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The recognition of the economic consequences of alien invasive plants in terms of water-supply costs was pivotal in the establishment of the Working for Water programme, which has spent over R3 billion in dealing with the problem while simultaneously addressing poverty relief. Given competition from other social development projects for future funding, however, there is a need to justify further alien control programmes and to maximize efficiency within the programme. This requires valuing the biodiversity benefits of alien control and improving of the evaluation methods used. The concept of ecological goods and services has been a useful political tool, but the resource-economics concept of the Total Economic Value of biodiversity forms a more useful analytical framework. Studies on the impacts of alien invasive plants in South Africa initially concentrated on water losses, but more recently have included values of direct consumptive and non-consumptive use, option and existence value, and other indirect measures. Secondary effects such as downstream changes in aquatic ecosystem functions have not been assessed. Studies have varied in their scale and scope, as well as in the 'currency' of evaluation (such as financial or economic). Several approaches have been used for valuing water losses, with initial estimates having been the most conservative. Estimates of non-water benefits have frequently involved extrapolation from site-specific investigations within the study area, or been estimated from estimates at the regional level. None of the contingent valuation studies used has been applied following internationally accepted guidelines. In water-yielding catchments, alien control programmes are easy to justify in economic terms. In other areas, this may be more difficult. Cost-benefit analyses to date have tended to include the full financial costs of clearing, whereas, in reality, the opportunity cost of labour is close to zero, and economic costs are therefore much smaller. Benefits, which accrue later, tend to be underestimated from lack of information on biodiversity values and by high discount rates. A revised approach would favour the outlook for control programmes. If this fails to secure funding, what alternatives are there? New regulations are considered suboptimal and likely to fail. Opportunities for creating incentives to clear aliens from private lands are extremely limited, and there are no incentives that can reduce future invasions. Government-funded control programmes are thus the most efficient option. Future studies will need to address the right questions using the appropriate methods, incorporate both ecological and economic dynamics, express values in the right 'currency', and use a discount rate that reflects the rights of future generations. The quality of this research will depend on relevant ecological enquiry.

From ancient time fisheries has been a major source of food for humanity and provider of employment and economic benefits to those engaged in it. Namibia is an arid country and with limited freshwater fisheries, chiefly found in the northern part of the country (Kavango and Zambezi River in the Caprivi region).Although freshwater fisheries is limited in Namibia, it serves a vital societal role in terms of food security and source of income. This stydy attempts to describe the status of Kavango fisheries from local people's and ecological perspectives. The study further attempts to analyse historical development of fisheries in Kavango and relate it to questions of sustainable resource utilisation in terms of ecosystem dynamic, socio-economic processes, institutions and rules and regulations. This was done by looking at the rationale behind the use of different types of gear (traditional and modern), socio-economic characteristics of fishing population, people's perception about the carrying capacity of fish resource and most efficient way of managing the resource (i.e. traditional, government or both). The results of this study indicated that some fish species have declined, and there is a growing awareness among local people that modern gears are the cause. People in Kavango seemed to prefer traditional over modern gears. There seemed to be few formal employment opportunities in the area, and the sale of fish as source of income has increased and to continue to increase further in the future. Both traditional and government laws and regulation are poorly enforced. However, the local people preferred fishing to be traditionally regulated. As is often the case in rural communities in Africa, women have the main household responsibility for food security and they tend to fish more than men. Co-management (where functions, rights and responsibilities of resouce management are shared among stakeholders), provision of good storage and transportation of fish and diversification of agricultural production are among the recommendations made to relieve pressure on the resource. ; M-MNRSA

Informal gold mining (IGM) is a major driver of deforestation and source of global mercury emissions. Policy makers may seek to control the spread of IGM by enforcing rules and/or providing alternative livelihoods. We investigated the dynamics and drivers of IGM in northern Myanmar to shed light on the conditions needed for alternative livelihood and enforcement interventions to succeed. We surveyed 226 respondents who practiced mining and/or farming. We found that mining and agriculture provided complementary livelihoods for many respondents as they met different livelihood needs, and that many of the miners were economic migrants. Livelihood-based interventions based on agriculture/plantations—as currently planned by the regional government—are thus unlikely to provide true substitutes. The willingness of migrant miners to move under different economic circumstances suggests that livelihood-based interventions are unlikely to scale well—mining may simply be displaced to other regions, or new migrants might replace old migrants. We estimated that current enforcement efforts were insufficient and that a much higher level of enforcement—either constant presence of enforcement officials at each informal mining site, or confiscating equipment every month—would be required to make informal mining unprofitable. Enforcement effectiveness was further undermined by corruption in the guise of informal payments to local authorities. Our study is the first to estimate costs that enforcement imposes and the level of enforcement required to deter informal gold mining, and adds to the growing body of evidence that enforcement and alternative livelihood approaches alone are unlikely to deter informal gold mining.

Atlases accompany v. 1, pt. 1; v. 2; and v. 5-v. 7. ; "Published by authority of the Legislature of Ohio." ; v.1-3, Geology and Palaeontology -- v.4 Zoology and Botany -- v.5-6 Economic geology -- v.7 Economic geology, archaeology, botany, paleontology -- v.8 Comprising reports on various mineral industries -- v.9 Comprising Bulletins 4-5-6-7 and 8 of the Fourth Series. ; Atlases accompany v. 1, pt. 1; v. 2; and v. 5-v. 7. ; Mode of access: Internet.

Food security is the main concern in Africa as the production and productivity of crops are under continuous threat. Indigenous crops also known as orphan- or as underutilized- crops provide key contributions to food security under the present scenario of increasing world population and changing climate. Hence, these crops which belong to the major categories of cereals, legumes, fruits and root crops play a key role in the livelihood of the resource-poor farmers and consumers since they perform better than the major world crops under extreme soil and climate conditions prevalent in the continent. These indigenous crops have the major advantage that they fit well into the general socio-economic and ecological context of the region. However, despite their huge importance, African crops have generally received little attention by the global scientific community. With the current production systems, only a fraction of yield potential was achieved for most of these crops. In order to devise strategies towards boosting crop productivity in Africa, the current production constraints should be investigated and properly addressed. Key traits known to increase productivity and/or improve nutrition and diverse conventional and modern crop improvement techniques need to be implemented. Commitments in the value-chain from the research, production, marketing to distribution of improved seeds are required by relevant national and international institutions as well as African governments to promote food security in a sustainable manner. The review also presents major achievements and suggestions for stakeholders interested in African agriculture.

Spices, scents and silks were at the centre of world trade for millennia. Exotic luxuries such as cinnamon, ginger, pepper, saffron, clove, frankincense and myrrh. Through their international trade, humans were pushed to explore and then travel to the far corners of the earth. Almost from their inception, the earliest great civilizations - Egypt, Sumer and Harappa - became addicted to the luxury products of far-off lands and established long-reaching trade networks. Over time, great powers fought mightily for the kingdoms where silk, spices and scents were produced. The New World was accidentally discovered by Columbus in his quest for spices.What made trade in these products so remarkable was that the plants producing them grew in very restricted areas of the world, distant from the wealthy civilizations of northern Africa, Greece and Europe. These luxuries could be carried from mysterious locations on the backs of camels or in the holds of ships for months on end, and arrived at their final destination in nearly perfect condition. Once the western world discovered the intoxicating properties of these products, their procurement became a dominant force in the world economy. Nothing else compared with their possible profit returns.In this book, eminent horticulturist and author James Hancock examines the origins and early domestication and culture of spices, scents and silks and the central role they played in the lives of the ancients. The book also traces the development of the great international trade networks and explores how struggles for trade dominance and demand for such luxuries shaped the world.Recommended for academics, students and general readers with an interest in crop and agricultural development, world trade, economic botany, history of food, and global economics and public policy, Spices, Scents and Silk offers a fascinating and insightful history.

To ensure economic viability over time, any efforts to meet the Millennium Development Goals need to reconcile conservation with development interventions. Particularly, in marginal and risk prone areas erosion of resilience could make production systems more susceptible to environmental risks that compromise the economic security. By longitudinal analyses of long-term data records we investigated the impacts of big push policies on Saami pastoral ecosystems in Arctic Norway. The big push was accompanied by reindeer herd accumulation and a corresponding degradation of resilience, increasing the susceptibility to herd losses to predators and adverse winters. For the last 20 years the Norwegian government has worked to halt degradation of pasture ecosystems and reduce susceptibility to environmental risks. These intended win-win policies have mainly been based on economic incentives, which have been developed together with Saami pastoralists through negotiated agreements. We argue that the continued degradation of the Saami pastoral ecosystems is a "ghost of the development past", as the big push policies have resulted in an economic security trap (EST). The gradual reduction of resilience has persisted as the ex post payments of disaster relief and predator compensation have impeded the long-term actions to reduce susceptibility to environmental risks, i.e., ex ante policies, thereby increasing dependency on elevated economic inputs to manage the risks. The transfer of liability for managing risks to the benefactor, both through ex ante and ex post policies, has further discouraged and constrained opportunities for adaptation by the pastoralists.

In this paper, we will try to analyze the reforms of philosophy curricula at the Universities of Salamanca and Coimbra, and their connection to the economic development of their respective economies. We will demonstrate how this reform altered curricular contents with the purpose of guaranteeing a formation that could potentiate a better exploitation of the natural resources, mainly of their colonies. In this logic, the most emblematic disciplines were natural history, botany and chemistry. However, factors external to these educational reforms demonstrated their limits. We speak of a lack of jobs for philosophers (and mathematicians), but also a decline in national economies.

Preface -- Chapter 1: Introduction -- Chapter 2: Cardamom botany -- Chapter 3: Cardamom chemistry -- Chapter 4: The agronomy of cardamom -- Chapter 5: The role of "The Nutrient Buffer Power Concept" in cardamom nutrition -- Chapter 6: Cardamom pathology -- Chapter 7: Cardamom entomology -- Chapter 8: Harvesting and processing of cardamom -- Chapter 9: Industrial processing of cardamom and cardamom products -- Chapter 10: The economy of cardamom production -- Chapter 11: Pharmacological properties of cardamom -- Chapter 12: A peek into the future of cardamom -- Chapter 13: Large cardamom -- Chapter 14: False cardamom -- Chapter 15: Specification for cardamom -- Research Highlights in Cardamom -- Efficacy of The Nutrient Buffer Power Concept in cardamom nutrition -- Research Innovations in cardamom production for farmers' benefit. .

The increased demand of food produced through sustainable agriculture has resulted in localised amelioration of intensive management imposed by agroecosystems. However, these newly available niches are often isolated and plant species may not be able to recolonise fragmented agroecosystems from where they have been extirpated. Plant reintroduction can overcome dispersal limitation in agroecosystems but may also generate conflicts that jeopardise conservation efforts. Conflicts arise when reintroductions are perceived to place constraints on the management and productivity of agroecosystems: the translocated plants may require space sharing with crops, may have negative effects on crop yields, and come with the expectation that farmers must modify their farming practices and accommodate legal obligations deriving from protected species status. Benefits include economic incentives that pay farmers through CAP, the conservation of nature, ecosystem services, an effective marketing strategy and increased aesthetic value that might generate ecotourism. We discuss the practical implications of the abovementioned issues by reference to two cases of European species in which different approaches to reintroduction resulted in opposite outcomes (i.e., consensus vs. opposition). Coexistence of threatened plants and crops is possible if farmers and local stakeholders are involved in a conservation project from an early stage and if farmers conservation efforts turn into benefits for their income. Based on these considerations, we propose a strategic framework to promote reintroduction of threatened plants in agroecosystems (land sharing) and policy advancement aimed at recognising the role of farmers in maintaining biodiversity on their lands.

This book investigates the fundamental role that tropical bioproductivity - or more specifically net primary productivity - has played in shaping the global geographies of food, finance, governance and people. The book examines the basic astronomical and thermal properties of our planet to illustrate the dynamic nature of the tropics and how the region resides at the very heart of global energetics, driving the environmental flows that shape planetary climate and bioproductivity. The author explores how the region's relatively small, but hyper-productive, land area provided the groundswell for the economic, social, political and demographic changes that fuelled empires, European colonialism and nation-building. Also covered are discussions on how the critical intake of capital needed to fuel the industrial and technological revolutions driving modern globalization was first expropriated from the tropics by harnessing the region's natural productivity and biological crop diversity and then transforming it into tradeable commodities using the inhabitants' labour and knowledge. With modern tropical nations accounting for the bulk of people living in poverty and registering some of the highest income disparities, the author presents cross-cutting evidence showing that their histories and the persistence of expropriating institutions have fostered anocratic tendencies, poor governance, unorthodox financial flows and mass migration. Tropical Bioproductivity cuts across vast geographies, topics and histories to deliver a readable narrative that links people, places and events with the environmental mechanics of our planet. It will be of interest to students and researchers in the areas of environmental studies, economics, history, agriculture, anthropology and geography.

Fraxinus excelsior L. is the only native ash in Ireland. It has important economic value for timber exploitation. After the introduction of grants by Irish government in the 1990s for planting native broadleaf trees, with an extra premium of hardwood species including ash, provenances of supposed F. excelsior were imported from continental Europe to fulfil the needs of foresters and farmers. At the time of planting, the trees appeared to be of excellent quality but after some years, the trees started to show very bad stem form, poor vigour and growth, and unusual morphology. Management authorities, farmers and foresters have questioned the authenticity and origin of the imported trees. Indeed very pale and brown buds observed on introduced trees are more characteristic of another species F. angustifolia Vahl present in continental Europe, with usually a more southern distribution than F. excelsior. Moreover, natural hybrids between these two species have been observed in two different zones where the species grow in sympatry. Reciprocal artificial crosses have also been made. ; TARA (Trinity?s Access to Research Archive) has a robust takedown policy. Please contact us if you have any concerns: rssadmin@tcd.ie

Chapter 1: Nepal: An Introduction -- Chapter 2: Flora and Phytogeography of Nepal -- Chapter 3: Vegetation and forest in Nepal -- Chapter 4: An overview of the Middle Miocene to Early Pleistocene Flora of the Siwalik sediments in Nepal -- Chapter 5: A Comprehensive Review of Algal Exploration in Nepal -- Chapter 6: Fungi of Nepal -- Chapter 7: Bryophyta Plant Diversity in Nepal -- Chapter 8: Lichens of Nepal -- Chapter 9: Fern and fern-allies of Nepal -- Chapter 10: Gymnosperms of Nepal: diversity, distribution, economic importance and future perspectives -- Chapter 11: Angiosperm diversity in Nepal -- Chapter 12: Economically important plants in Nepal -- Chapter 13: Plant invasions in Nepal: What we do not know? -- Chapter 14: Impact of climate change on plants in the Nepal Himalayas -- Chapter 15: Plant Biodiversity Conservation in Nepal Himalaya: Status, Policies, and Legislative Frameworks.