scholarly journals The militarization of anti-poaching: undermining long term goals?

2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 345-348 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROSALEEN DUFFY ◽  
FREYA A. V. ST JOHN ◽  
BRAM BÜSCHER ◽  
DAN BROCKINGTON
Keyword(s):  
Central Africa ◽  
Security Threats ◽  
Horn Of Africa ◽  
Regional Conflicts ◽  
Consumer Markets ◽  
Key Species ◽  
Changing Patterns ◽  
Wildlife Trafficking ◽  
Sahel Region

SummaryConservation is at a critical juncture because of the increase in poaching which threatens key species. Poaching is a major public concern, as indicated by the rises in rhino and elephant poaching, the United for Wildlife Initiative and the London Declaration, signed by 46 countries in February 2014. This is accompanied by an increasing calls for a more forceful response, especially to tackle the involvement of organized crime in wildlife trafficking. However, there is a risk that this will be counter-productive. Further, such calls are based on a series of assumptions which are worthy of greater scrutiny. First, calls for militarization are based on the idea that poverty drives poaching. Yet, poaching and trafficking are changing because of the shifting dynamics of poverty in supply countries, coupled with changing patterns of wealth in consumer markets. Second, the ways increases in poaching are being linked to global security threats, notably from Al Shabaab are poorly evidenced and yet circulate in powerful policy circles. There is a risk that militarization will place more heavily armed rangers in the centre of some of the most complex regional conflicts in the world (such as the Horn of Africa and Central Africa/Sahel region).

PRACTICAL ASPECTS OF APPLICATION OF THE MODEL OF INTEGRAL ASSESSMENT OF THE LEVEL OF ECONOMIC SECURITY OF UKRAINE

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oksana Gaiduchok ◽  
◽  
Oleksiy Stupnytskyi ◽  
Keyword(s):  
National Security ◽  
Economic Security ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Security Threats ◽  
National Interests ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Military Security ◽  
Integral Assessment ◽  
Political Economic

In modern times, it is believed that by reducing the risk of military intervention, military security has lost its relevance, and economic security has become a priority of national interests. The principle of economic security is as follows: national interests are supported through an economic system that supports free exchange and ensures the upward mobility of the nation. The analysis of economic security is based on the concept of national interests. It is well known that the problem of national security and its components cannot be considered only from the standpoint of current interests; it is closely related to the possibilities of their implementation over a significant, long-term period. Each stage of realization of national interests of the country is characterized by its assessment of its geopolitical, geostrategic and geoeconomic conditions, security threats and the main carriers of these threats, the mechanism of realization of national interests (each of the stages has its own assessment of the main definitions and categories of security, the main vectors of geoeconomic policy). Economic security is the foundation and material basis of national security. A state is in a state of security if it protects its own national interests and is able to defend them through political, economic, socio-psychological, military and other actions. There is a close connection between economic security and the system of national and state interests, and it is through this category that the problems of economic potential and economic power of the state, geopolitical and geoeconomic positions of the country in the modern world are intertwined. At a time when regional forces are trying to expand markets, provide access to finance and the latest technology, economic security has become a necessary component of the ability of regional forces to expand their influence. The article is devoted to the study of economic security of Ukraine and its components using the model of quantitative assessment of economic security of Ukraine. Using the Fishburne method, a model is built that allows to obtain an integrated assessment of the level of economic security based on the synthesis of nine partial indicators.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marina Sharpe
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Great Lakes ◽  
East Africa ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Theoretical Approach ◽  
Central Africa ◽  
Horn Of Africa ◽  
Refugee Protection

This introductory chapter begins by presenting the book’s structure in section A. Section B then delineates the book’s contours, outlining four aspects of refugee protection in Africa that are not addressed. Section C provides context, with a contemporary overview of the state of refugee protection in Africa. It also looks at the major aspects of the refugee situations in each of Africa’s principal geographic sub-regions: East Africa (including the Horn of Africa), Central Africa and the Great Lakes, West Africa, Southern Africa, and North Africa. Section D then concludes with an outline of the theoretical approach to regime relationships employed throughout the book.

National Concepts of Security and the Problem Of Integration in Transcaucasia

2006 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 287-301
Author(s):  
Anush Begoyan
Keyword(s):  
Regional Integration ◽  
Regional Cooperation ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Regional Security ◽  
Security Threats ◽  
Regional Powers ◽  
Security Issues ◽  
State Security ◽  
Joint Provision

AbstractThe article examines security issues of the Transcaucasian region with the focus on nonmilitary and trans-border security threats and a regional security community that also includes non-state security actors of the region, such as not-recognised autonomous entities, nations, ethnic groups, minorities, etc.This approach to regional security shifts the focus of policies from balance of power to closer regional integration and cooperation, as well as joint provision of regional security. Despite many objectives and existing obstacles to this scenario of regional development, the author sees it to be the only way toward a stable and long-term security in the region. The article argues that closer regional cooperation and integration would allow to accommodate interests and security concerns of non-state actors of the region and would bring the fate of regional issues back in the hands of the regional powers and create bases for sustainable and lasting peace in the region.

scholarly journals Domain Adaptation for Semantic Segmentation of Historical Panchromatic Orthomosaics in Central Africa

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 523
Author(s):  
Nicholus Mboga ◽  
Stefano D’Aronco ◽  
Tais Grippa ◽  
Charlotte Pelletier ◽  
Stefanos Georganos ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Cover ◽  
Domain Adaptation ◽  
Central Africa ◽  
Semantic Segmentation ◽  
Target Domain ◽  
Convolutional Networks ◽  
Fully Convolutional Networks ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Performance Gains

Multitemporal environmental and urban studies are essential to guide policy making to ultimately improve human wellbeing in the Global South. Land-cover products derived from historical aerial orthomosaics acquired decades ago can provide important evidence to inform long-term studies. To reduce the manual labelling effort by human experts and to scale to large, meaningful regions, we investigate in this study how domain adaptation techniques and deep learning can help to efficiently map land cover in Central Africa. We propose and evaluate a methodology that is based on unsupervised adaptation to reduce the cost of generating reference data for several cities and across different dates. We present the first application of domain adaptation based on fully convolutional networks for semantic segmentation of a dataset of historical panchromatic orthomosaics for land-cover generation for two focus cities Goma-Gisenyi and Bukavu. Our experimental evaluation shows that the domain adaptation methods can reach an overall accuracy between 60% and 70% for different regions. If we add a small amount of labelled data from the target domain, too, further performance gains can be achieved.

Rising ecosystem water demand exacerbates the lengthening of tropical dry seasons

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hao Xu ◽  
Xu Lian ◽  
Ingrid Slette ◽  
Hui Yang ◽  
Yuan Zhang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Water Demand ◽  
Potential Evapotranspiration ◽  
Central Africa ◽  
Dry Season ◽  
Land Area ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
Dry Seasons ◽  
The Tropics ◽  
Factor Governing

Abstract The timing and length of the dry season is a key factor governing ecosystem productivity and the carbon cycle of the tropics. Mounting evidence has suggested a lengthening of the dry season with ongoing climate change. However, this conclusion is largely based on changes in precipitation (P) compared to its long-term average (P ̅) and lacks consideration of the simultaneous changes in ecosystem water demand (measured by potential evapotranspiration, Ep, or actual evapotranspiration, E). Using several long-term (1979-2018) observational datasets, we compared changes in tropical dry season length (DSL) and timing (dry season arrival, DSA, and dry season end, DSE) among three common metrics used to define the dry season: P < P ̅, P < Ep, and P < E. We found that all three definitions show that dry seasons have lengthened in much of the tropics since 1979. Among the three definitions, P < E estimates the largest fraction (49.0%) of tropical land area likely experiencing longer dry seasons, followed by P < Ep (41.4%) and P < P ̅ (34.4%). The largest differences in multi-year mean DSL (> 120 days) among the three definitions occurred in the most arid and the most humid regions of the tropics. All definitions and datasets consistently showed longer dry seasons in southern Amazon (due to delayed DSE) and central Africa (due to both earlier DSA and delayed DSE). However, definitions that account for changing water demand estimated longer DSL extension over those two regions. These results indicate that warming-enhanced evapotranspiration exacerbates dry season lengthening and ecosystem water deficit. Thus, it is necessity to account for the evolving water demand of tropical ecosystems when characterizing changes in seasonal dry periods and ecosystem water deficits in an increasingly warmer and drier climate.

Contradictions of the upcoming period: points for developing the agenda for medium- and long-term perspective

2021 ◽  
pp. 72-80
Author(s):  
D.M. Belousov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Social Situation ◽  
Regional Conflicts ◽  
Global Nature ◽  
Multi Level ◽  
Object Of Control ◽  
Trade Wars ◽  
New Social Order ◽  
Different Levels

Analysis of the economic and social situation allows for the conclusion that the world is entering an era of global instability and contradictions. There is clearly a crisis of compensatory and basic institutions. Humans cease to be the subjects of the historical process and instead are becoming the object of control. Contradictions are sharply increasing at different levels. We are witnessing the conflict between labor and capital related to the national nature of labor and the global nature of capital. Production, security and regional applied science are changing, but financial and institutional systems remain global. Information and trade wars are intensifying. During a multi-level crisis, it is difficult to predict what a new social order will be like, but the transition to it will be difficult and highly possibly rife with (macro-) regional conflicts.

‘Home, Sweet Home’: Managing Returning Foreign Terrorist Fighters in Germany, The United Kingdom and Australia

2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 311-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kerstin Braun
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Holistic Approach ◽  
Security Threats ◽  
Security Risks ◽  
Western Countries ◽  
The United Kingdom

Abstract Since 2011, the conflict in Syria and Iraq has seen unprecedented numbers of Westerners travelling to the region to support jihadist terror organisations, so-called Foreign Terrorist Fighters (‘FTFs’). However, since 2015, with Islamic State’s financial and territorial losses, the numbers of Western FTFs are dwindling and many are returning to their countries of origin. As a consequence, numerous countries are grappling with how to best manage potential security threats arising from returning FTFs. This article critically analyses legal and criminal justice strategies to address this phenomenon implemented in three Western countries from which a significant number of FTFs originate: Germany, the United Kingdom and Australia. It focuses on prosecution, prevention of re-entry and rehabilitation of returning FTFs. It suggests that a holistic approach focusing on punitive but also on de-radicalising and reintegrating measures is best suited to address the security risks FTFs pose long term.

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