Intercropping Short Rotation Timber Species with Teak: Enabling Smallholder Silviculture Practices

Community forest management for timber production requires short- and long-rotation companion species to fulfill the demands of the timber industry, improve farmer welfare and maintain environmental sustainability. Four species (Falcataria moluccana, Neolamarckia cadamba, Acacia mangium and Gmelina arborea) were tested as short-rotation timber crop companion species for teak (Tectona grandis) on dry-rocky soil in the Gunungkidul community forest. The selection of short-rotation timber species was based on growth performance and survival rate at the teak site. Two years after planting, the viability of G. arborea (87.3%) and A. mangium (78.2%) was significantly (p < 0.05) higher than that of N. cadamba (40.6%) and F. moluccana (18.0%). G. arborea and N. cadamba achieved the best growth in terms of height, diameter, basal area, and volume, with the growth of A. mangium and F. moluccana being significantly inferior. Gmelina arborea has the ability to adapt to teak sites, grow well, and accompany teak. Neolamarckia cadamba demonstrated good growth with potential as a teak companion, and it demonstrated limited drought tolerance on the dry-rocky soils of the study sites. Acacia mangium had a high survival but produced slow growth, indicating that it required an advance evaluation in future years. Falcataria moluccana has different growing site requirements to teak so the performance was relatively poor at the study site. This mixed pattern provides benefits to farmers through commercial thinning of short rotations species, 5–8 years post establishment. Thinning operations will also increase the productivity of residual teak stands. The diversification of timber species in community forests can provide earlier returns, enabling the adoption of silviculture management by smallholders and communities.

Międzygatunkowe strefy kontaktu. Relacje psów i ludzi (z „diabelską śliną w sercu”) w literackiej dystopii Josipa Mlakicia O zlatu, ljudima i psima

Przedmiotem analizy literaturoznawczej zaproponowanej w powyższym tytule jest tryptyk Josipa Mlakicia, utrzymany w konwencji futurystycznej antyutopii. Dzieło stanowi materiał badawczy podatny na zastosowanie różnorodnych, interdyscyplinarnych narzędzi metodologicznych (od ekokrytyki po animal studies). Poza symbolicznym ujęciem problematyki psów w historii kultury, punktem wyjścia dla rozważań nad postapokaliptyczną wizją świata totalitarnego, przez który przetoczyły się kolejne wojny, naruszające ekosystem, jest posthumanistyczna i postanatropocentryczna optyka obecnej i przyszłej kondycji ludzkiej, ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem szowinizmu gatunkowego. W antywojennej prozie bośniacko-hercegowińskiego pisarza gatunkowizm (speciesism), postrzegany przez pryzmat złożonych relacji ludzi i psów, przejawia się również w postaci zacierania granicy między pojęciem zwierzęcości i człowieczeństwa, w wizji świata, w której największym zagrożeniem okazuje się homo crudelis. W świecie przedstawionym Mlakicia relacje między człowiekiem a psem można zdefiniować jako przykład symbiotycznej kooperacji (companion species), „naturokultury”, realizowanej w rozmaitych „strefach kontaktu”. Pojawia się także kwestia zhierarchizowanych stosunków między ludźmi, bytów o słabej podmiotowości: ludzi wykluczonych, zmarginalizowanych i eksterminowanych wszelkich Innych, w tym niepełnosprawnych, stających się podporządkowanymi „psami”, o statusie ofiar. Oczekiwany efekt przeprowadzanego wywodu dotyczyć będzie ukazania funkcji literatury jako źródła refleksji i medium ekspresji (wynalazku, przypisanego człowiekowi), w odniesieniu do koncepcji zmierzchu antropocentryzmu.

Estranged companions: Bed bugs, biologies, and affective histories

In recent decades, bed bugs have swept across wealthy industrialized nations. After near extirpation in North America and Northern Europe, the return of these insects has led to a significant level of public anxiety and cultural notoriety. Here, we undertake an analysis of human-bed bug relations in order to both better understand this contemporary resurgence and critically examine the concept of “companion species.” We argue for conceiving of bed bugs as “estranged companions,” and foreground the need to understand contemporary encounters between humans and the insects through distinct histories that have been shaped by the opening and closing of spaces between classed and racialized bodies and that have been dependent upon the development and deployment of particular technologies such as Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT). Further, we argue that “estrangement” has wider conceptual purchase and contributes to a body of research that has countered a strain of scientism in theory that decenters “the human” by interrogating the relations between companion species, (bio)political interventions, and colonial histories. Estrangement contributes to this task by, first, foregrounding that relationships with all companion species are imbricated in situated histories and biopolitical regimes and, second, drawing attention to the differential ethico-political implications of these regimes.

Marcello the Dog and More-Than-Human Family in Elina Brotherus's Self-Portraits from the Series Carpe Fucking Diem

This article examines the possibilities of visual culture to open new perspectives on interspecies relations by analyzing self-portraits from visual artist Elina Brotherus’s photography series Carpe Fucking Diem (2011–2015). Brotherus has suggested that this series talks “about a failure to have a family with kids and give normality the finger”. The self-portraits can be seen to address this “failure” to have a normative nuclear family, while simultaneously questioning the desirability of the norm itself through Brotherus’s relationship with her pet dog, dachshund Marcello. The article explores the more-than-human notions of kinship and family in Carpe Fucking Diem, drawing on Donna Haraway’s concept of companion species, as well as discussions on new materialism and posthumanism. The concept of companion species deconstructs human exceptionalism and the boundaries between human and animal, and indicates that the physical and affective co-becomings between humans and the non-human significant others co-evolve with each other in complex and asymmetrical ways. In affective and embodied readings of three self-portraits and one video work from the Carpe Fucking Diem series, I examine how Elina Brotherus’s self-portraits call into question the normative notions of family as human-centered and heteronormative.

Dog-Man Isomorphism: Gaze Companion Species with Empathy in Disgrace

Based on the self-built corpus, Disgrace is compared with Coetzee’s other 11 novels with AntConc to generate keyword list and the data reveals that "dogs", as an important keyword, makes a great contribution to theme construction of Disgrace and has a relationship of co-occurrence and isomorphism with man. Dogs are the objects of Lurie’ gaze, and with anti-gaze, he achieves empathy between man and dogs, clarifies the identity of dogs as companion species of human beings, showing the isomorphism between them. Lurie’s becoming dog-man, which is, in essence, a kind of deterritorialization, breaking through the species boundary between humans and animals and demonstrates the animal rights.

Population distribution, conservation status and vulnerability of Ternstroemia cameroonensis Cheek. in the Lebialem Highlands, Cameroon

The study was conducted in the Lebialem Highlands with the aim to assess the population distribution, sustainability and conservation status of Ternstroemia cameroonensis in its natural habitat. A total of 25 circular plots of 10 m diameter were established around T. cameroonensis and all species as well as threat to their sustainability evaluated. Data were collected, entered into excel and various percentages calculated while diameter at breast height of T. cameroonensis and three companion species where analysed in STATGRAPHICS XVII.II and the mean separated. The results revealed that T. cameroonensis is found in six localities, mostly between 1500 m to 2500 m above sea level. The three companion species were Aguaria saliciflora, Cyathea camerooniana and Draceana mannii. The most exploitable individuals were at Agocham (64%) while the least at Fossimondi (25%). The highest percentage of dead stems was recorded in Magha (42.85). Among the exploited stems, 33.33% showed a completely dead crown, whereas 10% regular and healthy. The main part of the species exploited w the bark (100%) and in case the stem gets dry it is exploited as fuel wood. T. cameroonensis was shown to be more vulnerable in Montane forests (2.8) than gallery forest (2.6).

Multispecies entanglements in the virosphere: Rethinking the Anthropocene in light of the 2019 coronavirus outbreak

In this essay, we reevaluate the 2019 outbreak of a novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) from the perspective of multispecies entanglements. It is argued that anthropogenic alterations in the biosphere will most likely accelerate the rate of multispecies pandemics in the Anthropocene. Using a textual analysis approach of anthropological and historical sources on the example of coronaviruses and live animal markets in China, we trace how the virosphere of wild animals from tropical regions comes into contact with the virosphere of humans and farmed animals in highly industrialized landscapes. We suggest that adopting a multispecies perspective on viruses can allow them to be understood as living processes that interact with other species in a realm called the virosphere. The rate at which novel infectious diseases are transmitted by bacteria and viruses has increased in recent decades. We argue that this is caused by side effects of the Anthropocene, such as deforestation, the surge in population growth and density, and anthropogenic climate change, which give rise to an increased number of unusual encounters between humans, nonhuman companion species, and wild animals. In this way, the virospheres of host organisms, which were formerly partly isolated, are allowed to converge and freely exchange infectious diseases, leading to a more homogenized virosphere. As anthropogenic alterations are set to continue in the future, we suggest that multispecies pandemics will likely increase in the following decades.