Suchergebnisse

Adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2015, the 2030 Agenda pledges to leave no one behind through the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 targets were ratified by the international community to address the global challenges of our time. This framework and universal action plan articulate the inclusion of the indigenous peoples in the social, economic, and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. Nonetheless, the world's largest populations of indigenous peoples are in Asia. However, despite the affirmation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the concept of indigeneity is still controversial, politically contested, and considered immaterial by many states in the Asian region. With limited rights and inadequate access to social services, indigenous knowledge systems and practices have evolved through time to provide solutions to local problems that marginalized many communities. This article revisits the sociopolitical notion of indigeneity in the region and its implications for the indigenous community. It also explores the diversity of indigenous knowledge systems and traditional practices and its relevance to the SDGs, particularly on food security, community livelihoods, human well-being, natural resources management, and biodiversity conservation. The conclusion reflects the need for legitimate recognition and political enablement of indigenous peoples in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda by forging collaborations between academic researchers, policy-makers, and indigenous organizations in the Asian community.

In recent years, the profile of rewilding, a conservation approach emphasising reduced human interventions in ecosystems, restored ecosystem processes and autonomous nature, has increased. This has prompted critiques of how wildness, nature, and non-human co-existence with humans, are conceptualised within rewilding. Yet so far, there have been no detailed empirical exploration of the views held by rewilding advocates on what rewilding is, and how it should be done. Here we present an analysis of the views of rewilding practitioners and advocates across Europe, using Q-methodology. We identify two distinct visions, one focusing on extensive radical transformation of rural landscapes towards wilder states, and another focused on pragmatism, embracing different forms of rewilding in different places. Divisions over pragmatism versus radical transformation have not previously been identified in studies of rewilding but have critical implications for how rewilding is enacted. These differences also map onto distinct positions in whether rewilding compliments or challenges existing conservation practice. Beyond these distinctions, we find important areas of consensus, such as seeing humans as part of nature, which challenges arguments that rewilding strives for people-free wildernesses or facsimiles of past ecosystems. Overall, our analyses suggest greater coherence within rewilding than has previously been identified.

AbstractSustainable Intensification (SI) has been popularised in recent years as an approach seeking to balance the potentially conflicting demands of enhancing agricultural outputs with reducing the negative impacts arising from the current food system. Proponents have argued that SI can benefit from collaboration between farmers, but understanding is limited by a lack of data on current collaborative practices. Questions have also been raised as to whether the SI agenda pays sufficient attention to social sustainability as part of a fully integrated conception of SI. Tackling these issues, this paper reports on mixed methods data collection from seven case areas across the UK, with a particular focus on the experience of upland livestock farmers in north Wales. We evidence: (1) The extent, forms and preferences associated with farmers' collaboration; with findings demonstrating higher levels of collaboration than anticipated and a preference for informal forms of co‐working. (2) The underpinning and mutually reinforcing role of social interconnectedness in the delivery of diverse outcomes from collaboration. (3) How SI is perceived to threaten social sustainability, and thus work against a more integrated model of delivery. The paper concludes by arguing for a genuinely integrative model of SI to secure collaborations going forwards.

On the 23rd June 2016, the UK referendum on European Union (EU) membership resulted in a vote to leave the EU. This departure, should it occur, would see the implementation of a new agricultural policy within the UK which will most likely see the removal of direct financial support to farmers. In this study, we use combined agricultural survey and rural payments data to evaluate the extent of reliance upon Pillar 1 payments, based on a sample of 24,492 (i.e. 70%) of farm holdings in Wales. This approach eliminates some of the variation found in the Farm Business Survey through the delivery of a more comprehensive picture on the numbers and types of farm holding potentially facing economic hardship and the quantities of land and livestock associated with those holdings. We estimate ˜34% of our sampled Welsh farm holdings face serious financial difficulties and show ˜44% of agricultural land on sampled farm holdings in Wales being vulnerable to land use change or abandonment. Based on our results, we consider the potential social and ecological impacts that the removal of direct payments may have on land use in Wales. We also discuss the use of a more balanced approach to land management that could support governmental visions to keep farmers on the land, improve productivity and deliver high quality 'Public Goods'.

As the UK leaves the European Union, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which for decades has dictated how and when farming support is delivered, will be replaced with a new UK agricultural policy which will see UK farmers, especially upland livestock farmers, facing a more challenging economic environment and a significant change to the way in which farming support is delivered. This study used a series of interviews with UK farmers across differing locations and categories to ascertain how levels of social capital may hinder or enhance a farmer's willingness to embrace future agricultural policy. We found that more conventional farmers who have never participated in agri-environment schemes and those currently in government-run schemes display high levels of bonding capital and low levels of bridging and linking capital which may hinder their ability to adapt to change. In contrast, farmers who embrace a pubic goods approach to land management displayed high bridging and linking capital and are more likely to work with government officials to adapt to policy change. Communities are more likely to become sustainable if they have access to government support and advice, and if relationships with other community members and stakeholders with an interest in rural communities, the natural environment and land management are encouraged and maintained.

"Modern Slavery" comprises of forms of extreme labour exploitation. With its Modern Slavery Law 2015, the UK is said to be at the forefront of international efforts to address the crime. But to be effective, members of the public and officers of government agencies need to be able to recognize situations as modern slavery. Students and police officers were given seven scenarios developed from real cases and the literature. It turns out that police officers recognise most of the scenarios, in contrast to students. Identifying situations as modern slavery appears related to strong moral disapproval, resulting in preferences for harsher punishment. After all, modern slavery challenges the foundations of a liberal society.