The Conservation of Biodiversity in Iran: Threats,Challenges and Hopes

Because of its diverse geological formations, climates, and soils, Iran is home to outstanding biodiversity. National conservation started in Iran over fifty years ago and today nearly 10 percent of the country is protected. However, biodiversity in Iran is threatened, with about 100 species of vertebrate fauna vulnerable or endangered. Increased population and human activity, climate change, drought, desertification, agriculture, poaching, and economic sanctions have helped create this crisis. Many of these causes can be mitigated through better planning, sustainable policies, and increased civil society and local engagement. Promoting awareness about the impacts of human practices will also be important for the long-term sustainability of Iran’s ecosystems. Iranian conservation NGOs have already taken an active role in preserving biodiversity.     

‘6 to 8 Slices Of Bread’

Swedish health information, conducted by the National Board of Health and Welfare in collaboration with private participants, expanded rapidly in the 1970s. This study examines a controversial bread campaign, which declared that the National Board, in collaboration with the private Bread Institute, wanted citizens to eat six to eight slices of bread every day. Why and how could such a seemingly unholy alliance come about? Contextualizing the collaborations with the industry, with a network governance approach, this article seeks the answers by investigating the organizational conditions behind the various campaigns. Different conflicting dilemmas influenced the campaigns and their outcomes. For example, the desire to maximize the disseminationof information, and at the same time controlling it, as well as the imbedded power dynamics between private and public sector. The result points to a shift from strong to weak interdependence between the government agency and collaborating parties, basically due to the agency’s diminishing campaign resources, which opened up for a stronger commercialization of the bread campaign.     

Reeditando al completo el teatro mayor de Cervantes

This is a review essay on the supplementary volume of the edition of Miguel de Cervantes’s Comedias y tragedias, coordinated by Luis Gómez Canseco and published by Biblioteca Clásica de La Real Academia Española in 2015. Composed of articles and annexes written by reputed Cervantists and aided by an abundant bibliography, this supplementary volume offers excellent introductory studies to each of Cervantes’s dramas—including La conquista de Jerusalén recently attributed—and constitutes a great tool to teach a monographic course on Cervantes’s major theater.