scholarly journals A Review of Small Farmer Land Use and Deforestation in Tropical Forest Frontiers: Implications for Conservation and Sustainable Livelihoods

Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 1113
Author(s):  
David López-Carr
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Ecological Factors ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Forest Conversion ◽  
Ecological Change ◽  
Infrastructure Development ◽  
Local Livelihoods ◽  
Political Economic

Forest conversion for agriculture is the most expansive signature of human occupation on the Earth’s surface. This paper develops a conceptual model of factors underlying frontier agricultural expansion—the predominant driver of deforestation worldwide—from the perspective of small farm households—the majority of farmers globally. The framework consists of four causal rubrics: demographic, socioeconomic, political–economic, and ecological. Following this approach, the article explores the current state of knowledge on tropical deforestation in tropical agricultural frontiers with a focus on Latin America, the region of greatest deforestation worldwide during recent decades. Neo-Malthusian arguments notwithstanding, in many tropical nations, deforestation has proceeded unabated in recent years despite declining rural populations. However, evidence from the global-to-household scale suggests that population size and composition are also related to farm forest conversion. Existing particularist or behaviorialist theories sometimes fail to capture key geographical and temporal dimensions, yet studies support the notion that certain cultural, individual, and household characteristics are crucial determinants of forest clearing. Conversely, while institutional arguments sometimes fail to emphasize that the ultimate land use change agents are local resource users, their livelihood decisions are shaped and constrained by policies governing economic subsidies, and market and infrastructure development. Further, although ecological change is usually modeled as an outcome in the deforestation literature, increasingly acute climate change and natural farm endowments form a dynamic tabula rasa on which household land use decisions are enabled. To more fully comprehend frontier forest conversion and to enhance protection and conservation while promoting vital local livelihoods, future research may fruitfully investigate the interaction of demographic, social, political, economic, and ecological factors across spatial scales and academic disciplines.

External Factors and the Pricing of Audit Services: A Systematic Review of the Archival Literature using a PESTLE Analysis

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brigitte Eierle ◽  
Sven Hartlieb ◽  
David C Hay ◽  
Lasse Niemi ◽  
Hannu Ojala
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Ecological Factors ◽  
External Factors ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Archival Studies ◽  
Audit Pricing ◽  
Regulatory Changes ◽  
Novel Structure ◽  
Audit Fee ◽  
Political Economic

Client- and auditor-related attributes are well-documented determinants of audit pricing but the number of empirical archival studies investigating the effects of external factors on audit pricing has grown rapidly in recent years. We extend the traditional framework used to classify audit fee research by adding a novel structure that focuses on political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental/ecological factors (a PESTLE analysis). We provide a systematic review of the literature on external factors and audit pricing, and we suggest opportunities for future research. Our review reveals that audit researchers focus on legal factors in terms of regulatory changes, and we find increased attention to political, economic, and social factors. However, despite increased public scrutiny, technological and environmental/ecological factors remain under-researched. Overall, our review demonstrates the importance of considering external factors to gain a more complete understanding of the audit pricing framework, especially in terms of global and regional variations.

scholarly journals A Review of the Integrated Effects of Changing Climate, Land Use, and Dams on Mekong River Hydrology

Water ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yadu Pokhrel ◽  
Mateo Burbano ◽  
Jacob Roush ◽  
Hyunwoo Kang ◽  
Venkataramana Sridhar ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Flood Pulse ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Mekong River ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Infrastructure Development ◽  
Tonle Sap ◽  
River Hydrology

The ongoing and proposed construction of large-scale hydropower dams in the Mekong river basin is a subject of intense debate and growing international concern due to the unprecedented and potentially irreversible impacts these dams are likely to have on the hydrological, agricultural, and ecological systems across the basin. Studies have shown that some of the dams built in the tributaries and the main stem of the upper Mekong have already caused basin-wide impacts by altering the magnitude and seasonality of flows, blocking sediment transport, affecting fisheries and livelihoods of downstream inhabitants, and changing the flood pulse to the Tonle Sap Lake. There are hundreds of additional dams planned for the near future that would result in further changes, potentially causing permanent damage to the highly productive agricultural systems and fisheries, as well as the riverine and floodplain ecosystems. Several studies have examined the potential impacts of existing and planned dams but the integrated effects of the dams when combined with the adverse hydrologic consequences of climate change remain largely unknown. Here, we provide a detailed review of the existing literature on the changes in climate, land use, and dam construction and the resulting impacts on hydrological, agricultural, and ecological systems across the Mekong. The review provides a basis to better understand the effects of climate change and accelerating human water management activities on the coupled hydrological-agricultural-ecological systems, and identifies existing challenges to study the region’s Water, Energy, and Food (WEF) nexus with emphasis on the influence of future dams and projected climate change. In the last section, we synthesize the results and highlight the urgent need to develop integrated models to holistically study the coupled natural-human systems across the basin that account for the impacts of climate change and water infrastructure development. This review provides a framework for future research in the Mekong, including studies that integrate hydrological, agricultural, and ecological modeling systems.

MODELING THE LAND-USE AND GREENHOUSE-GAS IMPLICATIONS OF BIOFUELS

2012 ◽  
Vol 03 (03) ◽  
pp. 1250016 ◽  
Author(s):  
MADHU KHANNA ◽  
DAVID ZILBERMAN
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Greenhouse Gas Emissions ◽  
Greenhouse Gas ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Agricultural Commodity ◽  
Gas Emissions ◽  
Economic Determinants ◽  
Fuel Prices ◽  
Multiple Spatial Scales

The emergence of biofuels as an agricultural commodity has integrated the agricultural, energy and livestock sectors and expanded the scope of models being used to analyze the effects of energy policies. It has increased the importance of incorporating spatial heterogeneity in land availability and productivity and information about the biophysical and economic determinants of land use change at multiple spatial scales. Since biofuels affect food and fuel prices, they have expanded the boundaries of economic models to consider not only their direct but also their indirect effects on land use and greenhouse gas emissions. This paper describes the demand-side and supply-side determinants of these direct and indirect changes in land use and greenhouse gas emissions with biofuels. We discuss the major modeling approaches used to analyze these effects, their strengths, limitations and key findings and directions for future research.

scholarly journals Integrating Insights from Social-Ecological Interactions into Sustainable Land Use Change Scenarios for Small Islands in the Western Indian Ocean

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 1340 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Jo Stormes Newman ◽  
Claudia Capitani ◽  
Colin Courtney-Mustaphi ◽  
Jessica Paula Rose Thorn ◽  
Rebecca Kariuki ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Synergistic Effects ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Western Indian Ocean ◽  
Sustainable Land Use ◽  
Small Islands ◽  
Local Livelihoods

Small islands are vulnerable to the synergistic effects of climate change and anthropogenic disturbances due to the fact of their small area, geographical isolation, responsive ecologies, rapidly growing and developing populations and exposure to sea level and climate change. These changes exert pressures on ecosystem services, such as the provisioning of resources, and therefore threaten the sustainability of livelihoods. We reviewed key sustainability and livelihoods literature to bring together concepts of environmental livelihood resilience and stability across temporal and spatial scales and integrated them to produce a new conceptual framework for dynamic environmental livelihood sustainability (DESL). This framework aims to facilitate the incorporation of local community perspectives into water, energy and food nexus thinking about sustainable land use to support local livelihoods. Finally, we provide insights from this case study to evaluate the effectiveness of the DESL framework in addressing gaps in existing frameworks. We suggest this framing provides a mechanism for enhancing the agency of communities to produce more cohesive and inclusive land use management plans that can lead to enhanced environmental sustainability pathways.

Facing Limits

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin Stewart Mauldin
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Feedback Loop ◽  
Ecological Factors ◽  
Ecological Change ◽  
Cotton Production ◽  
The South ◽  
Subsistence Economy ◽  
Diminishing Returns ◽  
Cotton Farmers

Changes in land use combined with ecological factors meant that many farmers’ land required too many inputs to remain profitable. Farmers had to plant cotton to pay for the fertilizer, seed, and provisions they needed to plant cotton. Had the subsistence economy existed as it had before the war, southern farmers might have used common spaces to raise provisions or livestock. Instead, sharecropping and tenancy created an ecological feedback loop that kept cotton farmers chained to that crop despite diminishing returns. By the 1880s, the South was producing more cotton than ever before, but the rates of debt and tenancy had escalated, spurring a wave of migration out of rural spaces and in to cities. Ultimately, by intensifying cotton production, farmers not only increased their integration with the market but also unwittingly accelerated a cycle of ecological change initiated by the war.

African Sustainability Advocacy Against Extractivism

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Bond
Keyword(s):  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Fossil Fuels ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Social Activism ◽  
Ecological Factors ◽  
Energy Economics ◽  
Extractive Industries ◽  
The One ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Critical Challenge

<p class="p1"><span class="s2"><strong>Abstract </strong></span>| The challenge of interdisciplinary intellectual and strategic work in the extractive industries is particularly acute at the interface of research and social activism. Numerous social movements which are dedicated to sustainability fail to ‘connect the dots’ between their campaigns and broader political-economic and political-ecological visions<span class="s3"><strong>. </strong></span>This is becoming a critical challenge in Africa, where the extreme damage done by mining and fossil fuels has generated impressive resistance<span class="s3"><strong>.</strong></span>However, the one obvious place to link these critiques from African activists was the Alternative Mining Indaba in Cape Town in February 2015, and a survey of narratives at that event leads to pessimism about interdisciplinary politics. The potential for much greater impact and deeper critiques of unsustainable extractivism lies in greater attention to combining social reproduction and production (as do eco-feminists), and to tackling social, economic, political and ecological factors with a more explicit structuralist critique and practical toolkit<span class="s3"><strong>. </strong></span>Areas such as energy, economics and climate are ripe for linkages<span class="s3"><strong>. </strong></span>One reason for optimism is a climate justice declaration made by leading civil society activists in Maputo in April 2015.<strong></strong></p>

Global Sport

2018 ◽  
pp. 596-612
Author(s):  
Richard Giulianotti
Keyword(s):  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Olympic Games ◽  
Future Research ◽  
World Cup ◽  
Economic Issues ◽  
Mega Events ◽  
Sport For Development ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Sociocultural Issues ◽  
The Olympic Games

World sport often appears as one of the most powerful illustrations of globalization in action. This chapter provides a critical analysis of global sport. Four major areas of research and debate on global sport are examined: political–economic issues, centering particularly on the commercial growth of sport and inequalities between different regions; global sport mega-events such as the Olympic Games or World Cup finals in football; the emergence and institutionalization of the global sport for development and peace; and sociocultural issues, notably the importance of global sport to diverse and shifting forms of identity and belonging. Concluding recommendations are provided on areas for future research into global sport.

The Changing Nature of Knowledge and Service Work in the Age of Intelligent Machines

2020 ◽  
pp. 343-368
Author(s):  
Crispin Coombs ◽  
Donald Hislop ◽  
Stanimira Taneva ◽  
Sarah Barnard
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Service Work ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Human Capabilities ◽  
Academic Knowledge ◽  
Intelligent Machines ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
The Impact

One of the most significant recent technological developments concerns the application of intelligent machines to jobs that up to now have been considered safe from automation. These changes have generated considerable debate regarding the impacts that the widespread adoption of intelligent machines could have on the nature of work. This chapter provides a thematic review, across multiple academic disciplines, of the current state of academic knowledge regarding the impact of intelligent machines on knowledge and service work. Adopting a work-practice perspective, the chapter reviews the extant literature concerning changing relations between workers and intelligent machines, the adoption and acceptance of intelligent machines, and ethical issues associated with greater machine human collaboration. A key finding is that much of the research discusses intelligent machines complementing and extending human capabilities rather than removing humans from work processes. The concept of augmentation of humans and human work, rather than wholesale replacement from automation, flows through the literature across a range of domains. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the main gaps in existing knowledge and ways in which future research may provide a deeper understanding of how people (currently and in the near future) experience intelligent machines in their day-to-day work practice. These include the need for multi-disciplinary research, the role of contexts, the need for more and better empirical research, the changing relationships between humans and intelligent machines, the adoption and acceptance of the technology, and ethical issues.

scholarly journals Soil Degradation and Socioeconomic Systems’ Complexity: Uncovering the Latent Nexus

Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 30
Author(s):  
Filippo Gambella ◽  
Giovanni Quaranta ◽  
Nathan Morrow ◽  
Renata Vcelakova ◽  
Luca Salvati ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resource ◽  
Soil Degradation ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Ecological Factors ◽  
Resource Depletion ◽  
Local System ◽  
Local Systems ◽  
Complex Processes ◽  
Socioeconomic Dimension ◽  
External Signals

Understanding Soil Degradation Processes (SDPs) is a fundamental issue for humankind. Soil degradation involves complex processes that are influenced by a multifaceted ensemble of socioeconomic and ecological factors at vastly different spatial scales. Desertification risk (the ultimate outcome of soil degradation, seen as an irreversible process of natural resource destruction) and socioeconomic trends have been recently analyzed assuming “resilience thinking” as an appropriate interpretative paradigm. In a purely socioeconomic dimension, resilience is defined as the ability of a local system to react to external signals and to promote future development. This ability is intrinsically bonded with the socio-ecological dynamics characteristic of environmentally homogeneous districts. However, an evaluation of the relationship between SDPs and socioeconomic resilience in local systems is missing in mainstream literature. Our commentary formulates an exploratory framework for the assessment of soil degradation, intended as a dynamic process of natural resource depletion, and the level of socioeconomic resilience in local systems. Such a framework is intended to provide a suitable background to sustainability science and regional policies at the base of truly resilient local systems.

scholarly journals The Congregational Character Questionnaire: An Initial Empirical Examination of the Significance of Collective Church Character Traits

2021 ◽  
pp. 009164712110219
Author(s):  
T. Ryan Byerly ◽  
Keith J. Edwards ◽  
Peter C. Hill
Keyword(s):  
Meaning In Life ◽  
Satisfaction With Life ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Character Traits ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Religious Congregations ◽  
Empirical Examination ◽  
Christian Churches

Researchers in several academic disciplines have begun to take an interest in group character traits, including the character traits of religious congregations. This article reports the first empirical studies of congregational virtues. The Congregational Character Questionnaire was developed for measuring 12 different virtues of Christian churches: clinging to apostolic teaching, honoring teachers, prayerfulness, hopefulness, discipleship, emotional supportiveness, material supportiveness, spiritual equality, unity, submission, peace with the world, and spreading the faith. The instrument was then used with an online sample ( N = 530) to study how congregants’ perceptions of their congregation’s virtuousness related to congregants’ evaluations of their congregation, participation in their congregation, as well as congregants’ satisfaction with life, presence of meaning in life, and religious well-being. Results indicated that congregants’ overall perceptions of congregational virtuousness were significantly positively related to all of these dependent variables. These results help to reveal the important role that congregational character may play in the experience of congregants. Directions for future research in this area are outlined.

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