production of truth’ and ‘mentalities’ that constitute systems of collective rationalities, values, norms and knowledge; (2) standards as networks that prescribe roles and establish power relations between companies and producers; and (3) standards as ‘techniques of visibilization’ that control practices and discipline producers. Private standards in general reinforce the political and market power of private sector agro‐food chains in local water management, to the detriment of local water user communities and national governments. However, sustainability certification could also potentially enable local, regional, national and international organizations of user communities to stake claims and negotiate to protect their water sources and livelihoods.     

Radical Environmentalism and “Commoning”: Synergies Between Ecosystem Regeneration and Social Governance at Tamera Ecovillage,Portugal

This article explores the scope and limitations of Radical Environmentalism as a source of practices of “commoning”. The application of the radical environmental “Healing Biotope” model in Tamera, an ecovillage located in southern Portugal, further expands the understanding of “commoning” as a social process, as well as of Radical Environmentalism as a cognitive framework. This article distinguishes between the technical and political dimensions of “commoning”. It also identifies two structuring dimensions of Radical Environmentalism, hereby called integrative rationality and the experiential action research and learning methodology. These dimensions support the technical aspect of “commoning” in Tamera by promoting epistemic and methodological coherence between social and environmental technologies. Despite their contested scientific validity, they contribute to the sustainability of the project by promoting synergies between ecological regeneration and social governance. However, they have limited capacity to address the political dimension of “commoning”, related with rank and socio‐economic inequalities among members.     

Motivations for Voluntary Environmental Management

This article examines the motivations for firms to participate in voluntary environmental programs and to adopt environmental management practices using data gathered from a survey conducted in 2005 of facilities located in Oregon operating in six industrial sectors. It is one of the first studies of voluntary environmental management to include small‐, medium‐, and large‐sized facilities as well as to include both privately and publicly owned facilities. In particular, we examine the effects of both external factors such as regulatory, consumer, and investor pressures, and internal factors such as technical and resource capacity, in influencing voluntary environmental behavior. The intent is to describe potential influences that have implications for designing and implementing private and public policies that foster effective voluntary environmental management by firms. We find that larger facilities are more likely to participate in more voluntary environmental programs, but are likely to adopt more environmental management practices only if environmental issues are of significant concern to them. Presence of an R&D department stimulates the adoption of more environmental management practices, particularly if environmental issues are of significant concern to the facility, but does not have a statistically significant impact on participation in voluntary programs. We also find that while regulatory pressures are significant in motivating participation in voluntary programs and adoption of environmental management practices, competitive pressures are only important in motivating the former. Pressure from final good consumers or from investors in publicly traded facilities is not found to have a significant influence on voluntary environmental behavior of facilities in this study.     

Corporate accountability in South Africa: the role of community mobilizing in environmental governance

Contrasting perspectives of international companies and civil society groups have divided recent debates about corporate responsibility in developing countries. The Corporate Social Responsibility discourse has been promoted by business lobbies, emphasizing the role of international companies in voluntarily contributing towards the solution of pressing social and environmental problems through partnerships with other stakeholders. The notion of corporate accountability has become the rallying point for sustainable development, demanding stricter regulation of corporate behaviour by national governments and the enactment of an international corporate accountability convention. This article assesses the promises and pitfalls of these two competing approaches to industries in South Africa. The article argues that a multi-level approach is necessary to the impact of CSR and corporate accountability initiatives. It concludes that CSR may improve environmental management systems and reduce corporate pollution levels whereas corporate accountability approaches may provide important incentives for companies to improve their environmental performance, assist in the development of national environmental governance frameworks guiding company-community interaction, and facilitate the enforcement of national legislation pertaining to corporate responsibility. However, both approaches fail to address the underlying, globallevel structural causes of conflicts between companies and stakeholders affected by their operations. These conflicts can only be reversed by fundamental changes in the global economy.     

FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT,INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT AND THE CHANGING POLISH PIG INDUSTRY

The world's meat market has had tremendous growth in the past decades. Global meat producers, particularly in developed economies, have grown bigger through expansion, mergers and acquisitions. The livestock markets in less developed countries are particularly the prime targets for investments by these producers. This article looks at foreign direct investment in a transitional economy, using Poland's pig industry as the empirical case study. It argues that such investments not only bring significant changes in the method of producing meat in the host country; they also have particular socio‐political impacts and have thus been met with some level of resistance by local communities. Our study suggests that the relations of foreign firms to the local community are crucial for their long term presence; and these relations are in turn dependent on a gamut of place specific features and the firms' broader corporate philosophy and strategy. In general, foreign firms need to find ways to replicate the kinds of deep social‐economic links between the livestock industry and places that existed in the socialist era. The case studies of American‐owned Agri Plus and Danish‐owned Poldanor illustrate some of the difficulties involved in the foreign investment in the meat industries while demonstrating the viability and possibility of such companies becoming more accepted and welcomed in the local communities.     

A Market Road to Sustainable Agriculture? Ecological Agriculture,Green Food and Organic Agriculture in China

To the extent that free markets show little concern for the existence of externalities, they are unlikely to produce optimum outcomes with regard to the protection and enhancement of the natural environment. Accordingly, the increasing emphasis on markets to deliver development in China under Deng Xiaoping and his successors has the capacity to threaten the long‐term environmental sustainability of that development. While there are good reasons to remain sceptical about the ability of market mechanisms to promote sustainable rural development in many respects, market reforms in China and the opening of the country to the outside world have nevertheless provided opportunities for farmers to engage in ecologically sensitive agriculture in the form of ‘green’ food and organic farming. Given that these forms of agriculture reduce farmers’ use of chemicals compared to conventional farming — chemicals which are costly to produce and environmentally degrading to use — they contribute to ensuring a more environmentally sustainable future for Chinese farming, post‐WTO entry, whilst providing opportunities for farmers to enrich themselves at the same time: a ‘win–win’ state of affairs. This will remain the case, however, only so long as the state is prepared to create and reinforce appropriate institutional arrangements.     

植物对岩土文物的作用及保护技术研究进展

由于人工-自然复合生态系统的不稳定性及保存环境的复杂性，岩土文物长期遭受着生物与非生物因素的威胁，其中，植物对遗址的作用及其保护应用技术一直备受关注。对相关研究成果总结表明，基于植物的新型遗址防护技术以其绿色、可持续和环境兼容等优势在石质古城墙、夯土类遗址等的保护中逐渐成为替代工程类抢救性保护措施，但存在植物对岩土文物作用机理认知不足、研究技术受限、防控新技术应用滞后及其效果不佳、保护遗址植物选种及后期维护较难等问题，致使植物与岩土文物间的辩证关系至今界定不清，极大限制了保护技术的研发。结合我国石窟寺、土遗址保护面临的生物学问题，针对植物保护遗址技术实施的限制因素，作出以下展望：1)厘清植物对岩土文物的损害及保护作用机理；2)构建不同环境下界定植物对岩土文物正负效应的科学评估体系；3)明确植物种内和种间的相互作用以及驱动植物在岩土文物表面建植的关键因子；4)结合全球气候变化，研发岩土文物有害植物的精准防控技术；5)筛选适宜的软覆盖植物种并对其防护效果进行评估；6)研发基于BSC的软覆盖技术，开展环境适应性和保护效果评估。     

Markets,Resources, Environments

Orthodox economists argue, in this country as elsewhere in the developed world, that many of the issues of environmental damage and resource use over which governments, corporations and community groups tussle could be resolved if appropriate markets for environmental goods were established. This paper argues that markets are commonly not appropriate mechanisms to resolve environmental disputes: much of the problem is to determine the effects rather than to allocate them; when the rate of discount of the future is positive, the social need is different from the sum of rational individual decisions; and markets ignore equity. Furthermore, the limits on sustainability seem to be quantitative rather than qualitative - to rest on the magnitude of resource discovery, or on the rate of improvement of environmental quality per dollar invested for example. Again, the central question concerns the data rather than a means of allocating costs and benefits. These difficulties in using market mechanisms imply that legal systems may be preferable as means of regulating environmental use.     

Science,sustainability and the establishment in a technological age

Abstract

Sustainable development, balancing economic and social development with environmental protection, has become a modern paradigm in our technological age. The British government, amongst others, regards science as being important in underpinning the move towards sustainability. However, many of the principles that bolster the three pillars of sustainable development – 'people, prosperity and planet' – are often viewed as being unscientific by sceptical natural and social scientists. But these principles are no different from the rules of thumb that engineers typically employ to design technological systems. The links between science, technology and the need to achieve environmental sustainability are explored here mainly in the context of the energy sector, which accounts for ninety-five per cent of carbon dioxide emissions in the UK. It is argued that the UK national academies of science and engineering tend to provide policy advice to government that favours 'advanced' technologies. They advocate support for such technologies often without regard for the results of science based integrated appraisal methods or for the need to engage in wider stakeholder dialogue. Greater attention is paid to 'hardware' than to, for example, energy efficiency or resource productivity more generally. The national academies could instead place themselves at the forefront of moves towards sustainability, by locating themselves more firmly in the vanguard of those devising a sustainability assessment framework.     

Trade Liberalization and Export Performance in Bolivia

One of the anticipated gains from the trade liberalization policies adopted by many Latin American countries in recent years is improved export performance. In this article, the arguments on which this expectation is based are reviewed and the impact of trade liberalization on Bolivian manufactured exports analysed. The conclusion is that improved export performance is largely the result of a more realistic and more stable real exchange rate after 1985, while the trade policy reforms have had little impact. Certain deficiencies of Bolivia's export performance, such as the increased emphasis on primary and semi-processed products, and the lack of diversification in terms of both products and markets, are also noted.     

Caretakers of the Earth: integrating Canadian Aboriginal perspectives on culture and sustainability into local plans

Abstract

While still contested in most jurisdictions, a consensus on the four-pillar approach to sustainable development is slowly emerging. This perspective attempts to integrate the environmental, social, economic and cultural elements of a community into local sustainability planning processes and has been widely adopted in Canada as the basis of Integrated Community Sustainability Plans. However, Aboriginal perspectives have generally been marginalised in such efforts, largely because Aboriginal peoples take a more holistic approach to both sustainability and culture than Western-educated planners and decision makers. This article examines current approaches and methodologies adopted by Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities in Canada to integrate culture in sustainability planning and presents several case studies that examine the application of medicine wheel and other Aboriginal integrative worldviews to community sustainability planning. It discusses whether Aboriginal perspectives on culture can provide an alternative narrative that will advance our understanding of culture’s role in community sustainability and counteract the monocultural perspectives that are the legacy of colonialism throughout the world.     

Export-led Technology Development in the Four Dragons: The Case of Electronics

To date, little attention has been paid to the strategies of local firms in bringing about industrialization in Bast Asia. This article focuses on the methods by which domestic firms utilized foreign connections to overcome technology and market barriers in electronics. A simple market-technology model is developed as a first approximation of how domestic technology assimilation relates to export marketing in the four ‘Dragons' of East Asia (South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore). It proposes that export demand shaped the pace and pattern of technological progress in electronics in each of the four Dragons. Historical evidence shows that each country used a distinctive mix of direct and indirect export mechanisms to acquire technology and to enter international markets. Foreign buyers, transnational corporations (TNCs), original equipment manufacturer (OEM) arrangements, joint ventures and licensing deals were exploited by ‘latecomer’ firms to their market and technology advantage. Asian firms progressed from simple assembly tasks to more sophisticated product design and development capabilities, travelling ‘backwards' along the product life cycle of traditional innovation models. Today, leading Asian firms invest heavily in R&D and engage in partnerships with TNCs to acquire and develop advanced new electronics technologies. The technological progress of latecomers remains closely coupled to export demand through OEM and other institutional arrangements.     

Against the wind – new factories of Russian manufacturing subsidiaries of Western multinational corporations

Using a series of interviews with the heads of Russian subsidiaries of Western multinational corporations and a unique database registering the openings of their new manufacturing plants in Russia during 2014–2015, we trace the changing demography, geography, and economics of foreign direct investments in industrial assets in Russia. We demonstrate that foreign companies in general were capable of overcoming the adverse economic conditions of 2015 and were able to complete their projects of installation of new factories that were launched in 2012–2013. More importantly, economic sanctions caused accelerated completion of previously started industrial works. Such new and upgraded factories not only target current opportunities and market niches in consumer markets but also aim at exploring possibilities in core industrial markets, including mining equipment, transportation equipment, and other types of industrial equipment. We also highlight the emergence of a new type of industrial project known as “fenced field projects,” which are new manufacturing facilities within the existing industrial sites of successful Russian firms. This new type is particularly attractive for companies in the machine-building and chemical industries. Fenced field projects can be either wholly owned subsidiaries or joint ventures, but the main feature of such projects is the active use of the developed physical and business infrastructure of the “hosting” Russian company. We demonstrate not only the changes in the geographic distribution of foreign direct investments in Russia but also the impact on medium-sized industrial towns (200,000–400,000 inhabitants), the most frequent location for industrial projects by foreign multinationals.