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This article contains the content of the Letter sent by the President of the International Olympic Committee Thomas Bach sent in March from Lausanne (Switzerland) to the entire Olympic Community. In my closing speech the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022, I expressed the hope that these political leaders would be inspired by the "example of solidarity and peace" having been set by the athletes. Just four days later all our hopes for Ukraine were shattered. The horrifying images and reports of the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army shocked the world. On the one hand we have a heavy heart. On the other hand we have to keep a cool head to preserve our Olympic values that have withstood the test of time. The invasion has changed the world. The invasion has not changed our values. The invasion has strengthened our commitment to our values of peace, solidarity and non-discrimination in sport for whatever reason. Our guiding principle is peace. But we have had to learn once again the hard lessons that sport cannot create peace, and that decisions on war and peace are the exclusive remit of politics. To be at least a powerful symbol, to be an inspiring demonstration of a – maybe utopian – peaceful world, Olympic sport needs the participation of all the athletes who accept the rules, even and in particular if their countries in the "real" world are in confrontation or at war. This is our role: to provide a counter-example to war and division - not to accept, follow and deepen divisions among people. We must be united in the Olympic Movement; we must stand in solidarity together to achieve our unifying mission in all circumstances. For all these reasons we urge every sports organisation in the world to protect the integrity, fairness and safety of their competitions by not allowing Russian and Belarusian athletes to take part or in special circumstances to at least prohibit any identification of their nationality. In this context, we will continue to monitor the attitude of Russian or Belarusian athletes and their ...

Thomas Bach analysiert das Informations- und Kaufverhalten der Nutzer auf dem Netzmarkt der schnellen Internetzugänge. Dem Autor gelingt der Nachweis für pfadabhängige Herdeneffekte und die Messung eines Lock-ins über Wechselkosten bei der Adoption von Breitbandanschlüssen. Dr. Thomas Bach war Doktorand im DFG-Graduiertenkolleg des Fachbereichs Wirtschaftswissenschaften der Freien Universität Berlin.

Aboriginal Australians are being employed through federally funded programs to undertake natural and cultural management (NCRM) of their ancestral country. These Aboriginal Ranger programs aim to provide economic and cultural opportunities for Indigenous communities to achieve positive environmental and conservation outcomes by drawing on Aboriginal knowledge and cultural connections to country. A major component of Ranger work is the eradication of plants categorised as environmental weeds by land managers of various government and non-government agencies. Despite Aboriginal Ranger programs intending to foreground local Aboriginal perspectives to direct their work, Rangers predominantly manage environmental weeds according to the mainstream ecological paradigm. This thesis argues that the wholesale imposition of mainstream environmental weed discourse on Aboriginal NCRM programs disables Aboriginal Rangers from basing their weed management on culturally-embedded perspectives. Based on my field research in the western and central Kimberley region of Western Australia, I show that Rangers and elders belonging to Bardi-Jawi, Bunuba, Ngurrara, Nyikina Mangala, Nyulnyul and Wilinggin country have nuanced, yet clear, understandings of 'healthy country' and the landscape change caused by plants. Through participant observation and field interviews, Rangers and elders from these groups challenged the current species-based approaches to weed classification and control and demonstrated that their views on weeds do not align with dominant environmental weed discourse and management. Instead, they highlighted the contextual and relational nature of weeds by linking them and their effects to the Aboriginal concept of 'healthy country'. Significantly, these views are similar to the arguments made by ecologists and social scientists that are critical of mainstream invasion ecology and management of environmental weeds. Common to both groups are that weed problems are culturally and contextually specific and that weed management needs to maintain cultural and environmental values within changing landscapes by working alongside these changes, rather than constantly working against them. These points of overlap provide vindication for Aboriginal Rangers to control weeds through a greater emphasis on site-based, rather than species-based management. Site-based management allows Rangers to connect their weed work to local and culturally specific visions for healthy country; integrate weed management into other aspects of Ranger work and in doing so frame weed management as promoting healthy country rather than destroying plants; and meet the practical constraints of Ranger work by focusing on a manageable scale.

Controlling invasive species presents a public‐good dilemma. Although environmental, social, and economic benefits of control accrue to society, costs are borne by only a few individuals and organizations. For decades, policy makers have used incentives and sanctions to encourage or coerce individual actors to contribute to the public good, with limited success. Diverse, subnational efforts to collectively manage invasive plants, insects, and animals provide effective alternatives to traditional command‐and‐control approaches. Despite this work, there has been little systematic evaluation of collective efforts to determine whether there are consistent principles underpinning success. We reviewed 32 studies to identify the extent to which collective‐action theories from related agricultural and environmental fields explain collaborative invasive species management approaches; describe and differentiate emergent invasive species collective‐action efforts; and provide guidance on how to enable more collaborative approaches to invasive species management. We identified 4 types of collective action aimed at invasive species—externally led, community led, comanaged, and organizational coalitions—that provide blueprints for future invasive species management. Existing collective‐action theories could explain the importance attributed to developing shared knowledge of the social‐ecological system and the need for social capital. Yet, collection action on invasive species requires different types of monitoring, sanctions, and boundary definitions. We argue that future government policies can benefit from establishing flexible boundaries that encourage social learning and enable colocated individuals and organizations to identify common goals, pool resources, and coordinate efforts.