Payments for Ecosystem Services in Nicaragua: Do Market‐based Approaches Work?

The concept of Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) is gaining increasing attention among scholars as well as conservation and development practitioners. The premises of this innovative conservation approach are appealing: private land users, usually poorly motivated to protect nature on their land, will do so if they receive payments from environmental service buyers which cover part of the land users’ opportunity costs of developing the land. However, this article warns against an over‐enthusiastic adoption of a one‐sided market‐based PES approach. Based on a field study of the Regional Integrated Silvopastoral Approaches to Ecosystem Management Project (RISEMP), one of the main PES pilot projects in Nicaragua, it suggests that a mixture of economic and non‐economic factors motivated farmers to adopt the envisaged silvopastoral practices and that the actual role of PES is mistakenly understood as a simple matter of financial incentives. The authors argue that PES approaches should be understood as a part of a broader process of local institutional transformation rather than as a market‐based alternative for allegedly ineffective government and/or community governance.     

Ossified haematomas and infectious bone changes on the anterior tibia: histomorphological features as an aid for accurate diagnosis

Examination of the histological structure of bone not only helps investigators to estimate age at death but can also aid in the diagnosis of palaeopathological lesions. The purpose of this paper is to assess whether histological features as described in the literature can confirm the macroscopic diagnoses of ossified subperiosteal haematomas associated with healed scurvy and syphilitic bone changes observed on the anterior tibiae of individuals from a 19th century mining community from Kimberley South Africa. The frequent occurrence of these two diseases amongst the deceased was well established in related hospital documents and governmental documents. A section of bone was removed from lesions on the tibiae of 14 individuals. These bone changes were macroscopically diagnosed as being indicative of either treponematosis ossified subperiosteal haematomas or non‐specific periostitis. Cross‐sections were prepared for microscopic investigation using a manual ground section technique. Ossified haematomas were histologically identified in seven individuals. These sections were characterised by normal cortical bone an intact original periosteal surface and newly formed radiating trabecular bone apposing it. Three phases of ossified subperiosteal haematoma formation and remodelling could be distinguished. Infectious bone changes most likely associated with treponematosis were observed in one individual. These were characterised by lysis and numerous resorption holes/channels. No clear distinction could be made between the internal spongy cortical or newly formed bone. Histological features described by some authors as characteristic of this condition could not be identified. In addition three individuals presented with microscopic features indicative of both the aforementioned bone affections and three did not show any pathological changes on microscopic level. It was concluded that although specific pathological conditions can most likely not be diagnosed purely on the basis of histomorphological observations broad distinctions could be made between lesions caused by the ossification of subperiosteal haematomas and bone changes due to infectious diseases. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.     

Eagle owl (Bubo bubo) pellets from Roman Sagalassos (SW Turkey): distinguishing the prey remains from nest and roost sites

Two concentrations of animal bones, almost exclusively from small mammals and wild birds, were found within the destruction debris of a Roman bath complex in Sagalassos (SW Turkey). The overall species spectrum, skeletal element representation, fragmentation and preservation condition of the bones indicate that they represent the prey remains of a large nocturnal avian predator, more precisely the eagle owl (Bubo bubo). Differences in skeletal element representation and in prey species' spectrum show that the two bone clusters derive from pellets deposited near a nest site and a roost site, respectively. Radiocarbon dates obtained from the bones indicate that eagle owls lived in the collapsing bath complex during the second half of the 6th to the beginning of the 7th century AD, before the final abandonment of the town. The MNI of the prey animals found at the nest site, confronted with the daily dietary needs of a female eagle owl and its young, indicates repetitive use of the same place during several years. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Les fondements d’une phénoménologie de la littérature selon Jan Patočka

Le phénoménologue tchèque Jan Pato?ka, auteur d’une phénoménologie asubjective défendant la thèse d’un procès asubjectif de l’apparaître (d’une autonomie du phénomène par rapport à l’ego), a accordé au problème des relations nécessaires et difficiles que la philosophie entretient en son sein même avec la littérature une attention particulière qui l’a conduit à poser les fondements d’une phénoménologie de la littérature centrée autour de l’idée d’un asubjectivisme de l’écrivain. Nous suivrons ici deux axes de réflexion connexes: premièrement, nous montrerons pourquoi et comment Pato?ka restaure le vocabulaire et la vision de l’homme propres au mythe et reprend ce qu’il aperçoit comme le fondement de la tragédie pour élaborer une nouvelle compréhension du phénomène de l’existence comme mouvement. Deuxièmement, nous décrirons le rôle que joue l’écrivain moderne à une époque marquée par la fragmentation de la vie. Car l’écrivain qui édifie une “littérature métaphysique” a le privilège, selon Pato?ka, d’être “l’administrateur propre et originel de l’intégralité de la vie et de la totalité universelle”, il est ainsi une sorte de “quasi-phénoménologue” dont la philosophie ne peut se passer si elle veut saisir ces phénomènes qui, sans être purement et simplement subjectifs, ne peuvent néanmoins être réduits à l’objectivité du concept.     

Tibet and the Problem of Radical Reductionism

Abstract:  This article takes issue with a mode of argumentation advanced by a number of left-leaning, radical scholars, including those associated with China's New Left, about the causes of the Tibetan unrest in China in spring 2008. According to this stance, the Tibetan protests were the result of external manipulation by neoconservative, reactionary forces, ranging from the CIA to the Dalai Lama. The unstated premise of this response is that taking a critical stance against western imperialism and neoliberal globalization necessitates a defense of China's policies in Tibet. Such arguments take the form of unfavorable comparisons between Tibetans and Palestinians especially because the former are often romanticized, suggestions that Tibetans are unfortunate ideological victims of US-funded propaganda, and claims that they should be grateful for Chinese state-funded development. This response renders Tibetans incapable of being authentic political subjects. A radical stance on Western imperialism and capitalism should reject such reductionism.     

Transnational environmentalism and entanglements of sovereignty: The tiger campaign across the Himalayas

In the spring of 2006, Tibetans in China set fire to more than a million dollars worth of otter, leopard and tiger pelts. The numerous bonfires were a response to the 14th Dalai Lama's statement, made at the Kalachakra Initiation Ceremony in India, that Tibetans should cease wearing such pelts. The Chinese state interpreted this as an act of loyalty to the Dalai Lama and this evidence of multiple overlapping sovereignties as a threat to its exclusive territorial sovereignty. An effort to clarify this space invited a sovereign invocation of the exception, as salaried employees were forced to wear endangered animal pelts, violating Chinese national law. A conjunctural analysis of the Dalai Lama's speech and the subsequent burnings demonstrates that contrary to prevailing narratives, transnational environmental advocacy played a key role. The conjuncture in which these events took place was shaped by multiple competing entanglements of Chinese, Indian, and Tibetan sovereignties with nature protection and transnational activism. Two distinct assemblages, shaped by power relations and the politics of sovereignty, formed around protecting the tiger across the Himalayas, with dramatically different effects. The case shows that far from post-sovereign environmental governance, nature and sovereignty remain inextricably entangled, and illustrates how multiple modes to construct and defend state sovereignty come into conflict with each other.     

Re‐examining the relationship between cranial deformation and extra‐sutural bone formation

The relationship between cranial deformation and the occurrence of extra‐sutural bones remains poorly understood. Scholars are divided about whether or not cranial deformation causes an increased occurrence of these bones, and even those who agree that deformation does have an influence often disagree about which locations on the crania are most impacted. Part of this issue clearly stems from the difficulties in finding appropriate samples from which to test the hypothesis that deformation leads to an increased expression of extra‐sutural bones. The present study examines the effects of fronto‐occipital and occipital‐only deformation on the occurrence of extra‐sutural bones through an analysis of 59 deformed and undeformed crania from the Philippines. Relative to the undeformed crania, both deformed samples showed an elevated number of extra‐sutural bones. Using two different statistical tests, we identified a significantly higher occurrence of extra‐sutural bones at two distinct cranial localities for both the fronto‐occipitally deformed crania (coronal suture and asterion) and for those showing only occipital flattening when compared to the undeformed crania (lambdoidal and asterion). However, as our data reveal, individuals with highly elevated occurrences of extra‐sutural bones are not necessarily deformed. As such, we argue that deformation practices may have a positive impact on the formation of extra‐sutural bones; however, future studies using larger samples of deformed and undeformed crania—ideally from the same site—will be necessary to distinguish between the influence of cranial deformation on extra‐sutural bone formation relative to other population factors which may play a role in shaping variation in this feature. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Interpreting the expansion of sea fishing in medieval Europe using stable isotope analysis of archaeological cod bones

Archaeological fish bones reveal increases in marine fish utilisation in Northern and Western Europe beginning in the 10th and 11th centuries AD. We use stable isotope signatures from 300 archaeological cod (Gadus morhua) bones to determine whether this sea fishing revolution resulted from increased local fishing or the introduction of preserved fish transported from distant waters such as Arctic Norway, Iceland and/or the Northern Isles of Scotland (Orkney and Shetland). Results from 12 settlements in England and Flanders (Belgium) indicate that catches were initially local. Between the 9th and 12th centuries most bones represented fish from the southern North Sea. Conversely, by the 13th to 14th centuries demand was increasingly met through long distance transport – signalling the onset of the globalisation of commercial fisheries and suggesting that cities such as London quickly outgrew the capacity of local fish supplies.