Academic literature on the topic 'Socio-ecological fixes'

We are currently witnessing a global trend of intensifying and deepening relationships between extractive companies and biodiversity conservation organisations that warrants closer scrutiny. Although existing literature has established that these two sectors often share the same space and rely on similar logics, it is increasingly common to find biodiversity conservation being carried out through partnerships between extractive and conservation actors. In this article, we explore what this cooperation achieves for both sectors. Using illustrative examples of extractive-conservation collaboration across sub-Saharan Africa, we argue that new entanglements between extractive and conservation actors are motivated by multiple purposes. First, partnering with conservation actors serves as a spatial and socio-ecological fix for extractive companies in response to multiple crises that threaten the sector's productivity. Second, new forms of collaboration between extractive and conservation actors create pathways for both sectors to produce new value from nature. For the extractive sector, creating new value from nature works as a further fix to capitalist crises whereas, for the conservation sector, producing value through nature amounts to new opportunities for capital accumulation. Importantly, working together to produce shared value from nature within and beyond extractive concessions secures both sectors' control over the means of production. Theoretically, our analysis links literature on value in capitalist nature with that on spatial and socio-ecological fixes.

Three different conceptual frameworks of resilience, including engineering, ecological and social–ecological have been presented and framed within the context of flood risk management. Engineering resilience has demonstrated its value in the design and operation of technological systems in general and in flood resilient technologies in particular. Although limited to the technical domain, it has broadened the objectives of flood resilient technologies and provided guidance in improving their effectiveness. Socio-ecological resilience is conceived as a broader system characteristic that involves the interaction between human and natural systems. It acknowledges that these systems change over time and that these interactions are of complex nature and associated with uncertainties. Building (socio-ecological) resilience in flood risk management strategies calls for an adaptive approach with short-term measures and a set of monitoring criteria for keeping track of developments that might require adaptation in the long-term (adaptation pathways) and thus built-in adaptive capacity as opposed to building engineering resilience which involves a static approach with a fixed time horizon a set of robust measures designed for specific future conditions or scenarios. The two case studies, from a developing and a developed country, indicate that the concepts of ecological and socio-ecological resilience provide guidance for building more resilient flood risk management systems resulting in an approach that embraces flood protection, prevention and preparedness. The case studies also reveal that the translation of resilience concepts into practice remains a challenge. One plausible explanation for this is our inability to arrive at a quantification of socio-ecological resilience taking into account the various attributes of the concept. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Urban flood resilience’.

Over the last few decades, according to the Forest Fire Prevention Services of the Catalan Government, a small number of fires (less than 1%) have been responsible for the destruction of more than three quarters of the burnt forest area in Catalonia. However, while these wildfires have transformed many components of the landscape, including its vegetation and soils, they offer landowners the opportunity to learn from past decisions. This article aims to analyze the responses of forest owners in Central Catalonia after the great forest fires of the 1980s and 1990s, including the way in which their objectives and strategies are defined and their actions implemented. By conducting interviews with the members of forest owners’ associations and by means of participant observation at association meetings, we seek to examine the processes of social learning experienced by this collective and to identify the mechanisms used in their efforts to create socio-ecological structures that are less vulnerable to fire. Associationism is unusual in the world of Catalan forest ownership, despite the great number of private forest areas. In our results, however, associationism emerges as a strategy for cooperation, a recognition of the need to link ecological and social structures in the territory, and one which we define as a form of ‘socio-ecological resistance’. Our study highlights that the goals and actions of forest owners’ associations have both an instrumental and emotional component, so that reason, emotion and action have come to form the three vertices of socio-ecological resistance to fire.

This paper aims: 1. To analyze the factors that cause forest and land fires that often occur throughout the year 2. To analyze the impact of forest and land fires using the Socio-Eco-Religio-Culture approach 3. To provide solutions to the impact of forest and land fires using the Socio- Eco-Religio- Culture approach. The method used is Qualitative Research using Grounded Theory. The results showed: 1. The causes of forest fires also occurred due to several factors, including the existence of investors and communities who cleared land for oil palm, rubber and other plantations by burning forests, extreme weather, peat areas, weak governance from the government, ignorance of local wisdom, indecisive law enforcement agencies. 2. The most severe impact felt by many parties as a result of these fires is smoke haze pollution that disturbs various aspects of life. The disruption of human activities due to forest fires can also affect productivity and income. 3. In making development policies to prevent forest fires, the anthropocentric perspective that exploits many ecological, economic, social, religious and cultural values must be changed to the Socio- Eco-Religio- Culture perspective. It is necessary to reform law enforcement in the management of deep forest fires and create a legal umbrella for preventing and overcoming forest and land outbreaks. It is necessary to socialize the values of the Socio- Eco-Religio- Culture to policy makers, students from an early age to higher education for forest fire prevention. It is necessary to implement a socio-eco-religio-culture approach in making policies to control forest and land fires.

The United States’ National Cohesive Wildfire Management Strategy aims to achieve greater social and ecological resilience to wildfire. It also raises the question: cohesive for whom and for what purpose? In this article, we address the wildfire response goal and what a cohesive response means. Namely, we define a cohesive response as the ability to co-manage across scales for a more effective wildfire response. Our approach is grounded in the reality of the growing complexity of wildfire – both biophysically and socio-politically. We suggest that suppression and fire operations are necessary, but insufficient in the face of this growing complexity as we seek safer and effective wildfire response. Using network-based concepts and drawing from the literature on socio-ecological resilience, we consider how scales can be matched, what can and should be communicated across scales, and what this means for creating more adaptable institutions for more effective wildfire response. Survey results from 21 fires during the 2013 wildfire season are presented to illustrate relative areas of strength and weakness related to wildfire response and how these measurements can feed into processes to facilitate social learning, adaptation and ultimately more resilient socio-ecological wildfire response institutions.

Fixed assets especially house and land have significant importance in wealth, social security and power in Nepal. Ownership over these assets has greater implications in women’s status within households and communities. This also decides the economic dependence or independence and provides the means to be engaged in productive economic activity. The present study aims at analyzing the regional pattern of female ownership of fixed assets- house and land. Relevant data were acquired from a desk review of published and unpublished literature including online database. The study finds that there is a great gender discrepancy in ownership of fixed assets in Nepal and this varies across ecological zones and provinces. Female ownership of both land and house is associated with 10.7 percent while only 9.0 percent have ownership of land only. Tarai shows relatively positive condition as compared to other ecological zones with female ownership of 12.3 percent households with house and land and 10.5 percent with only land. Among provinces, the most negative situation exists in the province six as compared to others. The socio-cultural barriers are still a major challenge for women’s ownership of property in Nepal.The Third Pole: Journal of GeographyVol. 17: 73-82, 2017

AbstractThis essay is theoretical rather than interpretive in that I seek to develop a process or processes for reading biblical texts ecologically. I identify initially a significant epistemic shift that Lorraine Code calls ecological thinking as the context in which ecological reading takes place. I emphasize that reading ecologically is a process rather than a fixed approach, drawing imagery and language from Earth's processes that are characterized by reciprocity and multi-dimensionality. As a critical process, ecological reading will be characterized by suspicion and reconfiguration in their reciprocity. They will inform the range of reading procedures that uncover the inner texture and intertexture of the text. Having borrowed these two aspects of textual reading from Vernon Robbins” socio-rhetorical approach and nuanced them in relation to an ecological reading which recognizes the centrality of “habitat,” I propose a more significant development of Robbins' approach in that I replace his “social and cultural texture” with what I call “ecological texture,” suggesting that “inter-con/textuality” is a way of naming the various tools and procedures that will facilitate a reading of this ecological texture of the biblical text. I name my ecological reading process eco-rhetorical and conclude by noting that it cannot remain text-bound but must be integrated into the praxis of ecocitizenship.

As environmental degradations constantly and directly threaten human well-being, it is imperative to explore the environmental impacts on people’s happy life. This research investigates the association between subjective well-being (SWB) and ecological footprints (EF) through space-time fixed effects panel regressions. EF, as a vital indicator of environmentally sustainable development, plays a vital role in ecological balance. SWB determines the subjective quality of life for humanity. EF-related factors and socio-economic indexes referring to GDP, urbanization rate, income, education, health, political stability, and political voice accountability in 101 countries were captured. Compared with ordinary least square (OLS), stepwise regression (SR) and fixed effects panel regression models (FEPR) exhibited good fitness regardless of the cross-section or longitudinal models due to R2 beyond 0.9. The finding also discloses that EF and health were positively significant to SWB, while income was negatively significant to SWB. EF was an invert u-shaped link to SWB, which met the assumption of EKC. This research provided a model-driven quantitative method to address environmental impacts on people’s quality life of happiness, and opened shared doors for further research of carbon balance and circular economy.

Agro-pastoral systems in southern European regions have been subjected to various disturbances in the past few decades. Still, a certain amount of resilience allowed to withstand its sharp decline. The Serra da Estrela cheese production, the most representative agro-pastoral system of the Portuguese Centro Region, is a demonstrative case study. The main objective of this research is to understand the trajectory of this system up to present, its adaptation to internal and external changes and evolution trends. We used the concepts of resilience and socio–ecological system as framework in a qualitative study. Participatory methods were applied using the perspectives of local actors, in order to identify and analyze the key factors. The main drivers are socio-demographic (ageing, depopulation, social perception of the profession), economic (free market, industrialization), political (lack of adequate of national and European policies) and environmental (climate change, forest fires). Our results are in line with other European cases. To cope with these trends, the system is irreversibly transforming, moving into a new trajectory characterized by different systemic architecture. In face of the ongoing changes, the interactions between the social and the ecological subsystems are blurring, whereas local communities and traditions are being excluded.

The article is devoted to the development of a dynamic model for the coordination of general and private interests in the system of complex socio-ecological-economic synergetic development of a system of economic entities, the target control parameter of which is maximization of specific consumption. The parameters of the model under consideration are supposed to be supplemented with the criteria of ecological and economic sustainability of a group of subjects localized on a separate territory, within the boundaries of a separate industrial cluster, municipal formation, region or macroregion. The conditions for sustainable development (homeostasis) of the socio-ecological-economic system in the model are set by the requirements for the economic development of the agent, the maximum permissible emissions and discharges of pollutants into the environment in the process of economic activity. The resulting formalized dependencies make it possible to substantiate the environmental and social significance of the management decisions taken, as well as the effects associated with the dynamics and uncertainty of the external environment. The paper presents an algorithm for finding the Nash equilibrium in the previously presented dynamic model for combining general and private interests of territorial development. Some components of the vector of control actions are found analytically, for the rest an economical procedure is described. It is shown that in the absence of established threshold values for GRP and the concentration of pollutants in water and air, it is unprofitable for territorial entities to spend resources neither on investments in production or fixed production assets, nor on cleaning up pollution. Consequently, the expediency of introducing conditions for sustainable development, which are fulfilled by the subject in the form of equality, is shown.

För att studera hur omställningen från vertikal till horisontell energiutvinning kommer att påverka samhället har två fallstudier gjorts. Fallstudierna tillsammans med teorin om socialekologiska fix har använts för att analysera de socialekologiska transformationerna som sker på landskap och politiken som finns kring dessa transformationer. En fallstudie har studerat vindkrafts projektet Markbygden i Norrbottens län och den andra studerar vindkraftsetableringen i Östergötlands län. Dessa fallstudier har genomförts genom en kvalitativ studie i form av intervjuer med aktörer som är med och påverkar samt påverkas av dessa vindkraftsetableringar. Fallstudierna visar att landskapet har förändrats fysiskt av byggnationen av vindkraftverken vilket har bidragit till en transformation av markanvändningen. Karteringar som har gjorts i samband med vindkraftsetablering har påverkat hur människor använder och förhåller sig till marken samt hur ägandeförhållandena ser ut. Vidare har vindkraftsetableringen i Östergötland och Norrbotten lett till olika konflikter som exempelvis störningar av ljus och buller samt konflikter med renskötseln som tidigare bedrivits i området Markbygden. Dessa konflikter har alltså uppkommit till följd av den landskapstransformation som har skett i samband med vindkraftsutbyggnaden. I Norrbotten och Östergötland är en ekonomisk kompensation respektive en markhyra aktuell, dock anses dessa vara otillräckliga för att kompensera för den förlust av betesmark för renar som sker i Norrbotten respektive för de besvär lokalbefolkningen upplever med bullret i Östergötland. Slutligen visar resultatet även på att den största drivkraften för företag att etablera vindkraft är vinst och därmed sker otillräckliga karteringar av vind och markanvändning vilket försvårar implementeringen av vindkraft. Slutsatserna för denna rapport är därmed att olika kartläggningar av främst vind har förändrat markanvändningen och andra verksamheter som tidigare bedrivits i landskapet har begränsats och i stor utsträckning ersatts av produktion av vindkraft. Då vindkraften i Östergötland och Norrbotten har byggts ut med otillräckliga kartläggningar som inte tar de sociala relationerna i beaktning har dessa olika konflikter uppstått.
To study how the transition from vertical to horizontal energy recovery will affect society, two case studies have been conducted. The case studies, together with the theory of socio-ecological fixes, have been used to analyze the socio-ecological transformations that take place on landscapes and the politics that exist around these transformations. The first case study concerned the wind power project called Markbygden in Norrbotten County and the second case study concerned wind power establishment in Östergötland County. These case studies were conducted through a qualitative study in the form of interviews with actors who are involved in and are affected by these wind power establishments. The case studies show that the landscape has changed physically by the construction of wind turbines, which has contributed to a transformation of land use. Mappings that have been made in correlation with wind power establishment have affected how people use and relate to the land and what the ownership conditions look like. Furthermore, the establishment of wind power in Östergötland and Norrbotten has led to various conflicts such as disturbances caused by light and noise as well as conflicts with reindeer husbandry that was previously conducted in the Markbygden area. These conflicts have thus arisen as a result of the landscape transformation that has taken place in connection with the expansion of wind power. In Norrbotten and Östergötland, financial compensation and land rent are current, however, these are considered insufficient to compensate for the loss of grazing land for reindeer that occurs in Norrbotten and for the problems the local population experiences with the noise in Östergötland. Finally, the results also show that the biggest driving force for companies to establish wind power is profit and thus insufficient mapping of wind and land use takes place, which makes it more difficult to implement wind power. The conclusions of this report are thus that various mappings of mainly wind have changed land use and other activities previously conducted in the landscape have been limited and to a great extent been replaced by the production of wind power. As wind power in Östergötland and Norrbotten has expanded with insufficient mappings that disregard existing social relations, the various conflicts have arisen.

The Western Himalayan zone of India is not only threatened by rapid climatic changes, natural floods, and fires, but also by anthropogenic activities. Himalayan forests are vulnerable due to climatic changes and faced severe ecological deterioration due to anthropogenic pressures. The degradation of forests due to anthropogenic disturbances is increasing because of overgrowth of population, high poverty ratio, as well as the limitations of alternative livelihood options. Further resources from forest makes it inseparable to manage forest stands without considering the importance of socio-economic status and ecological aspects of forest management to the well-being of local communities. Therefore, the Himalayan forests and the communities depending on forests should be seen as a part of an evolving. This chapter will explore the vulnerability of the knowledge towards Western Himalayan forests and community-based management of forests. Additionally, it will sketch potential sites affected through anthropogenic pressures.