Managing Natural Resources through Sustainable Environmental Actions: A Cross-Sectional Study of 138 Countries

Management of natural resources is pivotal for sustained economic growth—the increasing ecological footprints causing biocapacity deficit threaten the resource conversation agenda. The study identified the potential causes and consequences of natural resource depletion in a broad cross-section of 138 countries. Ecological footprints, international migrant stocks, industrial value-added, and population growth influenced natural resource capital across countries. The results show that ecological footprints, industrial value-added, and population growth are the detrimental factors of resource capital. In contrast, continued economic growth is helpful to conserve natural resources for future generations. The rise and fall in the natural resource degradation are evident in the wake of international migrants’ stocks to support an inverted U-shaped relationship between them. The Granger causality inferences confirmed the one-way linkages, running from international migrant stocks, economic growth, and population growth to natural resource degradation. It verifies migrants-led, affluence-led, and population-led resource degradation. Ecological footprints Granger causes industrial value-added across countries. The forecasting estimates suggested that economic growth would likely to influenced greater in magnitude to resource degradation by its innovation shocks of 4.791%, followed by international migrant stocks, population growth, ecological footprints, and industrial value added by their innovation shocks of 4.709%, 1.829%, 1.247%, and 0.700%, respectively. The study concludes that international migrant stocks should manage smartly, causing more resource degradation via a channel of increasing biocapacity deficit across countries.

Farmers’ action space to adopt sustainable practices: a study of arable farming in Saxony

The urgency to address climate change, biodiversity loss, and natural resource degradation requires major changes in agricultural practices. Agricultural policy in Germany has so far failed to generate such changes; meanwhile, public demands for new regulations are met by widespread farmers’ protests. Against this background, an improved understanding of the factors influencing farmers’ uptake of sustainable agricultural practices is necessary. This study introduces the concept of action space to analyze the role of barriers to change which lie beyond farmers’ perceived immediate control. We apply this conceptual framework to the case of diversified crop rotations in Saxony (Germany) and combine semi-structured interviews and a survey to identify key barriers to change and their relative weights. We find that farmers feel rather strongly restricted in their action space to implement diversified crop rotations for sustainable agriculture. The most important barriers pertain to the market environment, which severely limits the feasibility of many crops. In addition, limited regulatory predictability as well as regulatory incoherence and limited flexibility restrict farmers in their action space. The role of resource availability within the farm businesses as well as availability and accessibility of knowledge is ambiguous between interview and survey results. The analysis of interactions indicates that multiple barriers form a self-reinforcing system in which farmers perceive to have little leeway to implement sustainable practices. These results emphasize the need to create an enabling market and regulatory environment in which sustainable practices pay off.

Sustainable Alternative Routes versus Linear Economy and Resources Degradation in Eastern Romania

This paper reveals the linear economy contribution to resource degradation and environmental pollution in eastern Romania that could further feed environmental crimes and conflicts, such as in the Pungesti shale gas case. Preservation of material and water resources in the region is required through various circular mechanisms under a cross-sectoral approach including solid waste as a material resource for industry and agriculture; wastewater treatment and water reuse; composting and organic agriculture; and using renewables. Six non-conflictual sustainable alternative routes related to circular economy mechanisms, water preservation, and to the clean energy transition are proposed in this paper, which are further examined through key statistics and indicators, current best practices, and local development pathways in both urban and rural communities.

The Future of the Planetary Trust in a Kaleidoscopic World

Today, it is evident that we are part of a planetary trust. Conserving our planet represents a public good, global as well as local. The threats to future generations resulting from human activities make applying the normative framework of a planetary trust even more urgent than in the past decades. Initially, the planetary trust focused primarily on threats to the natural system of our human environment such as pollution and natural resource degradation, and on threats to cultural heritage. Now, we face a higher threat of nuclear war, cyber wars, and threats from gene drivers that can cause inheritable changes to genes, potential threats from other new technologies such as artificial intelligence, and possible pandemics. In this context, it is proposed that in the kaleidoscopic world, we must engage all the actors to cooperate with the shared goal of caring for and maintaining planet Earth in trust for present and future generations.

The Effects of Natural Resource Degradation on Rural Women's Health: A Sociological Analysis

Natural resource degradation in developing countries is more likely to generate eventual threats of exhaustion. Major changes in weather patterns, seasonal cycles, and crop failure due to heavy rainfall have affected both men and women in rural areas of Pakistan. However, since women in rural areas of Pakistan are actively engaged in natural resource management, they are more likely to bear the brunt of the burden due to their traditional roles of washing, food preparation, water collection, and family care. Under a qualitative research design, the current research paper has focused specifically on how natural resource degradation affects the health of rural women. The research was conducted using thematic analysis, through an in-depth study of the day-to-day activities of rural women and the pressure experienced by them. To do so, sixteen in-depth interviews were conducted with rural women by using interview and observation protocol. The findings revealed that rural women were dedicated to their work despite natural resource degradation they are bound to their household responsibilities, leading to mental and physical stress, as a result, overburdening and unhealthy lifestyles.

Indicators of Land, Water, Energy and Food (LWEF) Nexus Resource Drivers: A Perspective on Environmental Degradation in the Gidabo Watershed, Southern Ethiopia

In Ethiopia, land, water, energy and food (LWEF) nexus resources are under pressure due to population growth, urbanization and unplanned consumption. The effect of this pressure has been a widely discussed topic in nexus resource literature. The evidence shows the predominantly negative impact of this; however, the impact of these factors is less explored from a local scale. As a result, securing nexus resources is becoming a serious challenge for the country. This necessitates the identification of the driving factors for the sustainable utilization of scarce LWEF nexus resources. Our study provides a systemic look at the driving factor indicators that induce nexus resource degradation. We use the Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) to develop the indicators’ weights, and use a Path Analysis Model (PAM) to quantitatively estimate the effect of the driving factor indicators on the LWEF nexus resources. The results indicate that social (48%), economic (19%), and policy and institutional changes (14%) are the major nexus resource driving factor indicators. The path analysis results indicate that among the social driving factor indicators, population growth and consumption patterns have a significant direct effect on the LWEF nexus, with path coefficients of 0.15 and 0.089, respectively. Similarly, the potential of LWEF nexus resources is also influenced by the institutional and policy change drivers, such as outdated legislation and poor institutional structure, with path coefficients of 0.46 and 0.39, respectively. This implies that population growth and consumption patterns are the leading social drivers, while outdated legislation and poor institutional structures are the institutional and policies change drivers which have a potential impact on LWEF nexus resource degradation. Similarly, other driving factors such as environmental, economic and technological factors also affect nexus resources to varying degrees. The findings of our study show the benefits of managing the identified driving factors for the protection of LWEF nexus resources, which have close links with human health and the environment. In order to alleviate the adverse effects of driving factors, all stakeholders need to show permanent individual and collective commitment. Furthermore, we underline the necessity of applying LWEF nexus approaches to the management of these drivers, and to optimize the environmental and social outcomes.

Opportunities to Apply Precision Livestock Management on Rangelands

Precision livestock management has become a new field of study as the result of recent advancements in real-time global positioning system (GPS) tracking, accelerometer and other sensor technologies. Real-time tracking and accelerometer monitoring has the potential to remotely detect livestock disease, animal well-being and grazing distribution issues and notify ranchers and graziers so that they can respond as soon as possible. On-going research has shown that accelerometers can remotely monitor livestock behavior and detect activity changes that are associated with disease and parturition. GPS tracking can also detect parturition by monitoring the distance between a ewe and the remainder of the flock. Tracking also has the potential to detect water system failures. Combinations of GPS tracking and accelerometer monitoring may be more accurate than either device used by itself. Real-time GPS tracking can identify when livestock congregate in environmental sensitive areas which may allow managers the chance to respond before resource degradation occurs. Identification of genetic markers associated with terrain use, decreased cost of GPS tracking and novel tracking data processing should facilitate development of tools needed for genetic selection for cattle grazing distribution. Precision livestock management has potential to improve welfare of livestock grazing rangelands and forested lands, reduce labor costs and improve ranch profitability and improve the condition and sustainability of riparian areas and other environmental sensitive areas on grazing lands around the world.