Vegetation history at the multi-period prehistoric complex at Ballynahatty,Co. Down,Northern Ireland

Palaeoecological methods can provide an environmental context for archaeological sites, enabling the nature of past human activity to be explored from an indirect but alternative perspective. Through a palynological study of a small fen peatland located within the catchment of a multi-period prehistoric complex at Ballynahatty, Co. Down, Northern Ireland, we reconstruct the vegetation history of the area during the early prehistoric period. The pollen record reveals tentative evidence for Mesolithic activity in the area at 6410–6220 cal BC, with woodland disturbance identified during the Mesolithic–Neolithic transitional period ca. 4430–3890 cal BC. A more significant impact on the landscape is observed in the Early Neolithic from 3950 to 3700 cal BC, with an opening up of the forest and the establishment of a mixed agricultural economy. This activity precedes and continues to be evident through the Mid-Neolithic during which megalithic tombs and related burial sites were constructed at Ballynahatty. Due to chronological uncertainties and a possible hiatus in peat accumulation in the fen, the contemporary environment of the Ballynahatty timber circle complex (constructed and used ca. 3080–2490 cal BC) and henge (dating to the third millennium cal BC) cannot certainly be established. Nevertheless, the pollen record suggests that the landscape remained open through to the Bronze Age, implying a long continuity of human activity in the area. These findings support the idea that the Ballynahatty prehistoric complex was the product of a gradual and repeated restructuring of the ritual and ceremonial landscape whose significance continued to be recognised throughout the early prehistoric period.     

旅游目的地危机事件的影响评估新考量

目的地旅游业受到危机事件冲击后,准确地对旅游业受危机事件影响的时长及旅游损失进行评估,有助于把握危机影响规律,为危机管理手段的选取和旅游业恢复政策的制定提供科学依据。本文以2003年SARS事件为例,运用旅游本底趋势线法（TBTL）,对我国入境旅游人次受其影响的时间长度和旅游损失进行了评估。研究结论是,SARS对我国入境旅游影响时间长达19个月,入境旅游人次损失为1368．91万人次。研究结论和实际一致。     

旅游对传统地域文化景观影响的研究进展及展望

传统地域文化景观是传承地域文化的物质载体,是人类宝贵的文化遗产和景观财富。作为新兴的重要发展力量,旅游正在不可逆转地改变着传统地域文化景观的演变进程。本文从物质文化景观、非物质文化景观、文化景观地方意义等方面综述了旅游对传统地域文化景观影响的研究成果,对现有研究进行了述评。最后从亟须解决的关键科学问题、研究内容两个方面进行了未来研究展望。     

Intimate Mediations of For‐Profit Conservation Finance: Waste,Improvement, and Accumulation

How to understand the marriage between accumulation and conservation? The paper draws from extensive research into one value chain, from the advisor in New York City to a wildlife‐friendly cattle business in Kenya. Making this enterprise return in money requires intimate and relentless efforts to transform wasteful conduct across a range of institutions and people; we focus on the attempted production of NGO economicus, homo economicus plus, and bos Taurus economicus. Drawing from feminist and postcolonial theorists of capitalism, we emphasise how green capitalist value production does not always hinge on extinguishing other‐than‐capitalist‐social relations but rather attempts to mobilise and harness such differences, including non‐profit‐seeking values, logics and relations. The paper concludes by reflecting on the temporal challenges facing for‐profit conservation finance, including those posed by previous regimes of accumulation that it relies on but also wants to overcome.     

From the School Yard to the Conservation Area: Impact Investment across the Nature/Social Divide

In the face of planetary crises, from inequality to biodiversity loss, “impact investing” has emerged as a vision for a new, “moral” financial system where investor dollars fund socio-environmental repair while simultaneously generating financial returns. In support of this system elite actors have formed a consensus that financial investments can have beneficial, more-than-financial outcomes aimed at solving social and environmental crises. Yet critical geographers have largely studied “green” and “social” finance separately. We propose, instead, a holistic geography of impact investing that highlights the common methods used in attempts to offset destructive investments with purportedly reparative ones. This involves interrogating how elite-led ideas of social and environmental progress are reflected in investments, as well as deconstructing the “objects” of impact investments. As examples, we use insights from both “green” and “social” literatures to analyse the social values embedded in projects of financialisation in schooling and affordable housing in the US.     

Contesting the ‘greening’ of hydropower in the Brazilian Amazon

The 21st century has witnessed a resurgence of hydropower projects across the globe, with the energy source an integral part of contemporary sustainable energy transitions. Yet, the environmentalist credentials of hydropower remain contested by anti-dam movements. This paper details the cases of the Belo Monte and São Luiz do Tapajós dams in the Brazilian Amazon to explore how the development, submission and acceptance of an Environmental Impact Assessment provides a key site in the contestation of hydroelectric projects. Whilst the provision of this document – and the wider environmental licensing process – represents a key component in the asserted ‘green-ness’ of hydropower, opposition groups extend the scope of analysis to include indirect and cumulative impacts that remain understudied in official assessments. This paper analyses interviews and questionnaires with and documents provided by national and international civil society organisations to trace this process of challenge and critique. It details how civil society actors forward alternative assessments of the impacts of the projects studied, uncovering and illuminating overlooked and understudied externalities of hydropower in the Brazilian Amazon. An analysis of this process not only demonstrates that the ‘green’ credentials of hydropower remain far from assured but also highlights how anti-dam actors advance new ‘sustainabilities’ to discredit the terrain upon which such credentials are set.     

Visitors’ place-based evaluations of unacceptable tourism impacts in Oulanka National Park,Finland

Visitors’ assessments of the negative impact of tourism, on physical and social environment, vary based on the location where the evaluation occurs. Research that focuses on identifying visitors’ norms within outdoor recreation settings has not been able to link the geographical location with the corresponding evaluation of unacceptable levels of impact. This study combines a traditional on-site visitor survey with a Public Participation Geographic Information Systems survey to produce spatially explicit information on visitors’ acceptance of tourism impacts. Using a web-based participatory survey, visitors were asked to indicate specific locations where they felt the effects of tourism disturbed the quality of their experience in Oulanka National Park. These evaluations were analyzed at multiple scales – destination, specific zones, and sites – to promote more efficient park management. Based on visitor evaluations, we found a collection of hotspots in the park where tourism has already caused unacceptable impacts. Visitors noted that crowding and erosion disturbed their experiences, especially along highly visited trail sections, while littering was considered problematic near wilderness huts. However, participant satisfaction at these sites was not lower than elsewhere in the park. This indicates that the association between negative impacts of tourism and visitor satisfaction is not straightforward, but complex. This study encourages the collection of spatially accurate data on visitors’ assessments of the effects of tourism because it has the potential to more efficiently direct park management policies. In addition, spatial techniques provide a new means to monitor the impacts of tourism, acknowledging that visitors’ perceptions of acceptability of tourism impacts also vary within tourism destinations, such as parks.     

Pollen evidence for major shifts in forest composition since the mid‐nineteenth‐century in the vicinity of Sudbury,Ontario

Numerous anthropogenic stressors have impacted the region surrounding Sudbury, Ontario, leading to pronounced vegetation and landscape change. Few long‐term records exist to understand the nature or timing of this change. We use pollen analysis from radiometrically dated sediments of Clearwater Lake to compare pre‐ and post‐settlement vegetation. Beginning ～1850 CE, the record shows major shifts in forest composition, coincident with settlement and the beginnings of lumbering. These changes are unprecedented for the past ～5000 years, and consist of increases in diversity and abundance of deciduous tree taxa and herbaceous disturbance indicators. While evidence of mining appears as early as 1900 CE, little effect is seen in the pollen record until ～1930 CE, when sedimentation rates increased and acidification of the lake also began. At this time, further increases in palynological disturbance indicators and minimum sediment organic matter levels indicate the period of maximum vegetation loss. As a result of reduced emissions since the 1970s, water quality began to improve in Clearwater Lake and there are some decreases in the abundances of shade‐intolerant disturbance indicators in the pollen record. However, the fact that the pollen assemblages do not resemble those prior to 1850 suggests lasting vegetation changes.     

Effects of an introductory geography course on student perceptions of geography at the University of Idaho

This case study surveyed students in geography courses at the University of Idaho, investigating perceptions of geography's role in their daily lives, relevance to careers or academics, and parts of their geographic skill. Primarily, white, younger than 20, gender-balanced students in Introduction to Physical Geography and Human Geography courses comprised the study sample. A sample of 265 students formed the pre-course survey and 82 students formed the post-course survey. Pre-course, men held a more positive sense of geographic skill, while women viewed more positively geography's relevance to careers and academics. Post-course, women's agreement concerning geography's role significantly increased, outpacing men's agreement.     

Wetland assessment and impact mitigation decision support framework for linear development projects: The Louis Riel Trail,Highway 11 North project,Saskatchewan, Canada

Next to agriculture, road development is one of the most significant sources of stress to wetlands in Prairie Canada. However, there currently exists limited guidance for incorporating direct, indirect, and induced effects to wetlands in impact assessment and mitigation planning for small and often routine developments, including access roads or highway improvement initiatives. Based on the Louis Riel Trail, Highway 11 North twinning project in Saskatchewan, Canada, this article demonstrates a methodological approach and decision support framework for assessing and managing direct, indirect, and induced effects to wetlands from linear developments. No regulatory‐based environmental assessment was required for the highway project; effects were deemed to be insignificant under current wetland mitigation practices. However, our results show that 1115 ha of potentially affected wetlands are located within a 500 m impact zone on either side of the proposed highway. More than 50 percent of these wetlands are seasonal, less than 1 ha in size, and typically not included in mitigation planning. An expert‐based multi‐criteria evaluation of impact and mitigation options for wetlands in the study area indicated “no net loss” as a planning priority, and a preference for a spatially ambitious mitigation plan focused on direct, indirect, and potentially induced impacts. In practice, however, mitigation is often restrictive, focused on mitigating only direct impacts within the project's right‐of‐way, in this case less than 50 ha of wetlands, resulting in the potential for significant net loss of wetland habitat and function. If the risk to wetlands is to be given due consideration in project planning and development for roads and road improvement initiatives, then structured assessment methods and decision support frameworks should be sensitive to the time and resource constraints of small projects and screening‐type assessments. This requires also that wetland mitigation policies are developed and implementation plans formulated as part of project planning and assessment initiatives for linear developments.