Divining the Future: Making Sense of Ecological Uncertainty in Turkana, Northern Kenya

This article draws on long-term ethnographic fieldwork to examine some recent livelihood transformations that have taken place in the Turkana region of northern Kenya. In doing so, it discusses some of the ways in which uncertainty and variability have been managed in Turkana to date and considers what this means in relation to a future that promises continued radical economic and ecological change. Discussing a selection of examples, we argue that understandings of contemporary transformative processes are enhanced through attention to the ways in which various forms of knowledge have been constituted and implemented over the long term. We suggest that ongoing transformations within livelihood practices, inter-livelihood relationships and corresponding patterns of mobility might best be understood as manifestations of a long-standing capacity for successfully managing the very uncertainty that characterises daily life.

Coping with Risk. A Deep-Time Perspective on Societal Responses to Ecological Uncertainty in the River Dalälven Catchment Area and Sweden

In addressing the current climate crisis, research into how past societies have coped with risk and ecological uncertainty can provide old solutions to new problems. Here, we examine how human niche construction can be seen as risk management in the face of uncertainty by exploring the spatial patterning of land-use activities over time. Dalarna county, an agriculturally marginal boreal forest environment, provides the opportunity for addressing change in terms of agricultural responses and other activities. C14 archaeological records complied by Dalarna Museum were the base of this analysis. The spatial and temporal components of these Boreal Forest records were analyzed in the open-source software QGIS, guided by a historical ecology framework. Human niches diversified and intensified during specific periods in the Boreal forest environment; our focus has been on how humans managed resource risk related to the ecological uncertainty within this forest environment characterized by long winters and short growing seasons. We conclude that constructed niches shaped the Boreal Forest, spanning its environmentally unique upland and lowland regions, into a more predictable environment. Tracking the diversity, multi-functionality, and intensity of these past land-use activities can provide insights for best practices in land management, not only for the Boreal Forest area, but also for elsewhere. These insights will assist in policy-making decisions, as the methodology is adaptable and replicable for various landscapes.

Formation of requirements for the information system of environmental monitoring

The study considers the problem of decision-making in the actvites of agricultural enterprises in conditons of environmental uncertainty. The problem is formalized as a multcriteria conditonal optmizaton problem. The novelty of the work is that the factors are considered as dynamic fuzzy quanttes. The choice of the best alternatve is made between the elements of a predetermined fnite set of alternatves. Based on this formalizaton of the decision-making task, six requirements to the informaton system of decision support in the conditons of ecological uncertainty are formulated.

Introducing ecological uncertainty in risk sensitivity indices: the case of wind farm impact on birds

In wind-farm impact assessments, it is useful to know the level of uncertainty that characterizes some key variables used to assess the sensitivity to risk in species of conservation concern. Here, we have introduced the use of the Shannon entropy as a value of ecological uncertainty of the prediction of the risk assessment index, obtained from two ecological traits (flight altitude and flight type). We based our evaluation of risk sensitivity on sampling of three common raptor birds (Gyps fulvus, Falco tinnunculus, Buteo buteo) all co-occurring in a wind farm landscape (central Italy). As to flight altitude, Gyps fulvus prefers the flight altitude category > 300 m, Falco tinnunculus categories closer to the ground, Buteo does not show clear preference for a particular flight altitude category. As regards the flight type, Gyps fulvus showed significant preference for circular and thermal flight patterns, Falco tinnunculus for rapid horizontal/vertical flight patterns, while Buteo was found to prefer constant directions and circular and thermal flight patterns. Multiplication of the scores associated with these eco-behavioural traits by the number of recorded occurrences allowed estimation of risk sensitivity used to compute the risk assessment index. We normalized the partial scores of the risk associated with these traits with H' values, thus obtaining more reliable species-specific normalized risk indices. The greater the entropy, the greater the level of uncertainty associated with it, and the lower the reliability of the risk index. Therefore, the entropy associated with flight behaviour diversity (altitude or type) could be a proxy for assessing uncertainty in wind power impact assessment. We think that normalizing indices of risk by including a measure of uncertainty can support decision makers in bird conservation and wind farm management.

Threshold-Dependent Gene Drives in the Wild: Spread, Controllability, and Ecological Uncertainty

Gene drive technology could allow the intentional spread of a desired gene throughout an entire wild population in relatively few generations. However, there are major concerns that gene drives could either fail to spread or spread without restraint beyond the targeted population. One potential solution is to use more localized threshold-dependent drives, which only spread when they are released in a population above a critical frequency. However, under certain conditions, small changes in gene drive fitness could lead to divergent outcomes in spreading behavior. In the face of ecological uncertainty, the inability to estimate gene drive fitness in a real-world context could prove problematic because gene drives designed to be localized could spread to fixation in neighboring populations if ecological conditions unexpectedly favor the gene drive. This perspective offers guidance to developers and managers because navigating gene drive spread and controllability could be risky without detailed knowledge of ecological contexts.

“The Advancing Signs of the Air”

This chapter begins with a discussion of the new forms of environmental consciousness emerging in the 1960s and early 1970s around pollution and systemic toxicity. It focuses specifically on Rachel Carson and Barry Commoner, discussing their approaches to ecological interconnection under the sign of crisis but also the ways in which this interconnection is difficult to perceive or understand. The chapter then turns from their reflections on the scarcely perceptible intimacies of ecological interconnection to an examination of John Ashbery’s poetry, which explores these thresholds. Exploring Ashbery’s portrayals of waste and air as phenomena undergoing change, this chapter argues that Ashbery’s work depicts various forms of environmental consciousness. His poetry unfolds an affirmative embrace of ecological uncertainty that involves neither critique nor attempt to repair damage, nor even an attempt to understand the causes of emergent crisis. Instead, he traces the way crisis can be sensed in his poetic surrounds.