Prehistoric human impact on the environment in the upland North American Southwest

Some early Anasazi (prehistoric Puebloan) agricultural practices tended to be land-extensive and made substantial impact on the forests, primarily through clearing by burning. Later agriculture tended to be more land-intensive, but longer duration occupations by larger populations also had significant local effects on the forests, through both clearing for fields and through intensive harvest of firewood. Strategies of early Anasazi agriculture that resulted in forest depletion probably also tended to maximize the power output of the economic systems, and therefore must have had considerable selective value. Depletion of various wild resources was an important impetus to culture change, leading, in conjunction with population growth, to more intensive farming practices, and contributing to the tendency to aggregate in large villages at various times in the prehistoric period.     

Soil Nutrient Depletion and Population Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Malthusian Nexus?

Soil nutrient mining and other forms of soil degradation threaten future soil productivity, especially in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Data from 36 countries in SSA show a significant relationship at the supra-national level between soil nutrient depletion (including erosion), reduced fallow periods, and population pressure and thus illustrate the unsustainable population-agriculture-environment nexus on the continent which so far has been described in case studies only. It appears that Malthusian mechanisms are at work, despite encouraging indications of farmers' concerns and adaptation to changing conditions. It is agreed that a re-examination of the common land degradation assessments and farmers' response to changing conditions would be useful, however, this should not delay other recommended interventions.     

Life Style Or Survival Strategy?

At the beginning of the 1990s, less than a half-percent of the Czech agricultural work force were private farmers having persisted through the period of forced collectivization. This tiny social group did not play an economically or socially significant role in Czech society. In the agricultural sector, privatization of the Czech economy after 1989 meant restitution of land to the original owners. State and co-operative farms were transformed either to joint enterprises, i.e. owner-run co-operatives, or to private farms. Initially, there was no great interest in private farming. However, employment opportunities in rural areas are limited. Today, private farmers comprise about 20% of the agricultural work force. Over half of them (54%) have less than one hectare arable land and private farming is not their main source of work income. The rest of the private farmers have different types of holdings ranging from 1 ha to well over 1000 ha. The average size of private holdings of this category is about 32 ha. Return to private farming means a large change of life style for both farmers and their families. Hard competition on the market is reflected in their attitudes and opinions. Of course, life cannot be reduced to solely the economic dimension. Freedom, personal independence, and decision-making responsibility appear as new major life values. Nevertheless, close interdependency of economic and social conditions is strongly felt. This contribution summarizes results of empirical research based on 385 Czech private farmers. Survey participants evaluated positive and negative effects of changes subsequent to 1989 on their economic and social life.     

Effects of Central Decisions on Local Livelihoods in Indonesia: Potential Synergies Between the Programs of Transmigration and Industrial Forest Conversion

In addition to well-documented negative effects (e.g., environmental degradation and ethnic conflict) Indonesia's central government programs of transmigration and industrial forest management subvert indigenous rights (even if unintentionally) through appropriation of forested land and migrant subsidies. Although central control can be an effective strategy for resource management, Indonesia's programs have undercut their own objectives and may interact synergistically to increase population pressure, reduce available land, and intensify land use conflicts on the outer islands. Empirical data are needed to evaluate the interactions between transmigration and forest conversion and to design appropriate management strategies that incorporate local as well as central controls.     

Drivers of land use change and household determinants of sustainability in smallholder farming systems of Eastern Uganda

Smallholder farming systems in sub-Saharan Africa have undergone changes in land use, productivity and sustainability. Understanding of the drivers that have led to changes in land use in these systems and factors that influence the systems’ sustainability is useful to guide appropriate targeting of intervention strategies for improvement. We studied low input Teso farming systems in eastern Uganda from 1960 to 2001 in a place-based analysis combined with a comparative analysis of similar low input systems in southern Mali. This study showed that policy-institutional factors next to population growth have driven land use changes in the Teso systems, and that nutrient balances of farm households are useful indicators to identify their sustainability. During the period of analysis, the fraction of land under cultivation increased from 46 to 78%, and communal grazing lands nearly completely disappeared. Cropping diversified over time; cassava overtook cotton and millet in importance, and rice emerged as an alternative cash crop. Impacts of political instability, such as the collapse of cotton marketing and land management institutions, of communal labour arrangements and aggravation of cattle rustling were linked to the changes. Crop productivity in the farming systems is poor and nutrient balances differed between farm types. Balances of N, P and K were all positive for larger farms (LF) that had more cattle and derived a larger proportion of their income from off-farm activities, whereas on the medium farms (MF), small farms with cattle (SF1) and without cattle (SF2) balances were mostly negative. Sustainability of the farming system is driven by livestock, crop production, labour and access to off-farm income. Building private public partnerships around market-oriented crops can be an entry point for encouraging investment in use of external nutrient inputs to boost productivity in such African farming systems. However, intervention strategies should recognise the diversity and heterogeneity between farms to ensure efficient use of these external inputs.     

Property Size and Land Cover Change in the Brazilian Amazon

This paper considers the size of a farmer’s property as a key variable influencing land cover and land cover change in rural areas of developing countries. Data from 126 rural familial properties in the region around the city of Santarém, Pará, in the Brazilian Amazon, indicate that property size is important for understanding the trajectories of land cover change. Past research has focused on the distinction between small family farms and large capitalized farms, arguing that family farmers have a higher deforestation intensity, or on estimating the strength of the effect of property size relative to economic or demographic factors. This paper shows that larger familial properties are able both to retain a larger area in forest and to have long enough cycles of use and fallow to allow previously used land to become forested again. Based on these analyses and discussion, we argue that land use and land cover research must consider property size as an organizing principle in order to better comprehend the reciprocal relationship between population and environment in frontier areas of the Brazilian Amazon and other rural landscapes.     

Was there a neolithic mortality crisis?

The case that mortality rose either with the Neolithic Revolution or subsequent urbanization is made by both medical ecologists and anthropologists. The former point out that only dense farming or urban populations could sustain epidemic disease. Many anthropologists believe that Palaeolithic society either controlled population numbers or experienced low natural fertility, and that both fertility and mortality rose with denser, sedentary populations. Given that the evidence for low hunter-gatherer fertility is unsatisfactory, and that the balance of fertility and mortality was inevitably approximately maintained into the Neolithic period, it is possible that there was no Neolithic mortality crisis. This paper examines how the case was built for near-consensus on such a mortality crisis, and the implications of this case being wrong.     

The effect of protein diets in postmenopausal women with osteoporosis: Systematic review of randomized controlled trials

The main objective of this systematic review was to examine the effectiveness of protein supplementation through diet or dietary supplements on osteoporosis in postmenopausal women as evidenced by randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Five RCTs were included using dietary protein (N = 2), protein supplements (N = 2), and proteins through diet and supplements (N = 1). A total of 677 postmenopausal woman were included, all diagnosed with osteoporosis (T score < –2.5) and aged between 50 and 80 years. Results have found that combined protein administration through diet, mainly from animal sources and supplemental proteins (whey proteins, 86 g/d PRO including 6 g WPI), for a short period of time (up to 12 months) may positively affect osteoporosis in postmenopausal women. In addition, a positive effect can also be achieved by the single administration of a 250 mg/d supplement in which 10 g was WPI for a six-month period. In this review, it is shown that both combined administration of proteins through diet and supplements and single administration through protein supplements may reduce the risk of fracture in postmenopausal osteoporotic women. In contrast, dietary proteins alone, in doses similar to and/or higher than the RDA values, may not have any positive effect on treating osteoporosis.     

教育如何影响农村劳动力转移--基于年龄与世代效应的分析

本研究分析了教育是如何影响农村劳动力在纯务农、兼业和纯务工之间的就业选择,以及该选择随年龄增长和世代更替的演变趋势。研究发现,教育在总体上促进了非农就业,但在不同世代的生命历程中有着不尽相同的作用机制。在较早出生的世代中,教育对兼业和纯务工的促进作用是一致的。但在晚近出生的世代中,更高的教育水平对纯务工就业有着非常显著的影响,而对兼业选择影响甚微。在老一代农民中,教育对兼业和纯务工的促进作用随年龄增长而有所减弱;而在新一代农民中,教育对纯务工的促进作用随着年龄增长而迅速加强,呈现教育的积累性优势。此外,老一代农民的生命历程中有一个从务工到务农的回归;新一代农民向非农行业转移则呈现不可逆的趋势,教育对此起到了促进作用。     

Ungleichheit und Vorurteil

The authors take a look at how established sociological research in Germany deals with two distinct subjects: migrants in the German school system and New Fascists. The article highlights surprising, contrary feeling rules social scientists active in these two research areas develop regarding their objects of investigation. As it turns out in both cases social disintegration serves as an explanatory research frame. But feeling rules derived from this frame point in opposite directions. New Fascists are cast in the roles of victims of social change and institutional failure, thus calling for empathy and/or sympathy as the feeling to be directed towards them. Migrants, in contrast, are blamed for their situation, which invokes indifference and antipathy as a feeling rule. Comparing both research areas reveals how they connect to each other. Together they establish a dichotomous emotional regime which traces the lines of simultaneous inclusion in and exclusion from the German society.     

Income Dependency on Non-timber Forest Products: An Empirical Evidence of the Indigenous People in Peninsular Malaysia

The indigenous people have been identified to be among the poorest and the most socioeconomically and culturally marginalized people all over the world. The main purpose of the paper is to explore the socioeconomic and demographic factors of indigenous people in Peninsular Malaysia in context of poverty and the role of income dependency of non-timber forest products (NTFP). The data were collected in 2014 and 2015 through primary and secondary sources. Partial least squares (PLS) method was used to analysis the data. PLS is a modeling technique that features multiple regression and principal component analysis. The study shows that still a large number of indigenous households is involved in the NTFP activities. But the communities are moving away from NTFP based income to cash-crop based income because of poor sustainable forest management and lack of forest property rights. However, NTFP have a significant role in the household income and contribute 24% of the average income. Moreover, the analysis shows that location is significant to the poverty. There should be a suitable sustainable forest management system which can teach these indigenous communities about proper way of NTFP gathering and given proper rights to forest land. Furthermore, education is not significant to indigenous people and there is a high rate of school dropout among them. The government should introduce a different education system for indigenous communities which will emphasize the importance of education to them.     

Guest Editors' Introduction

This discourse analysis explores traditional and feminist articulations of rape in online mediated discourse regarding the sexual attack on CBS journalist Lara Logan in Egypt in February 2011. Examination of 175 stories and links in the top ten news blogs in the United States showed that the blogosphere contested traditional rape narratives that blamed Logan for the attack and conceptualized rape through a more varied means. In doing so, bloggers engaged in a struggle for meaning, and mainstreamed feminist understandings of sexual violence within the online public space.     

The Seeming Paradox of Increasing Mortality in a Highly Industrialized Nation: The Example of the Soviet Union

A discussion of the surprising phenomenon of declining life expectancy in a highly developed country such as the Soviet Union during the 1970s shows that this result was probably due only in a small part to ‘true’ causal changes in the conditions of living. At least equally important is the weaknesses of the measure of life expectancy by itself. The logical difference between period and cohort measurement is one part of the explanation. Another important factor is the adverse selection of risks by war, which makes international and intertemporal comparisons less valuable. Factors like population redistribution or changes in the registration also contribute to the explanation. Thus; life expectancy (in particular period life expectancy) should not, without closer consideration, be accepted as a reliable indicator of human welfare under such circumstances.     

Population regulation by dispersal over patchy environment;

Summary A mathematical model for the population regulation is presented, which takes into account the environmental heterogeneity and the animal dispersal, and does not contain any direct density effect on reproduction or death processes. Generally speaking, there are two kinds of dispersal, one is the density independent dispersal, the other is the density dependent. It is shown that a population equilibrium can be maintained by the density dependent dispersal or threshold dispersal which occurs only when the population density exceeds a certain threshold level, but that density independent dispersal by itself can not continue to maintain a population equilibrium.     

The structure and behavior of defoliating insect/forest systems

Summary Using four detailed and complex simulation models we derive a framework for predicting behavior of any defoliating insect/forest system. The framework uses simple and easily gathered biological information on four sets of state variables, each with a characteristic temporal scale, to predict presence, absence or form of key ecological processes acting on or between the variables. The combination of these key processes enables prediction of system equilibrium structure and this structure can be used to derive the temporal behavior of the system. Four qualitatively different classes of system behavior arise from the equilibrium structures. The framework is tested against twelve other systems and field invalidation experiments are outlined. Forest defoliator research and management implications are discussed.     

中国的智力回流及其引致机制研究

智力外流问题是发展中国家社会经济发展中面临的重大问题。按照智力流动的规律,中国将进入智力回流期,但智力回流的机制不会自动生成,因此,积极探讨智力回流的影响因素,弄清智力回流的状况及其引致机制和相关政策支持系统,对加快智力回流的步伐,促进中国社会经济发展,尽快缩小与发达国家的差距,具有重要意义。     

Using a gender perspective to explore forest dependence in rural HIV/AIDS-affected Malawian households

Throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, forest resources play a crucial role in enabling households to control and adapt to HIV/AIDS; however, little is known about how the disease impacts the gendered use of forest resources. This exploratory study characterizes how the dependence on forest resources changes for female and male respondents in HIV/AIDS-affected households in Malawi through three phases: before HIV was known to be present; during HIV-related morbidity; and after AIDS-related mortality. The results presented for female and male respondents in this paper are strikingly similar, and many respondents report that there are no longer any traditional gender roles for household tasks due to HIV/AIDS. Therefore, we question the thinking around gender-specific forest-related interventions for HIV-affected people. Moreover, given the gendered knowledge base that must surround resource use, what do these changes in traditional roles mean for sustainable forest resource use in the future? Further research on knowledge transmission around these resources is warranted.     

The social meaning of social indicators

While new modes of data processing have provided reams of data, there has been relatively less effort in seeking to comprehend the social meaning of results of empirical work. A set of previously developed indicators of urban social structure is here examined for its link to theory, and to the social structure of the city itself. The original indicators (size, social class, racial composition and community maturity) were empirically derived. In this paper, each is taken in turn, and explored with respect to several possible social meanings. Size, for example, is considered to be itself an indicator, and an imperfect one, for system complexity; percent non-white is seen to be itself an indicator for a slowdown in the mobility process, or a slower social metabolism. These and other results are suggestions, with illustrations, but not conclusive support, from other than the original data. While it is hoped that the theoretical suggestions may themselves be of interest, it is also hoped that approach itself can indicate the fertility and usefulness of going back to theory once empirical measures have been developed.     

Women, non-governmental organizations, and deforestation: a cross-national study

There have been several cross-national studies published in the world polity theoretical tradition that find a strong correlation between nations with high levels of environmental nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and low levels of various forms of environmental degradation. However, these studies neglect the role that women’s NGOs potentially play in this process. We seek to address this gap by conducting a cross-national study of the association between women’s NGOs and deforestation. We examine this relationship because deforestation often translates into increased household labor, loss of income, and impaired health for women and, as a result, women’s non-governmental organizations have become increasingly involved in dealing with these problems often by protecting forests. We use data from a sample of 61 nations for the period of 1990–2005. We find substantial support for world polity theory that both high levels of women’s and environmental NGOs per capita are associated with lower rates of deforestation. We also find that high levels of debt service and structural adjustment are correlated with higher rates of forest loss. We conclude with a discussion of findings, policy implications, and possible future research directions.     

中国农业非剩余劳动力转移决策机制及其对农业的影响

中国现阶段的乡—城迁移背景是,宏观上农业剩余劳动力问题严重的格局并没有改变,但由于超稳定的、超小规模均田制的作用,乡—城迁移者不仅包括农业剩余劳动力,也包括非农业剩余劳动力;结果,在许多农村地区出现了劳动力过剩与劳动力供给不足并存,或耕地资源短缺与耕地资源利用不足甚至闲置并存的矛盾。该两个问题的解决都将取决于中国是否能够在现阶段形成与快速城市化及国际化相适应的土地资源再配置机制,能否实现乡—城迁移条件下的富余耕地资源向种田专业户集中。