scholarly journals Woodlot management and livelihoods in a tropical conservation landscape

AMBIO ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Bailey ◽  
Jonathan Salerno ◽  
Peter Newton ◽  
Robert Bitariho ◽  
Shamilah Namusisi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Institutions ◽  
Wood Products ◽  
Wood Product ◽  
Community Resources ◽  
Human Needs ◽  
Tropical Conservation ◽  
Local Livelihoods ◽  
Term Management

AbstractIn biodiversity hotspots, there is often tension between human needs and conservation, exacerbated when protected areas prevent access to natural resources. Forest-dependent people may compensate for exclusion by managing unprotected forests or cultivating planted woodlots. Outside Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Uganda, household wood product needs are high and population growth puts pressure on the environment. We investigated the role of privately and collectively managed woodlots in provisioning wood products and supporting local livelihoods. We found that households relied heavily on woodlots for daily needs and as resources during time of need. We also found that locally relevant social institutions, called stretcher groups, played a role in the management of woodlots, providing shared community resources. Privately and collectively owned woodlots support local livelihoods and wood product needs in the region. Long-term management of forests in Uganda should consider the value of woodlots and the mechanisms required to support them.

Meritocracy and its Enemies: Is There an Alternative to the “Tyranny of the Merit”?

2021 ◽  
pp. 30
Author(s):  
Dmitriy Davydov
Keyword(s):  
Technological Development ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Practical Application ◽  
Skilled Workers ◽  
Highly Educated ◽  
Technical Competencies ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
The Ideal

The article examines  the idea of meritocracy, now increasingly criticized. It is shown that the relevance of the discourse on meritocracy is due to the objectively increased role of education and various creative and technical talents in the context of rapid technological development. At the same time, critics rightly point out that meritocracy today has become largely a myth that plutocrats turn to justify their privileges, status and wealth. The very idea of a meritocracy that focuses exclusively on the technical competencies and abilities demanded by the neoliberal economy is also criticized. Many authors talk about the need to fairly reward and respect low-skilled workers, who often (especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic) bring more public benefit than highly educated financiers or bankers. Nevertheless, the article shows that this criticism is a hidden apology for meritocracy. In this case, critics justify deeper inequalities associated with long-term prospects and self-realization. It leads to cementing the “secondary” status of workers of the “hand” and “heart”, whose fate in the context of automation and the development of artificial intelligence technologies may turn out to be unenviable. In the author's opinion, the only alternative to this state of affairs is the rejection of meritocracy as a normative concept. It should be recognized as an inevitable evil associated with the imperfection of social institutions and, in part, human nature. Accordingly, the author contrasts the meritocratic pursuit of status and power with the ideal of universal striving for the maximum possible and, what is remarkable, all-round development and practical application of the talents of all without exception.

Conservation and Conservatism

2002 ◽  
Author(s):  
David W. Orr
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
The Political ◽  
Role Of Government ◽  
Political Field ◽  
Modern Conservatism ◽  
The Devil

The philosophy of free-market conservatism has swept the political field virtually everywhere, and virtually everywhere conservatives have been, in varying degrees, hostile to the cause of conservation. This is a problem of great consequence for the long-term human prospect because of the sheer political power of conservative governments. Conservatism and conservation share more than a common linguistic heritage. Consistently applied they are, in fact, natural allies. To make such a case, however, it is necessary first to say what conservatism is. Conservative philosopher Russell Kirk (1982, xv–xvii) proposes six “first principles” of conservatism. Accordingly, true conservatives:… • believe in a transcendent moral order • prefer social continuity (i.e., the “devil they know to the devil they don’t know”) • believe in “the wisdom of our ancestors” • are guided by prudence • “feel affection for the proliferating intricacy of long-established social institutions” • believe that “human nature suffers irremediably from certain faults.”… For Kirk the essence of conservatism is the “love of order” (1982, xxxvi). Eighteenth-century British philosopher and statesman Edmund Burke, the founding father of modern conservatism and as much admired as he is unread, defined the goal of order more specifically as one which harmonized the distant past with the distant future. To this end Burke thought in terms of a contract, but not one about “things subservient only to the gross animal existence of a temporary and perishable nature.” Burke’s societal contract was not, in other words, about tax breaks for those who don’t need them, but about a partnership promoting science, art, virtue, and perfection, none of which could be achieved by a single generation without veneration for the past and a healthy regard for those to follow. Burke’s contract, therefore, was between “those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born . . . linking the lower with the higher natures, connecting the visible and invisible world” ([1790] 1986, 194–195). The role of government, those “possessing any portion of power,” in Burke’s words, “ought to be strongly and awefully impressed with an idea that they act in trust” (ibid., 190).

The role of clay, organic carbon and long-term management on mouldboard plough draught measured on the Broadbalk wheat experiment at Rothamsted

2006 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 334-341 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. W. Watts ◽  
L. J. Clark ◽  
P. R. Poulton ◽  
D. S. Powlson ◽  
A. P. Whitmore
Keyword(s):  
Organic Carbon ◽  
Mouldboard Plough ◽  
Term Management

Globalization and Social Movements

2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 189-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Almeida ◽  
Chris Chase-Dunn
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Multiple Scales ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Economic Globalization ◽  
Economic Liberalization ◽  
Global Trends ◽  
Transnational Social Movements

A growing body of scholarship acknowledges the increasing influence of global forces on social institutions and societies on multiple scales. We focus here on the role of globalization processes in shaping collective action and social movements. Three areas of global change and movements are examined: first, long-term global trends and collective action; second, research on national and local challenges to economic globalization, including backlash movements and the types of economic liberalization measures most associated with inducing oppositional movements; and third, the emergence of contemporary transnational social movements. In each of these arenas we address debates on diffusion, intervening mechanisms, and the outcomes of collective mobilization in response to global pressures.

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