A novel human-based nature-conservation paradigm in Guatemala paves the way for overcoming the metabolic rift

2020 ◽  
pp. 030981682092911
Author(s):  
José Pablo Prado Córdova
Keyword(s):  
Nature Conservation ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Ecological Knowledge ◽  
Recent Effort ◽  
Conservation Practices ◽  
Ernst Bloch ◽  
Metabolic Rift ◽  
Human Needs ◽  
The Way

Nature-conservation practices in the Global South are fraught with uncertainty due to fragile environmental governance and conflict stemming from their subaltern position in global capitalism, given the tension between human needs and habitat integrity. This article hinges on a recent effort spear-headed by the Centre of Conservation Studies at University of San Carlos in Guatemala, to discuss how a counterhegemonic narrative offers fertile grounds for a decolonized reading of the metabolic rift. I use my notes from eight workshops held in 2018 as the empirical body for a discourse analysis where the emerging categories have been singled out and problematized in the light of ethnoecological theory and David Harvey’s moments for the transition towards a post-Capitalist society vis-à-vis a prevailing environmental regime characterized by its verticality, lack of scientific substantiation, and proclivity to privilege exchange value at the expense of widening the metabolic rift. This regime arguably spawns several ecological rifts, namely the following: (1) between conventional scientific parlance and traditional ecological knowledge; (2) between utility-inspired natural resource management and local land husbandry practices; and (3) between nature as a reservoir of resources and nature as the sustenance for life. In addition, I present a case study where local advocacy in a peripheral community managed to bring about a relevant shift in the correlation of political powers by seizing the national legislation to achieve a transfer of property rights that enabled the inception of a brand-new nature reserve. The new conservation paradigm in question, this case seems to suggest, dovetails adequately with civil society’s efforts to foster nature-conservation practices, in line with human well-being and sound environmental governance. The latter provides some evidence for a principle of hope – à la Ernst Bloch – whereby, dissident groups are paving the way for a grassroots-oriented conservation science that eventually could bridge the metabolic rift.

History and Assessment of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Céline Granjou ◽  
Isabelle Arpin
Keyword(s):  
Nature Conservation ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
United Nations Environment Programme ◽  
Academic Science ◽  
Ecological Knowledge ◽  
Intergovernmental Panel ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Equal Footing ◽  
International Environmental Governance

The recent implementation of the IPBES is a major cornerstone in the transformation of the international environmental governance in the early 21st century. Often presented as “the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) for biodiversity,” the IPBES aims to produce regular expert assessments of the state and evolution of biodiversity and ecosystems at the local, regional, and global levels. Its creation was promoted in the 1990s by biodiversity scientists and NGOs who increasingly came to view the failure of achieving effective conservation of nature as the consequence of the gap between science and policy, rather than of a lack of knowledge. The new institution embodies an approach to nature and nature conservation that results from the progressive evolution of international environmental governance, marked by the notion of ecosystem services (i.e., the idea that nature provides benefits to people and that nature conservation and human development should be thought of as mutually constitutive). The IPBES creation was entrusted to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Social environmental studies accounted for the genesis and organization of the IPBES and paid special attention to the strong emphasis put by IPBES participants on principles of openness and inclusivity and on the need to consider scientific knowledge and other forms of knowledge (e.g. traditional ecological knowledge) on an equal footing. Overall the IPBES can be considered an innovative platform characterized by organizations and practices that foster inclusiveness and openness both to academic science and indigenous knowledge as well as to diverse values and visions of nature and its relationship to society. However, the extent to which it succeeded in putting different biodiversity values and knowledge on an equal footing in practice has varied and remains diversely appreciated by the literature.

Differences in the Way to Conceive Happiness Relate to Different Reactions to Negative Events

2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giulia Fuochi ◽  
Chiara A. Veneziani ◽  
Alberto Voci
Keyword(s):  
Positive Emotions ◽  
Satisfaction With Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Protective Role ◽  
Stressful Events ◽  
Interactive Effects ◽  
Negative Events ◽  
Orientations To Happiness ◽  
Specific Reactions ◽  
The Way

Abstract. This paper aimed to assess whether differences in the way to conceive happiness, measured by the Orientations to Happiness measure, were associated with specific reactions to negative events. We hypothesized that among orientations to pleasure (portraying hedonism), to meaning (representing a eudaimonic approach to life), and to engagement (derived from the experience of flow), orientation to meaning would have displayed a stronger protective role against recent negative and potentially stressful events. After providing a validation of the Italian version of the Orientations to Happiness measure (Study 1), we performed regression analyses of the three orientations on positive and negative emotions linked to a self-relevant negative event (Study 2), and moderation analyses assessing the interactive effects of orientations to happiness and stressful events on well-being indicators (Study 3). Our findings supported the hypotheses. In Study 2, meaning was associated with positive emotions characterized by a lower activation (contentment and interest) compared to the positive emotions associated with pleasure (amusement, eagerness, and happiness). In Study 3, only meaning buffered the effect of recent potentially stressful events on satisfaction with life and positive affect. Results suggest that orientation to meaning might help individuals to better react to negative events.

Strategic threats to energy security as risks of quality of people's life

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 730-744
Author(s):  
V.I. Loktionov
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Energy Security ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Scientific Methods ◽  
Analysis And Synthesis ◽  
General Scientific ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Economic Well Being ◽  
The Way

Subject. The article reviews the way strategic threats to energy security influence the quality of people's life. Objectives. The study unfolds the theory of analyzing strategic threats to energy security by covering the matter of quality of people's life. Methods. To analyze the way strategic threats to energy security spread across cross-sectoral commodity and production chains and influences quality of people's living, I applied the factor analysis and general scientific methods of analysis and synthesis. Results. I suggest interpreting strategic threats to energy security as risks of people's quality of life due to a reduction in the volume of energy supply. I identified mechanisms reflecting how the fuel and energy complex and its development influence the quality of people's life. The article sets out the method to assess such quality-of-life risks arising from strategic threats to energy security. Conclusions and Relevance. In the current geopolitical situation, strategic threats to energy security cause long-standing adverse consequences for the quality of people's life. If strategic threats to energy security are further construed as risk of quality of people's life, this will facilitate the preparation and performance of a more effective governmental policy on energy, which will subsequently raise the economic well-being of people.

Positive Psychology Applications

2009 ◽  
pp. 34-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Alex Linley ◽  
Stephen Joseph ◽  
John Maltby ◽  
Susan Harrington ◽  
Alex M. Wood
Keyword(s):  
Positive Psychology ◽  
Organizational Behavior ◽  
Employee Engagement ◽  
Medical Model ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Humanistic Psychology ◽  
Human Needs ◽  
Organizational Scholarship ◽  
Client Centered Therapy ◽  
Good Lives

Applied positive psychology is concerned with facilitating good lives and enabling people to be at their best. It is as much an approach as a particular domain of inquiry. As shown throughout this chapter, positive psychology has applications that span almost every area of applied psychology and beyond. In clinical psychology, counseling and psychotherapy, applied positive psychology builds on the traditions of humanistic psychology and Carl Rogers' client-centered therapy. It challenges the dominant assumptions of the medical model and promotes a dimensional, rather than dichotomous, understanding of mental health and mental illness. Beyond the alleviation of psychopathology, applied positive psychology has also seen the development of specific happiness-increase interventions, including counting one's blessings, using signature strengths, and paying a gratitude visit. In education, applied positive psychology has been used to promote flow in the classroom, as well as harnessing children's strengths to aid their learning and development. Forensic applications of positive psychology are represented by the good lives model of offender management, which focuses on the adaptive satisfaction of human needs. In Industrial Organizational (I/O) psychology, positive psychology applications are represented throughout work on transformational leadership, employee engagement, positive organizational scholarship, positive organizational behavior, appreciative inquiry, and strengths-based organization. In society, more broadly, applied positive psychology is shown to influence the development of life coaching and the practice of executive coaching, while population approaches are being explored in relation to epidemiology and the promotion of social well-being. Having reviewed these diverse areas, the chapter then goes on to consider the theoretical basis for applied positive psychology; the questions of who should apply positive psychology, as well as where and how; and whether positive psychology applications could be universally relevant. The chapter concludes by considering what the future of applied positive psychology may hold and suggesting that the discipline has the potential to impact positively on people throughout the world.

scholarly journals The Relational Fit in Organizational Interventions—What Can Organizational Research Learn from Research in Psychotherapy?

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (15) ◽  
pp. 8104
Author(s):  
Malene Friis Andersen ◽  
Karina Nielsen ◽  
Jeppe Zielinski Nguyen Ajslev
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Positive Outcomes ◽  
Organizational Research ◽  
Organizational Interventions ◽  
Therapist Factors ◽  
Positive Results ◽  
The Way

There is a growing interest in organizational interventions (OI) aiming to increase employees’ well-being. An OI involves changes in the way work is designed, organized, and managed. Studies have shown that an OI’s positive results are increased if there is a good fit between context and intervention and between participant and intervention. In this article, we propose that a third fit—the Relational Fit (R-Fit)—also plays an important role in determining an intervention’s outcome. The R-Fit consists of factors related to 1) the employees participating in the OI, 2) the intervention facilitator, and 3) the quality of the relation between participants and the intervention facilitator. The concept of the R-Fit is inspired by research in psychotherapy documenting that participant factors, therapist factors, and the quality of the relations explain 40% of the effect of an intervention. We call attention to the importance of systematically evaluating and improving the R-Fit in OIs. This is important to enhance the positive outcomes in OIs and thereby increase both the well-being and productivity of employees. We introduce concrete measures that can be used to study and evaluate the R-Fit. This article is the first to combine knowledge from research in psychotherapy with research on OIs.

scholarly journals Nature Conservation and Human Well-Being in Bhutan

2009 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chhewang Rinzin ◽  
Walter J. V. Vermeulen ◽  
Martin J. Wassen ◽  
Pieter Glasbergen
Keyword(s):  
Nature Conservation ◽  
Well Being

scholarly journals Perceived Sensory Dimensions of Green Areas: An Experimental Study on Stress Recovery

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 5419
Author(s):  
Sanaz Memari ◽  
Mahdieh Pazhouhanfar ◽  
Patrik Grahn
Keyword(s):  
Social Sustainability ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Natural Environments ◽  
Film Clip ◽  
Cultural Ecosystem Services ◽  
Human Needs ◽  
Green Areas ◽  
Post Test ◽  
Health Promoting ◽  
Health And Well Being

Natural environments have been shown to promote health, and are, therefore, important for achieving social sustainability in cities. As cities grow and become denser, it is important to develop knowledge about the characteristics of natural environments that work to promote health. Perceived Sensory Dimensions (PSDs) is a tool that defines eight different cultural ecosystem services. They correspond to different human needs (rest, exercise, socialising, pleasure, or security) resulting in rehabilitation and health and well-being promotion. An experiment was conducted to study the potential of PSDs to restore people who experienced stressful accidents. One hundred and fifty-seven participants were recruited and asked first to watch a film clip of serious accidents, then to look at the pictures, depicting one particular type of PSDs, while listening to its respective audio recording. Their stress levels were measured before exposure to the stressor (baseline), after exposure to the stressor (pre-test), and after exposure to a particular type of PSDs (post-test). The results show that all eight PSDs effectively provide mental recovery, but there are statistical differences in their potentials. As such, it is proposed that the combined potential of the PSDs is needed, and should be used to increase the capacity and supply of health-promoting urban green areas.

scholarly journals Framing policy designs through contradictory emotions: The case of Czech single mothers

2017 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 409-427 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna P Durnová ◽  
Eva M Hejzlarová
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Capacity Building ◽  
Single Mothers ◽  
Policy Design ◽  
Public Policies ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Technical Solution ◽  
Policy Goal ◽  
The Cost ◽  
The Way

In public policy scholarship on policy design, emotions are still treated as opposed to goals, and their presence is assumed to signal that things have gone wrong. We argue, however, that understanding how and for whom emotions matter is vital to the dynamics of policy designs because emotions are central to the capacity building of policy intermediaries and, with that, to the success of public policies. We examine the case of Czech single mothers in their role as intermediaries in ‘alimony policy’. Our interpretive survey provided single mothers an opportunity to express the way they experience the policy emotionally. The analysis reveals that the policy goal of the child’s well-being is produced at the cost of the mother’s emotional tensions and that policy designs defuse these emotional tensions, implicitly. These contradictory emotions expressed by mothers show us a gateway to problematising policy designs in a novel way, which reconsiders construing policy design as a technical, solution-oriented enterprise to one in which emotional tensions intervene in policy design and are essential for succeeding.

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