Social capital as a determinant for raising ecosystem services awareness - an application to an Albanian pastoral ecosystem

This paper aims to map the ecosystem services (ES) provided by a reputed agropastoral ecosystem in the south of Albania and ascertain whether social capital affects the level of importance attributed to them. A perception analysis of both buyers and sellers of ES within the pastoral ecosystem is undertaken. The pastoral ecosystem is mainly evaluated for cultural services such as tradition, enhancing the area’s image, and environment ES. The strong inclination towards cultural ES and socioeconomic services indicates a lack of awareness of both buyers and sellers of ES in the local community regarding the environmental aspects of their ecosystem. However, participants showing a higher radius of trust with high linking social capital are more likely to confer very high importance to environmental services. Similarly, the cultural ES (traditional aspect) of the pastoral ecosystem is affected by cognitive and structural social capital. These are interesting findings for public policymaking concerning the opportunity to develop market transaction ES. Its development is more ground-based and effective if participation and civic engagement, especially the Linking dimension, is enhanced in the pastoral community.

Exploring crisis governance: Quest for functional resilience during COVID-19 in Lithuania

An effective, timely managed and interoperable governance process and its adaptive features are of the utmost importance in dealing with any type of crisis at the state level. This article explores civil society actors’ engagement in Lithuania to identify the functional resilience level in crisis governance of COVID-19. Social capital and adaptive capacity approaches were employed for theoretical consideration and analysis. We hypothesise that linking social capital is more important for enhancing resilience at the beginning of the crisis, while adaptive capacity gains prominence during and after the crisis. Mixed analysis methods were used in gathering data through content analysis, surveys (standardised questionnaires) and interviews with experts from civic (voluntary and non-governmental) and public (local and central government) sectors. The findings provide novel insights into the importance of civil society actors’ engagement in bolstering functional resilience and embedment of a whole of society approach in crisis governance during times of uncertainty.

Sowing the seeds of resilience: Community perspectives

<p>The term sustainability is one that has been critiqued as a buzzword which, although popular, holds very little meaning. The same is now being claimed with regard to the term resilience. This research seeks to understand community members’ interpretations of the terms resilience and community resilience in response to the Wellington City Council's adoption of a resilience focused outlook. These plans assert that building the city’s resilience is a collaborative responsibility, inclusive of both the community and Council. With a wealth of meanings connected to the term resilience, it is important to understand the communities’ understandings and expectations of the resilience building process. Joseph (2013) has critiqued the resilience literature, highlighting that it may be used as a way for governing institutions to reduce their responsibilities and instead put the responsibility of community resilience onto community members. As a second research focus, this study explores participants expectations of both their and the Council’s roles in this process. Using a case study of Wellington City community gardens, this research looks at how the current community led initiatives influence community resilience. Corroborating lessons learnt from pre-existing literature, participants drew from a range of meanings to define the word resilience. Understandings of the term community resilience were much more cohesive. Participants highlighted an appetite for driving the process of community resilience while designating a role characterised by support for the Wellington City Council. The case study of Wellington City community gardens exposed that the initiatives contribute to community resilience through the enhancement of bridging and linking social capital as well as through providing access to human resources, such as skills, knowledge and networks. Although community gardens also provided some physical resources i.e. produce, land, buildings, tools, etc., this area still requires further development.</p>

Sowing the seeds of resilience: Community perspectives

<p>The term sustainability is one that has been critiqued as a buzzword which, although popular, holds very little meaning. The same is now being claimed with regard to the term resilience. This research seeks to understand community members’ interpretations of the terms resilience and community resilience in response to the Wellington City Council's adoption of a resilience focused outlook. These plans assert that building the city’s resilience is a collaborative responsibility, inclusive of both the community and Council. With a wealth of meanings connected to the term resilience, it is important to understand the communities’ understandings and expectations of the resilience building process. Joseph (2013) has critiqued the resilience literature, highlighting that it may be used as a way for governing institutions to reduce their responsibilities and instead put the responsibility of community resilience onto community members. As a second research focus, this study explores participants expectations of both their and the Council’s roles in this process. Using a case study of Wellington City community gardens, this research looks at how the current community led initiatives influence community resilience. Corroborating lessons learnt from pre-existing literature, participants drew from a range of meanings to define the word resilience. Understandings of the term community resilience were much more cohesive. Participants highlighted an appetite for driving the process of community resilience while designating a role characterised by support for the Wellington City Council. The case study of Wellington City community gardens exposed that the initiatives contribute to community resilience through the enhancement of bridging and linking social capital as well as through providing access to human resources, such as skills, knowledge and networks. Although community gardens also provided some physical resources i.e. produce, land, buildings, tools, etc., this area still requires further development.</p>

The Initiated of Formation of Linking Social Capital of Community in Creative Tourism Village Dago Pojok, Bandung, West Java Province, Indonesia

Poverty in rural areas is now reaching an alarming condition, according to the Central Statistics Agency at this time the poor in rural areas dominate the percentage of poverty in Indonesia by 60%. Efforts to improve the welfare of rural communities will not be separated from how people use and maximize their potential, especially in networking relevant to the issue of social capital. Based on the concept of social capital, there is currently a type of social capital linking, which means emphasizing how the community is able to build relationships with parties who have authority, especially in making policy. This is considered to be important to support the development of welfare for the community, especially in the Dago Creative Tourism Village. Based on this, the purpose of this study is how the community initiated the development of social capital linking in the community in Dago Creative Tourism Village. Therefore, based on these objectives, this study uses a qualitative approach with a descriptive type. The data collection is done by observation, study of documentation of relevant documents and interviews. In addition interviews were conducted on 15 informants obtained using purposive sampling technique to determine informants. The results of this study indicate that there are several ways in which people initiate government involvement in developing social capital linking, such as community legalizing organizations, people participating in activities organized by the government, and the community providing government opportunities to participate in every activity organized by the government