The Resurgent Conflict Between Offshore Wind Farms and Tourism: Underlying Storylines

Abstract

Efforts to put offshore wind farms in place have demonstrated that these are far from being conflict-free, evoking confrontations with a number of stakeholders' interests. One of the most persistent conflict lines refers to the feared adverse externalities on coastal tourism, although tourist surveys and initial empirical evidence seem to reflect the opposite. This paper explicitly addresses this gap and explores how and why certain stakeholders rationalise potential impacts on the tourism economy of coastal communities and, thus constitute the conflict between offshore wind farms and tourism. Based on two cases studies in Scotland and Germany, five storylines are identified that are invoked by local opponents to substantiate impacts on tourism. The paper will show that a particular meaningful construction of the coastal landscape is inherent in tourism and pervades all storylines. It is concluded that arguments of both opponents and decision-makers are embedded in epistemic uncertainty which necessitates a thorough consideration of oppositional arguments in the planning process for offshore wind farms.     

A reappraisal of Neocalamites and Schizoneura (fossil Equisetales) based on material from the Triassic of East Antarctica

Sphenophytes are a common floral element in the Triassic of Gondwana. Most sphenophyte compression fossils have been conventionally assigned to a few, presumably very widespread species of Neocalamites based on vegetative features of the stems (or pith casts) and the foliage. During recent decades, however, new reports on morphological and anatomical details of some of these fossils have cast doubt on the systematic affinities of many Gondwanan Triassic sphenophytes. Here we describe Neocalamites suberosus (Artabe & Zamuner) nov. comb. et emend. and Schizoneura africana Feistmantel emend. from several Triassic deposits in the central Transantarctic Mountains and Victoria Land, East Antarctica. The material enables a critical reevaluation of morphological and anatomical features that have been historically used to define the two genera, including leaf-base morphology, degree of leaf fusion, stem vasculature and vallecular canals, and features of the nodal diaphragm. The diagnoses of Neocalamites and Schizoneura are emended so that they more accurately reflect recent advances in our understanding of the anatomy and ontogeny of these plants.

[Benjamin Bomfleur [bbomfleur@ku]edu], Rudolph Serbet [serbet@ku.edu], Edith L. Taylor [etaylor@ku.edu] and Thomas N. Taylor [tntaylor@ku.edu], Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and Biodiversity Institute, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045, USA; Ignacio H. Escapa [iescapa@mef.org.ar], CONICET—Museo Paleontológico Egidio Feruglio, Trelew, Chubut 9100, Argentina. Received 4.7.2012; revised 22.12.2012; accepted 7.1.2013.

Bomfleur, B., Escapa, I.H., Serbet, R., Taylor, E.L. & Taylor, T.N., 2013. A reappraisal of Neocalamites and Schizoneura (fossil Equisetales) based on material from the Triassic of East Antarctica. Alcheringa 37, 1–17. ISSN 0311-5518.     

Making Space for Wind Farms: Practices of Territorial Stigmatisation in Rural Denmark

While issues of siting wind farms have often revolved around their local resistance, finding adequate locations and gaining access to land for large wind energy projects has become an increasingly significant challenge for developers, in particular in small countries with relatively mature wind energy sectors, such as Denmark. By drawing on the case of “Outskirts‐Denmark”, this paper focuses on how existing territorial stigma of rural areas is co‐produced and mobilised by wind farm developers to make space for large wind farm projects. In doing so, we demonstrate that the mobilisation of stigma through derogatory rhetoric and forecasting rural decline is used to legitimise the purchase and demolition of properties in marginalised rural areas. We then critically discuss how these developer practices produce controversies over the erosion of rural communities and are entangled in a neoliberal undermining of the planning system, revealing issues of rural energy justice.     

Book reviews

Women and Revolution in Iran. Edited by Guity Nashat. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1983. 301 pp.

Religion and Politics in Iran: Shi'ism from Quietism to Revolution. Edited by Nikki R. Keddie. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983. x + 225 pp. $27.50. (cloth), $8.95 (paper).

The Persians amongst the English, Episodes in Anglo‐Persian History. By Denis Wright. London: I. B. Tauris & Co. Ltd., 1985.

Iran under the Safavids. By Roger M. Savory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980.     

Arab commentaries on the Iranian revolution

Muhammad as‐Sa^cid ^cAbd al‐Mu'min: Mas'ala ath‐Thawra al‐Iraniyya (The Case of the Iranian Revolution), Cairo, 1981.

Sami Dhabiyan: Iran wa al‐Khumayni: Muntalaqat ath‐Thawra wa Hudud at‐Taghyir (Iran and Khomeini: The Foundations of the Revolution and the Limits of Change), Beirut, 1979.

Ibrahim ad‐Dissuqi Shita: ath‐Thawra al‐Iraniyya: al‐Judhur‐ al‐Idilujiyya (The Iranian Revolution: The Roots‐the Ideology), Beirut, 1979.

Talal Majdhub: Iran: Min ath‐Thawra ad‐Dusturiyya hatta ath‐Thawra al‐Islamiyya (Iran: From the Constitutional Revolution to the Islamic Revolution), Beirut, 1980.

Mahmud an Najjar: ath‐Thawra al‐Iraniyya wa Ihtimalat al‐Khatar fi al‐Khalij (The Iranian Revolution and the Possibilities of Danger in the Gulf), Beirut, 1980.