Forest policies, management and conservation in Soviet (1920–1991) and post-Soviet (1991–2005) Armenia

2006 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
HOVIK Y. SAYADYAN ◽  
RAFAEL MORENO-SANCHEZ
Keyword(s):  
Forest Cover ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
International Community ◽  
Influential Factors ◽  
Forest Policies ◽  
Resource Managers ◽  
Forestry Sector ◽  
History Of ◽  
Forest Use ◽  
Management And Conservation

The extent and condition of forest ecosystems in Armenia have decreased drastically since the disintegration of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). This decline is not only a consequence of the recent history of the area, but also the result of decades of forest policies, management and forest-use practices. To reverse the negative trends, it is important for stakeholders, scientists, resource managers and policy makers (in Armenia and abroad) to understand the influential factors in the decline, yet such information is scarce, highly fragmented, written in Armenian or Russian, and inaccessible to the international community. This paper aims to contribute to the knowledge base of the international community by presenting and contrasting the most important issues and processes that have affected forest cover in Armenia during the USSR (1920–1991) and independence periods (1991–to date). For each period, the legal framework, the forest inventory practices, forest use, management and conservation practices, the forestry education, and the perception of the forests by forest communities and society at large are presented and discussed. Except for the social perception of the forests, the most relevant aspects of these issues have scarcely changed from one period to the next. There is a need to address the most pressing problems and improve the current conditions of the forests and the forestry sector in Armenia.

Incentives for Private Forestry: The Case of the Republic of Ireland

1993 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gillian Gairdner
Keyword(s):  
Financial Incentives ◽  
Forest Cover ◽  
Tropical Zone ◽  
Private Forestry ◽  
Commercial Logging ◽  
History Of ◽  
Forest Use ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Sustainable Forest Use ◽  
The Tropics

Forest decline in the tropical zone of the world has provoked an enormous amount of concern but, so far, few if any panaceas. Leaving aside the pervasive impact of clearance for agriculture to focus for the time being exclusively on the role of timber extraction in the moist tropics, it appears that, in present circumstances at least, commercial logging is effectively incompatible with sustainable forest use. For this reason there is a developing interest in the potential which private-sector plantation forestry may have, in these areas, for significantly contributing to both local and export timber needs and so relieving pressure on the remaining area of natural forest. The peculiarly long-term character of investment in trees, and the capital-poor nature of the countries concerned mean, however, that financial incentives will almost certainly be necessary if plantations are to have real consequence.It is in this context that the recent history of the forest programme in Ireland, the country with the lowest overall proportion of forest cover and the highest percentage of state (as opposed to private) forestry in the EC, may be relevant. Forestry incentives introduced in 1980, and aimed at landowners in the agriculturally disadvantaged western region, were initially ineffective, despite the region's comparative advantages for timber-growing. However, major additions to the level and range of support in the second half of the 1980s, led to an exponential increase in grant-uptake.The very success of the above scheme in recent years has caused it to be critized for the loss of large areas of bogland which have considerable environmental value but low potential for timber production in any normal investment sense. In addition, plantations in all parts of the region are overwhelmingly coniferous. More generous, country-wide incentives for environmentally desirable broadleafed planting are too new for it to be known what effect they will have on the afforestation of the better land. It seems almost certain, however, that attempts to reconcile productive and environmental aims in private forestryprogrammes inevitably increase their complexity and cost: this has undesirable implications for the possible transfer of such schemes to developing countries in the tropics.

scholarly journals Analysis of the Social-Ecological Causes of Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Ghana: Application of the DPSIR Framework

Forests ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 409
Author(s):  
Richard Kyere-Boateng ◽  
Michal V. Marek
Keyword(s):  
Tropical Forest ◽  
Forest Cover ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Forest Degradation ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Forest Policies ◽  
Illegal Mining ◽  
The Social ◽  
Forest Use ◽  
Eventual Loss

Globally, forests provide several functions and services to support humans’ well-being and the mitigation of greenhouse gases (GHGs). The services that forests provide enable the forest-dependent people and communities to meet their livelihood needs and well-being. Nevertheless, the world’s forests face a twin environmental problem of deforestation and forest degradation (D&FD), resulting in ubiquitous depletion of forest biodiversity and ecosystem services and eventual loss of forest cover. Ghana, like any tropical forest developing country, is not immune to these human-caused D&FD. This paper reviews Ghana’s D&FD driven by a plethora of pressures, despite many forest policies and interventions to ensure sustainable management and forest use. The review is important as Ghana is experiencing an annual D&FD rate of 2%, equivalent to 135,000 hectares loss of forest cover. Although some studies have focused on the causes of D&FD on Ghana’ forests, they failed to show the chain of causal links of drivers that cause D&FD. This review fills the knowledge and practice gap by adopting the Driver-Pressures-State-Impacts-Responses (DPSIR) analytical framework to analyse the literature-based sources of causes D&FD in Ghana. Specifically, the analysis identified agriculture expansion, cocoa farming expansion, illegal logging, illegal mining, population growth and policy failures and lapses as the key drivers of Ghana’s D&FD. The study uses the DPSIR analytical framework to show the chain of causal links that lead to the country’s D&FD and highlights the numerous interventions required to reverse and halt the ubiquitous perpetual trend of D&FD in Ghana. Similar tropical forest countries experiencing D&FD will find the review most useful to curtail the menace.

COVID-19 Pandemic: Experiences in China and Implications for its Prevention and Treatment Worldwide

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (6) ◽  
pp. 410-416 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ning-Ning Liu ◽  
Jing-Cong Tan ◽  
Jingquan Li ◽  
Shenghui Li ◽  
Yong Cai ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Characteristics ◽  
International Community ◽  
Disease Spread ◽  
Global Dynamics ◽  
The World ◽  
Prevention And Treatment ◽  
History Of

The outbreak of COVID-19 due to SARS-CoV-2 originally emerged in Wuhan in December 2019. As of March 22, 2020, the disease spread to 186 countries, with at least 305,275 confirmed cases. Although there has been a decline in the spread of the disease in China, the prevalence of COVID-19 around the world remains serious despite containment efforts undertaken by national authorities and the international community. In this article, we systematically review the brief history of COVID-19 and its epidemic and clinical characteristics, highlighting the strategies used to control and prevent the disease in China, which may help other countries respond to the outbreak. This pandemic emphasizes the need to be constantly alert to shifts in both the global dynamics and the contexts of individual countries, making sure that all are aware of which approaches are successful for the prevention, containment and treatment of new diseases, and being flexible enough to adapt the responses accordingly.

Prioritizing strain insulators for raptor conservation

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
FRANCISCO GUIL ◽  
M. ÁNGELES SORIA ◽  
VÍCTOR ORTEGA ◽  
RUBÉN GARCÍA-SÁNCHEZ ◽  
SILVIA VILLAVERDE-MORCILLO
Keyword(s):  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Risk Index ◽  
Influential Factors ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Central Spain ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Conservation Actions ◽  
Complete Survey ◽  
Raptor Conservation ◽  
Management And Conservation

Summary Avian species often take advantage of human-made structures, such as perching on power poles, although this can lead to negative effects for both birds and infrastructure. It has been demonstrated that anchor-type pylons, with strain insulators, are amongst the most dangerous of these structures. Our goal was to develop a methodological approach to evaluate the ways in which raptors perch on the six most commonly used strain insulator configurations in Spain, and to build a risk index that can be used to prioritise them. To study the ways raptors perch, we worked with six wildlife rescue centres in central Spain for almost a year assessing these six strain insulator configurations in 83 perch trials with 176 raptors in ample flying pens. We analysed 475 complete survey days, with an approximate number of 258,960 analysed pictures, including 6,766 perchings on strain insulators. We assessed the influential factors for these 6,766 perchings and developed a novel approach to prioritise strain insulator configurations that can be used anywhere. Our results suggest that longer insulator strains (i.e. PECA-1000 and Caon-C3670) are the safest, according to our prioritization criteria, although these results require further assessment in the field. Managers and conservationists should take into account these results to improve management and conservation actions.

Book reviews: A neglected ‘Mecca’ for historians of science

1995 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 333-334
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
International Community ◽  
Swedish Krona ◽  
History Of

Marco Beretta, A History of Non-Printed Science: a select catalogue o f the Waller Collection . Uppsala, 1993. Pp.199, 178 Swedish Krona. ISBN 91-554-3070-8 (ISSN 0346-7465) I first heard of this Waller Collection when a notice of it, and of this book, appeared in the Uppsala Newsletter on History of Science , 19, in 1993. The manuscript collection built up by the Stockholm surgeon Erik Waller (1875-1955) remains ‘hardly known to the international community of historians of science’, and the book tries to remedy this ignorance by describing some 70 of the greatest treasures in it. The collection, however, comprises over 35,000 letters etc. (with a remarkable collection of medals). It was purchased by Uppsala University in 1953, after the earlier donation of Waller’s equally wonderful, but better known, book collection in 1950.

Environmental evolution and anthropogenic forcing in the Garigliano coastal plain (Italy) during the Holocene

The Holocene ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 095968362110032
Author(s):  
Halinka Di Lorenzo ◽  
Pietro Aucelli ◽  
Giuseppe Corrado ◽  
Mario De Iorio ◽  
Marcello Schiattarella ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Human Activity ◽  
Coastal Plain ◽  
Forest Cover ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Pollen Data ◽  
Human Environment ◽  
The Holocene ◽  
Natural Processes ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Rich

The Garigliano alluvial-coastal plain, at the Latium-Campania border (Italy), witnessed a long-lasting history of human-environment interactions, as demonstrated by the rich archaeological knowledge. With the aim of reconstructing the evolution of the landscape and its interaction with human activity during the last millennia, new pollen results from the coastal sector of the Garigliano Plain were compared with the available pollen data from other nearby sites. The use of pollen data from both the coastal and marine environment allowed integrating the local vegetation dynamics within a wider regional context spanning the last 8000 years. The new pollen data presented in this study derive from the analysis of a core, drilled in the coastal sector, which intercepted the lagoon-marshy environments that occurred in the plain as a response to the Holocene transgression and subsequent coastal progradation. Three radiocarbon ages indicate that the chronology of the analyzed core interval ranges from c. 7200 to c. 2000 cal yr BP. The whole data indicate that a dense forest cover characterized the landscape all along the Prehistoric period, when a few signs of human activity are recorded in the spectra, such as cereal crops, pasture activity and fires. The main environmental changes, forced by natural processes (coastal progradation) but probably enhanced by reclamation works, started from the Graeco-Roman period and led to the reduction of swampy areas that favoured the colonisation of the outer plain.

Legalising the Drug Wars

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Collins
Keyword(s):  
Control System ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
Regulatory System ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Drug Control ◽  
Global Policy ◽  
Drug Regulations ◽  
Single Convention ◽  
History Of ◽  
Narcotic Drugs

Where did the regulatory underpinnings for the global drug wars come from? This book is the first fully-focused history of the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, the bedrock of the modern multilateral drug control system and the focal point of global drug regulations and prohibitions. Although far from the propagator of the drug wars, the UN enabled the creation of a uniform global legal framework to effectively legalise, or regulate, their pursuit. This book thereby answers the question of where the international legal framework for drug control came from, what state interests informed its development and how complex diplomatic negotiations resulted in the current regulatory system, binding states into an element of global policy uniformity.

Legal Practice in the Southern Leon and Castile of the 12th Century: a Borderline State

Istoriya ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (9 (107)) ◽  
pp. 0
Author(s):  
Galina Popova
Keyword(s):  
Legal Framework ◽  
Practical Implementation ◽  
Legal Tradition ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Legal Proceedings ◽  
Legal Traditions ◽  
12Th Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
Normative Basis ◽  
Judicial Proceedings

The article is devoted to the legal history of the lands of the Kingdom of Toledo in the first two hundred years after the Christian reconquest. The assimilation of the conquered lands by the new political power, preserving the border position, leads to the emergence of a special legal tradition, typical for other similar territories, which received the general name “extremadura” — “borderland”. The Fueros, created in the Kingdom of Toledo, from the very beginning, firmly linked the territorial and personal nature of the legal norms included in their texts. The formation of local legal traditions took place with the active participation of the local elite, which was reflected in the editing of Fuero texts. The inhabitants of Toledo were supposed to use the Visigothic "Liber iudiciorum" as a normative basis for legal proceedings, but at the same time maintained the legitimate possibility of resorting to norms of a different origin, the so-called “Fuero of Castilians”. The lack of a strict systematization in the legal framework of the proceedings was reflected in the organization of judicial officials in Toledo. The good preservation of the local act material allows us to consider in more detail the practical implementation of the legal norm in the process of judicial proceedings, recorded in Arabic in the protocol of the end of the 8th century.

scholarly journals Gold, timber, war and parks : A history of the Rushworth Forest in central Victoria

2010 ◽  
Vol 122 (2) ◽  
pp. 130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth E. Lawrence ◽  
Marc P. Bellette
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Gold Mining ◽  
Forest Cover ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Resource Utilisation ◽  
World War ◽  
Mining Operations ◽  
Prisoner Of War ◽  
Central Victoria ◽  
History Of

The Rushworth Forest is a Box and Ironbark open sclerophyll forest in central Victoria that has been subject to a long history of gold mining activity and forest utilisation. This paper documents the major periods of land use history in the Rushworth Forest and comments on the environmental changes that have occurred as a result. During the 1850s to 1890s, the Forest was subject to extensive gold mining operations, timber resource use, and other forest product utilisation, which generated major changes to the forest soils, vegetation structure and species cover. From the 1890s to 1930s, concern for diminishing forest cover across central Victoria led to the creation of timber reserves, including the Rushworth State Forest. After the formation of a government forestry department in 1919, silvicultural practices were introduced which aimed at maximising the output of tall timber production above all else. During World War II, the management of the Forest was taken over by the Australian Army as Prisoner of War camps were established to harvest timber from the Forest for firewood production. Following the War, the focus of forestry in Victoria moved away from the Box and Ironbark forests, but low value resource utilisation continued in the Rushworth Forest from the 1940s to 1990s. In 2002, about one-third of the Forest was declared a National Park and the other two-thirds continued as a State Forest. Today, the characteristics of the biophysical environment reflect the multiple layers of past land uses that have occurred in the Rushworth Forest.

scholarly journals Nonparametric machine learning for mapping forest cover and exploring influential factors

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (7) ◽  
pp. 1683-1699
Author(s):  
Bao Liu ◽  
Lei Gao ◽  
Baoan Li ◽  
Raymundo Marcos-Martinez ◽  
Brett A. Bryan
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Forest Cover ◽  
Influential Factors
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