The relationship between children's perceptions of the natural environment and their subjective well-being

The overarching aim of the study was to ascertain the relationship between children's perceptions of the natural environment and their subjective well-being. More specifically the study aimed to fit a structural model depicting the nature of the relationship between children's environmental views and their global, and domain-specific life satisfaction. The sample included 1004 twelve-year-old participants randomly selected from 15 primary schools in Cape Town, South Africa. The measuring instrument included the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) Scale for children, the Students' Life Satisfaction Scale and the Personal Well-Being Index-School Children. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to test the validity of the NEP Scale which showed appropriate fit structure. A good fit structure was also found for the overall structural equation model. However, the overall model showed that children's environmental views were not related to their global life and domain-specific life satisfaction. At a foundational level, more research is required to allow for a better understanding of how children in differing circumstances construct and assign meaning to nature, and what their perceptions of nature are before we can begin to ask them when, how or why they engage in nature.     

左江流域合理农业结构的探讨

农业系统是一个开放的复杂大系统。系统的功能决定于系统的结构,合理的农业结构应该是充分合理利用农业自然资源和社会经济资源,因地制宜发挥地区的优势,使农业生态效益与经济效益相结合,构成良性循环,达到低投入,高效益,持续稳定增产的目的。本文根据农业系统的开放性、复杂性和层次性,利用系统工程中的结构分解--协调法计算出南宁地区左江流域六县(市)最优的农业结构,即合理的农业结构。为该地区制定经济发展规划提供科学依据。     

基于环境态度的城市居民环境友好行为意向及认知差异——以海口市为例

居民的行为是社会对环境产生影响的关键因素,对环境有着直接或间接的影响。遏制环境退化,实现可持续发展不仅仅取决于政府,同时与公众的环境态度和行为也有着密不可分的关系。环境态度是否会影响人们实施环境友好行为是研究中的一个重要问题。本研究采用在海口市的调查数据,分析了居民所持的环境态度对其环境友好行为意向的影响。采用"新生态范示"量表(NEP)测量居民的环境态度,并根据环境态度倾向,运用K-Means聚类法将居民划分为近生态中心主义者、近人类中心主义者,在此基础上,应用独立样本t检验,比较了持不同环境态度者在环境友好行为意向与认知上的差异。     

The socio-ecological fix by multi-scalar states: The development of ‘Greenways of Paradise’ in Chengdu

This paper examines the recent green turn in China by investigating a large-scale urban greenway project. Using the perspective of the socio-ecological fix, we demonstrate that multi-scalar states strive to upgrade environmental quality. Specifically, the local state seizes the opportunity for ‘ecological civilisation’ envisioned by the central state to carry out green infrastructure development. We reveal complex motivations to incorporate ecological changes into entrepreneurial urban governance instead of encroaching greenspace for economic growth. Our state-centred analysis reveals that such an environmental strategy, the making of Chinese green urbanism, is promoted like a political mission, despite its operation by the development corporation. We argue that, while the socio-ecological fix facilitates capital accumulation, its deployment must be understood through state politics and actors.     

Doing is Learning: Analysis of an Unsuccessful Attempt to Adapt TEK/IK Methodology to Norwegian Sámi Circumstances

Abstract

This article describes a case where an attempt was made to introduce TEK/IK into a conflict between Sámi reindeer owners and environmental institutions. The conflict was brought on by the establishment of a national park in Southern Sámi areas in Norway. At first, the Sámi were in favour of the park, but later on their attitudes changed as the content of planned national park developed. The reindeer owners discovered that the size of the park would be reduced, leaving out what they thought were significant areas in need of protection. They saw the encouragement of increased tourism activities as a threat to reindeer herding and felt alienated by the number of representatives they received in the park management structures. On the basis of these observations reindeer owners protested, but were ignored. As researchers well-established in the Southern Sámi area, we were brought into conversations regarding the park as the local reindeer owners searched for ways of bringing new arguments into the process. At this point we thought TEK/IK represented an opportunity to add weight to Sámi perspectives. As the title of this article indicates, as push came to shove we did not succeed in making room for local participation in our TEK/IK project, despite these existing on-going relations. The article attempts to understand what happened. Our analysis is based upon a perception of TEK/IK as not one, but at least two co-constituted knowledge practices. The premise is that research failures are as important to publish as successes. Our joint ethnographic experience has methodological implications for future TEK/IK research.     

More is more: Scaling political ecology within limits to growth

This piece responds to the article Is less more… or is more less? Scaling the political ecology of the future, where Paul Robbins (2019) discusses degrowth and modernism as two competing political imaginaries with regard to the growth-technology-environment nexus. Arguing from the perspective of ecological economics, I engage with the literature on political ecology to discuss the notions of limits to growth, Malthusianism, austerity and scarcity, as well as the role of technology as both environmental problem and solution. The paper exposes key divergences between different traditions in political ecology with regard to technological and economic scale. First, against the argument that limits to growth is a mere social construct, I call attention to research on ecological thresholds and to the perils of epistemic relativisms in a post-truth era. Second, against the idea that limits represent an elitist discourse, I call attention to long-standing traditions in emancipatory politics that defend limits in the name of justice. Third, against the thesis that more is less, I refer to mounting empirical evidence indicating that more is more (growth brings more environmental destruction, not less). I contend that political ecology can have much to gain from engaging with the political utopia of degrowth, but far less so from the technological utopia of modernism, which –I argue– reinforces status quo and offers false solutions to the environmental challenges of our time. Emancipation, I claim, is not about bringing more to more, but about bringing enough to everyone.     

新中国治淮方略演进研究

淮河流域是我国经济欠发达、生态环境较脆弱的区域,在我国生态环境演变中具有典型意义。淮河是新中国第一条进行系统治理的河流,也是第一条从立法层面进行污染综合治理和生态经济带建设的河流。新中国对淮河的治理,从提出“蓄泄兼筹”的治淮方针到贯彻“节水优先、空间均衡、系统治理、两手发力”的新时代治水思路,从关注行蓄洪区群众生产生活到脱贫攻坚,从治理污染到建设淮河生态经济带,对治理的规律性认识不断深化,治理方略不断演进,为探索河流治理、流域生态经济带建设、推动人与自然和谐发展等积累了宝贵经验,留下了深刻的历史启示。     

旅游生态管理容量初探

随着旅游业规模的不断扩大,其对旅游目的地生态环境的不利影响引起了越来越多的关注,从而使旅游生态环境容量研究显得格外重要和迫切,为此本文对旅游生态环境管理容量概念进行了扩展,提出可操作性较强的具有全新内涵的生态管理容量概念,在此基础上讨论了生态管理容量的特点、研究内容、影响因素,并对生态管理容量的计算方法进行了探索性思考。     

Networking nature,or serengeti behind the dikes

Nowadays, wildlife has no chance to be conserved and maintained without the helping hand of man. Ambitious plans to adopt an offensive rather than defensive approach to conservation by creating ‘new nature’ led to initiatives to build ecological networks, from the local, through the regional and the national to the European level. Nature policy in the Netherlands aims to realize a National Ecological Network that is linked up with a projected Pan‐European Ecological Network. This article also discusses the social conflicts engendered by this policy and the ambivalent cultural reactions to which the deliberate ‘production’ of nature gives rise.     

Proving Fishers Right. Effects of the Integration of Experience-Based Knowledge in Ecosystem-Based Management

Abstract

This article discusses effects of and drivers behind the current integration of experience-based knowledge in management. The case in point is production and integration of fishers' ecological knowledge (FEK) in coastal zone management in Norway. The article discusses how the principles of social justice and protection of biodiversity drive FEK integration, through analysing a case of conflict between small-scale fishers and cod farming in Storfjord, northern Norway. The case became known for the appearance of deformed “monster cod” which supported the fishers' claims that fish farming was harmful to the environment and thus also to the indigenous Sami culture. Assessing how FEK was judged in terms of its credibility, legitimacy and saliency, the article argues that the criteria by which FEK is judged are different from how other types of policy-relevant knowledge is judged. In addition to being scientifically credible, its quality as age-old knowledge derived from interaction with the environment increases its influence on management decisions in biodiversity conservation controversies where fishers' and managers' interests coincide. The article concludes that integration of FEK in management both fulfils goals of protection of biodiversity and social justice, which makes it harder to ignore in socially and environmentally controversial contexts in the future.