Living on the Edge? Transformation of a Marginal Pleistocene Landscape Into a Settlement Area in the Northeastern Part of the Netherlands

ABSTRACT

This paper will examine settlement location during the Iron Age in the northeast part of the Netherlands, an area shaped by Pleistocene geology. In recent years, a number of Late Iron Age/Early Roman settlements situated on the low lying slopes of sand ridges and nearby stream ridges revealed traces of an earlier Iron Age occupation. Palynological data revealed that this part of the landscape was used by humans before it was transformed into an area of settlement. An analysis of excavation data from two key sites at Denekamp-De Borchert and Groningen-Helpermaar, as well as other known sites, lead to the conclusion that the transformation of ‘peripheral landscapes’ into permanent settlement locations was preceded by a phase of arable cultivation which left no trace of permanent habitation. It is also suggested that the impact of human behaviour on the natural landscape in the Early and Middle Iron Age was much bigger than previously anticipated. When excavating this type of settlement areas dating to the Late Iron Age, archaeologists must be aware that only of a small group of archaeological features exist. The proposed model for the choice of settlement location may be more widespread, because of similarities in landscape between the study area presented here and other landscapes in Northwest-Europe (e.g. parts of Germany and Denmark).     

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.     

Troubled Encounters: Payments for Ecosystem Services in Chiapas,Mexico

Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) is a well-established conservation policy approach worldwide. Where forests are owned and managed by rural and indigenous communities, PES initiatives often aim to incentivize the joint adoption of forest protection and sustainable management practices. However, not all communities might have the will or capacity to maintain such practices over the long term. This article examines a PES programme in a rural community of Chiapas, Mexico. It shows that while a majority of the community's landowners have engaged in PES through two distinct working groups, a large share of the community forests remain outside the PES programme, and many landowners resist the extension of PES rules to non-targeted forests. The authors argue that this incipient form of fragmented collective action on forest management results from challenged leaderships, and from PES accommodating a history of increasing individuation of the commons. This accommodation, however, has ignited social conflict, reified tenure inequalities, and failed to strengthen local institutions to enable them to legitimately deal with the contested interests that underpin the fate of community forests. This article shows the limits of PES when parachuted into a context of uneven land tenure, weak collective action and contested leaderships.     

Charcoal from a prehistoric copper mine in the Austrian Alps: dendrochronological and dendrological data,demand for wood and forest utilisation

During prehistory fire-setting was the most appropriate technique for exploiting ore deposits. Charcoal fragments found in the course of archaeological excavations in a small mine called Mauk E in the area of Schwaz/Brixlegg (Tyrol, Austria) are argued to be evidence for the use of this technology. Dendrochronological analyses of the charcoal samples yielded calendar dates for the mining activities showing that the exploitation of the Mauk E mine lasted approximately one decade in the late 8th century BC. Dendrological studies show that the miners utilised stem wood of spruce and fir from forests with high stand density for fire-setting and that the exploitation of the Mauk E mine had only a limited impact on the local forests.     

Towards Liveable Cities: Progress in the European Union Urban Environmental Agenda

The 2006 “Thematic Strategy on the Urban Environment” is the first piece of official European Union (EU) policy solely focused on the urban environment. It follows a process of several years in which the EU has tried to promote an integrated approach to urban management. During the 2005–2007 “Liveable Cities” project, reflection was given to the “Thematic Strategy”. This resulted in important critiques on the EU's approach to the urban environment. Explaining how the initial top-down approach chosen by the EU contributed to the perceived “failure” of the “Thematic Strategy”, suggestions are made for alternative approaches to the creation of liveable cities in Europe.     

Environmental zoning: The Dutch struggle towards integration

A major problem confronting effective urban development is posed by conflicts which often emerge between environmental policy and land use planning. Environmental control seeks to reduce pollution and limit its intrusion on other activities, often separating pollution sources from environmentally sensitive areas. Land use planning commonly seeks to combine multiple uses in the same area to minimizg travel distances, often favouring compact urban development. When those two sets of objectives clash, working out a balance between them is important although difficult. This paper is about the Dutch experience with mapping several kinds of pollution spillover from manufacturing activity, and where these effects cause hindrance or are detrimental to health, acquiring housing and moving residents if it is not possible to mitigate these effects at source. The experience is of international importance, because it is based on an integration between environmental policy and spatial planning. Referred to as integral environmental zoning (IEZ), this programme is announced by the internationally well‐known Dutch National Environmental Policy Plan. The IEZ programme is being tested in several pilot projects. The aim is to fill in Chapter 6 of the Dutch Environmental Management Act, called ‘Environmental Zoning’, based on the results of the IEZ programme. Up to the present the results are shocking!     

China: What About the Urban Revolution? Rapid Transformations in Chinese Planning and Its Links with a Slowly Emerging European Planning Theory

This new global financial crisis has required us to recognize how closely and deeply different regions and countries around the world are connected and how they interact with each other. In this interconnected context, planning theory and experiences also become fluid rather than being confined within certain boundaries. This paper explores the links between Chinese planning and European (or “Western”-oriented) spatial planning by critically analysing the development of Chinese planning. In China, modern European planning theories have been under discussion and partly in practice for years. Indeed, they have been playing an important role over the past 30 years in, for example, urban growth management, land-use regulation and environmental protection, and also in helping achieve sustainable development. However, the evolution of Chinese planning, now in a highly dynamic phase, has distinguished itself from that of European planning by adopting a highly rational, coordinated and top-down approach. This paper argues that there are several reasons for this. However, beyond this mere observation, there are a wide range of possibilities to be considered and reflected on with respect to these two different trajectories of planning development, which could enhance planning theory and practice. In other words, there are lessons to be learnt in comparing contemporary Chinese and European planning.