How and to What Degree Does Physical Structure Differ Between Natural and Artificial Habitats? A Multi-Scale Assessment in Marine Intertidal Systems

Marine infrastructures are increasing, generating a variety of impacts and introducing artificial habitats which have low ecological value and support assemblages that differ significantly from those on natural rocky coasts. While in the past there was little ecological consideration as to how artificial structures were built, now the trend is to look for “greener” designs inspired by or mimicking nature. These greening efforts have had a strong focus on enhancing physical habitat structure to support more diverse assemblages, driven by the untested assumption that artificial habitats lack the physical structure proper to natural habitats. We tested this assumption by comparing five descriptors of physical structure (inclination; exposure; roughness; abundance, and diversity of surface morphological microelements) across a combination of natural and artificial habitats of regular and irregular morphologies (seawalls = artificial regular; cliffs = natural regular; breakwaters = artificial, irregular; and boulder fields = natural irregular) in the North Adriatic Sea. Most structural descriptors were similar between artificial and natural habitats. Only inclination was consistently steeper in the artificial than in the natural habitats. Other minor differences in roughness or in the abundance of some surface microelements were related to the general morphology (regular or irregular) of the habitat rather than to its artificial or natural identity. The outcomes challenge the widespread assumption that artificial habitats lack the physical structure proper to natural habitats and stimulate renewed consideration about other structural and non-structural elements that could enhance the performance and sustainability of artificial marine structures, such as construction material, environmental setting or maintenance. They also encourage a wider reflection about what makes an artificial building surface “greener”: structural complexity is an important ecological parameter, and its deliberate increase will lead to responses in the biota, however, this may not necessarily match “more natural” conditions.

The role of labor interests in shaping innovation-driven behavior

The article discusses the problem of conformity of social-oriented innovations, as new social practices aimed at meeting the social needs of a growing group of people - the elderly and the elderly, the so-called "third age" principles of ecological consideration. The readiness of different categories of the "third-age" population to actively participation in the innovative development processes and strengthening of civil society is considered. The generalization of theoretical studies on this issue has revealed criteria for the effectiveness of socially significant results and innovation of socially oriented practices, taking into account the characteristics of the mental health of the "third-age" population.

Ecoutopia from Fiction to Fact: An Interview with Heather Alberro

Human is at the heart of the story of climate change in the Anthropocene where, according to Dipesh Chakrabarty (2012), human behaviors have influenced the environment and created a distinct geological epoch. Current climate change issues are largely human induced. This implies that the human species is now part of the natural history of the planet. In November 2016, Stephen Hawking warned that humanity has 1000 years to leave the earth due to climate change, but in his most recent BBC documentary aired on June 15, 2017 called Expedition New Earth, he suggested humans have just 100 years left before doomsday. In spite of such warnings and writings, Donald Trump withdrew America from the Paris Climate Agreement on June 2017, on the same day, satellite images showed that a huge mass of ice in an area of ​​five thousand square kilometres was breaking away from the Antarctic continent under the impact of rising temperature. It seems that Trump’s act is beyond ecological consideration as he believes the agreement could “cost America as much as 2.7 million lost jobs by 2025”. Projections of climate change, however, have shown horrible scenarios involving a central economic metropolis such as New York losing much of its lands because of rising sea levels. The inhabitants of such areas will have to uproot their communities and cultures to move to less vulnerable lands. Thus, it is important to examine how ecoutopian literature is responding to the conditions of the human being in this epoch. In the following interview, Heather Alberro has answered to some questions on climate change, the conditions of human being in the Anthropocene, and the role of literature and culture in relation to environmental issues.

Blurring the shoreline: De- and re-infrastructuring and the changing colors of European flood policy

This paper provides a genealogy of the emergence of a common EU flood policy, including the scope and direction of this policy. Noticing how EU policy proposes green infrastructure (associated with using nature as a buffer zone in managing floods) as an alternative to grey infrastructure (implying fixed installations of concrete and cement), this paper adopts the theoretical lens of the so-called infrastructural turn, which advocates a relational investigation of infrastructure. By engaging this approach, the paper shows how flood infrastructure can contain very different compositions of (unruly) water and (settled) land. A narrative of a historically strong focus on guarding society from the powerful forces of nature through a fixed line of defense is increasingly giving way to more muddy states—quite literally—where society is expected to learn to live with flooding and show ecological consideration. To capture the EU’s, and especially the European Commission’s efforts to establish a pan-European flood infrastructure that accommodates this turn, the concepts of de- and re-infrastructuring are developed. These concepts act as heuristic devices to capture how policy performs some combinations between water and land as constituting an attractive and functional flood infrastructure, but constitutes other infrastructural relations of the aquatic and the terrestrial as undesirable and, hence, as malfunctioning. This performative act of distinguishing between what constitutes “good and proper” versus “bad and undesirable” infrastructure is referred to as a politics of infrastructure.

Understanding the medium of exchange1

In the wake of scandals at Cambridge Analytica/Facebook and Sinclair Broadcasting Group, the ethical implications of a digital economy for thought, word and deed come to the fore in political economy. Such questions require media ecological consideration for grounding ethics in the communicative domain between self, other and world. This theoretical exploration parses the historical intersections of studies in media ecology and political economy in an effort to understand both the medium of exchange and the ethical principle or techno-economic paradigm inherent to that medium. Media ecology is necessary for cultivating the ethical ground of political economy and reflectively engaging the implications of a hypermodern techno-economic paradigm for everyday communicative life. Further, media ecological constraints will be understood as perpetuating particular political and economic conditions in terms of the sensorial equilibrium of a noetic economy and the psychodynamics of human culture. After analysing the ethical demands of changing media ecologies, implications for the fields of political economy and media ecology in this hypermodern moment are presented. This exploration is offered as an initial foray into understanding the productive tensions of these two particular fields of intellectual inquiry and providing an adequate response to the questions of digital economics in this current historical moment.

Wildlife Conservation and Mangrove Interpretation Centre, Karamjal, Sundarban: A Case Study of a Site-Specific Architectural Project in a Mangrove Forest

This paper analyses the design process that addresses the ecological consideration and architectural factors with local indigenous materials so that nature-based tourism can be more encouraged and feasible towards sustainable development. The case study is the Sundarbans, which is a mangrove forest and coastal wetland with a complex ecosystem formed by a variety of plants and animals. Due to its diversity, ecosystem richness and uniqueness, this contiguous block has a huge impact on both local and global environment and is significant among researchers, conservationists and nature lovers. Karamjal, Bangladesh, one of the main entry points of Sundarban Reserve Forest is enriched with a diversified ecosystem. But now this site is deteriorating day by day with increasing unplanned build forms and visitors. For betterment of ecological setting and tourism facilities for global attention, Karamjal is indicative of better consideration both ecologically and architecturally. After analysis, a case study of site-specific design is proposed for improvement of this site.

Tombs of the Valley of the Kings in Luxor Ecological Consideration

By the eighteenth dynasty in the Egyptian Old History, funerary architecture was oriented towards a new direction in perceiving space and form, meaning and symbolizing, and pride and festivity. As being a great city by that time, Luxor (Thebes) looked for a site that offered a similar dignified place as it was with the pyramid plateau in Giza, in the north, close to the previous Capital ”IUNU”. As much as the Giza plateau was worked out to receive the edifices on, the place in Thebes was chosen of highly qualified natural properties. The place was on the sacred western side of the capital of the kingdom, in a huge valley formed through millions of years where its morphology could offer the dignity that we still feel, the geological formation was much easier to work through, tombs architecture within it offered the possibilities to preserve the traditions and the bodies of the great kings safe. The paper aims at declaring the environmental capabilities of the architecture form of tombs of the Kings Valley of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties of the Old Egypt History.

UPAYA-UPAYA PENGELOLAAN SUMBER DAYA IKAN YANG BERKELANJUTAN DI INDONESIA

Pengertian dasar untuk pengelolaan perikanan terkait dengan fungsi fungsi biologi, sosial, teknologi, ekonomi serta lingkungan sumber daya sebagai komponen yang saling berhubungan untuk terjaminnya pengelolaan secara berkelanjutan. Stok ikan, ekosistem dan masyarakat nelayan merupakan salah satu kesatuan yang tidak dapat dipisahkan dalam sistem yang dinamis, dimana perubahan taktik dan strategi pemanfaatan masih merupakan suatu hal yang banyak dilakukan dalam rangka penyesuaian antara faktor teknis dan ekonomis yang sering kali mengabaikan pertimbangan bio-ekologi sumberdaya ikan. Sasaran pendekatan dan kebijakan pengelolaan perikanan di berbagai negara sudah mulai berubah, diawali dengan pendekatan memaksimalkan tangkapan tahunan dan ketenaga-kerjaan menuju ke konservasi dan pengelolaan berbasis pelayanan ekosistem. Konsep pengelolaan berbasis masyarakat dan ko-manajemen masih terbatas pada pengelolaan kawasan konservasi dan habitat terumbu karang. Adanya kesenjangan dan perbedaan antara kepentingan kawasan konservasi sebagai akibat kurangnya pemahaman kolektif terhadap tujuan pengelolaan, dan kerapkali menyebabkan aktifitas perikanan tangkap sebagai bagian dari kebutuhan ekonomis berbenturan dengan fungsi kawasan konservasi dalam jangka panjang. Pengendalian upaya penangkapan dan memahami dinamika perikanan, serta mengelola nelayan menjadi prioritas untuk pengelolaan sumber daya ikan, sedangkan konsep pengelolaan berbasis masyarakat dan ko-manajemen ditempatkan sebagai pelengkap untuk menutupi kelemahan aspek legal wilayah pengelolaan perikanan atau sumber daya ikan.Basic understanding of fisheries management related to biology, social, technology and economic function of fish resources. Fish stocks, ecosystem and fishers community are the integrated component under the dynamic of fisheries system, where as changing and on fishing tactic and strategy still exist to adjust between biology, technics and economics aspects. It is obvious that all technological creeps oftenly ignored the bio-ecological consideration of fish resources. The fisheries management and its policy were gradually shifting from maximize the catch, job opportunity become conservation and ecosystem based fisheries management. The concept of community-based management and co management is still limited to the management of conservation areas and coral reef habitats. The existence of gaps and differences between the interests of the conservation area as a result of a lack of understanding collective to the management objectives and often causing fishing activities as part of the economic needs clash with the function of conservation areas in the long term. Control efforts to capture and understand the dynamics of fisheries, as well as managing fishing is a priority for the management of fish resources, while the concept of community-based management and co management issued as a supplement to cover the weakness of legal aspects of the fishery management area or fishery resource.

Knitting the archive: Shetland lace and ecologies of skilled practice

Conjuring up images of fine openwork shawls, Shetland lace knitting might seem to be the very essence of ‘tradition’. Although contemporary scholarship is increasingly noting the diversity of knitting practices and practitioners – from stitch ‘n bitch to yarn bombing – accounts of Shetland lace knitting often convey a sense of a skilled practice which has remained unchanged since time immemorial. In this article, I illustrate and unravel how the skill of Shetland lace knitting has become seemingly sedimented by telling its story through a series of innovative archival explorations and engagements. Using ‘making’ as method, I employ the skilled practice of knitting as a means by which to investigate the question of skill itself. By putting the anthropologic work of Tim Ingold into conversation with contemporary geographical theory, I advocate an ecological consideration of skill which is able to account for the economic, cultural, geographical and material threads of practice, while undermining any notion of skill being static or given within a situation.