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In Latin America, the immense existing biodiversity is associated with the abundance of enormous practically unknown regions and the presence of indigenous peoples, in some cases uncontacted. Along with the profusion of life forms that have been preserved over the years, the danger of genetic erosion caused by indiscriminate exploitation stands out on the one hand, and on the other the attempts at appropriation by institutions and natural persons, at the expense of the prejudice of the communities that inhabit those areas, of their habits of life and of their cultural practices. The purpose of this article is to reflect on these issues, based on the documentary information published by various authors. The examples presented also demonstrate that the region can take advantage of biodiversity for its own development, under a bioeconomy model, in which the efforts of science, education and production institutions coexist, supported by government policies of respect for the environment, indigenous populations and the legal protection of heritage.

Sustainable approaches for waste management and sanitation are key to deal with the environmental and health challenges that growing urbanization is creating around the world. Implementing systems that allow to reuse resources contained in the organic waste streams (OWS) is an approach that can bring many benefits, especially in low-medium income areas as the Latin American and Caribbean region, where excreta, wastewater, and waste are not properly managed. The transformation towards these systems requires not only technological changes, but also changes in the way that urban waste and wastewater are governed. The aim of this study was to assess the capacity of the town of Chía (Colombia) to govern the transition towards resource-oriented sanitation and waste management systems. The Governance Capacity Framework (GCF) was used as a method to evaluate the governance capacity of the town to implement these systems. The assessment revealed that the capacity of Chía to govern the implementation of resource-oriented sanitation and waste management systems was low. Furthermore, governance factors that could be hindering the implementation of these systems were identified. Low level of knowledge of resource recovery from OWS in the public spheres, insufficient collaboration and communication across sectors and institutions that had competences on waste management and sanitation, short-term vision within the local decision-making processes and insufficient incentives to support local entrepreneurship on circular economy. Despite these challenges, analysis also revealed the existence of public-private partnerships and entrepreneurs working in successful initiatives linked with resource-oriented systems in Chía and other towns of Cundinamarca county. The study concluded that in Chía there was a gap between local initiatives of resource recovery from OWS that brought environmental, economic, and social benefits at small scale and its inclusion in the local and regional governance systems. Findings of this study touches upon many governance aspects such as knowledge, legislation, financing and even culture. Further research is needed to look closer to each of those and make concrete, feasible and effective proposals that bring change with a long-term sustainability vision. Finally, when analysing the results of the evaluation and making future proposals, strengths, and shortcomings of applying the GCF as an analytical tool for a specific case study like Chía need to be considered.

This study addressed the triangular relations between Latin America, Beijing and Washington in the last 15 years using a process tracing technique on the economic and political models of the region. It specifically focused on the South American development during the post-Washington Consensus era, as well as the expanding influence of China over this region. The aim of this paper was to transmit the idea that the failure of neoliberalism in the 90s together with the expansionism of China have shaped the contemporary political and economic arena among the countries of South America. This work could help to understand the historical process of the construction of develop paradigms on the region and its impact on the society.

Tells the story of Michael Bellesiles, whose book Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture made him initially famous and later on destroyed his career as a historian, and how similar cases are investigated and treated in Sweden. The temptation of cheating is easy to understand in a success-driven culture where status as a researcher is measured by his or her yearly article output. However, weeding out cheaters is hard due to the fine line between carelessness and error, problems of causation and knowledge accumulation, and ideological predispositions. To make matters worse, researchers are not too keen on investigating each other's work, and Sweden lacks an anonymous system to expose research fraud. L. Pitkaniemi

A eulogy for Susan Marton who was born in March 29, 1965 in New York as the youngest child in a family of five children. She got a B.A. in political science and French from DePauw University and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Gothenburg. After her dissertation she taught political science first at Seffield University and then at the University of Karlstad. Since her immigration to Sweden in August 1992, Marton became fluent in Swedish and a well known expert commentator on politics in North America. Marton passed away in 2009 after a short battle with an unexpected illness. L. Pitkaniemi