Search results for " resource"

Conceptual and operational perspectives on ecosystem restoration options in the European Union and elsewhere

2015

Summary Egoh et al. (2014) prioritized areas for ecological restoration in the European Union (EU) so that Europe could cost-efficiently meet the globally agreed 15% restoration target. We identify three major deficiencies in their analysis, one conceptual and two operational, which compromise the conclusions of the prioritization. The conceptual flaw is neglect of both the magnitude of degradation and the magnitude of improvement of the ecosystem condition expected due to restoration. The first operational flaw is inclusion of inappropriately measured restoration costs into the analyses. The second is use of spatial units that are so large (10 × 10 km) that only a fraction of each unit cou…

The socio-economic impact of conservation: The Safe Islands for Seabirds LIFE project

2017

Using the Safe Islands for Seabirds LIFE project as a case study, we assessed the socio-economic impact of a nature conservation project on the local community, focusing on the wealth created and the jobs supported directly and indirectly by the project. The Safe Islands for Seabirds project took place during 2009-2012, mainly on Corvo Island, the smallest and least populated island of Portugal's Azores Archipelago. To assess the impact of the project we used a combination of methods to analyse the project expenditure, the jobs created directly as a result of it, and, by means of multipliers, the incomes and jobs it supported indirectly. We estimate that during 2009-2012 direct expenditure …

Towards food, feed and energy crops mitigating climate change

2011

Agriculture is an important source of anthropogenic emissions of the greenhouse gases (GHG), methane (CH 4 ) and nitrous oxide (N 2 O), and crops can affect the microbial processes controlling these emissions in many ways. Here, we summarize the current knowledge of plant–microbe interactions in relation to the CH 4 and N 2 O budgets and show how this is promoting new generations of crop cultivars that have the potential to mitigate GHG emissions for future agricultural use. The possibility of breeding low GHG-emitting cultivars is a paradigm shift towards sustainable agriculture that balances climate change and food and bioenergy security.

On the Role of Perception: Understanding Stakeholders’ Collaboration in Natural Resources Management through the Evolutionary Theory of Innovation

2021

Natural resources management deals with highly complex socioecological systems. This complexity raises a conundrum, since wide-ranging knowledge from different sources and types is needed, but at the same time none of these types of knowledge is able by itself to provide the basis for a viable productive system, and mismatches between the two of them are common. Therefore, a growing body of literature has examined the integration of different types of knowledge in fisheries management. In this paper, we aim to contribute to this ongoing debate by integrating the evolutionary theory of innovation—and specifically the concept of proximity—and the theory of perception. We set up a theoretical …

Bryophyte Species Richness on Retention Aspens Recovers in Time but Community Structure Does Not

2014

Green-tree retention is a forest management method in which some living trees are left on a logged area. The aim is to offer ‘lifeboats’ to support species immediately after logging and to provide microhabitats during and after forest re-establishment. Several studies have shown immediate decline in bryophyte diversity after retention logging and thus questioned the effectiveness of this method, but longer term studies are lacking. Here we studied the epiphytic bryophytes on European aspen (Populus tremula L.) retention trees along a 30-year chronosequence. We compared the bryophyte flora of 102 ‘retention aspens’ on 14 differently aged retention sites with 102 ‘conservation aspens’ on 14 d…

Eight decades of adaptive changes in herring reproductive investment: the joint effect of environment and exploitation

2021

Abstract Reproductive investment is a central trait for population dynamics and productivity. Fishing and environmental variations are major drivers affecting population structure, dynamics, and adaptation of life-history and behavioural traits. However, those factors are often considered independently, and few studies take into account their joint effect. In this study, we investigate the contribution of environment, fishing pressure, and intra-specific competition to variation in the reproductive investment of the Norwegian spring-spawning herring (Clupea harengus), a stock that has been fished for centuries, and monitored for decades. Reproductive investment and post-spawning weight were…

2020

Abstract Facing the loss of biodiversity caused by landscape fragmentation, implementation of ecological networks to connect habitats is an important biodiversity conservation issue. It is necessary to develop easily reproducible methods to identify and prioritize actions to maintain or restore ecological corridors. To date, several competing methods are used with recurrent debate on which is best and if expert-based approaches can replace data-driven models. We compared three methods: knowledge-driven (expert based), data-driven (based on species distribution model), and a mixed approach. We quantified their differences in habitat and corridor mapping, and prioritizations of landscape elem…

From a Crisis Discipline Towards Prognostic Conservation Practise: An Argument for Setting Aside Degraded Habitats

2017

The use of a spatial model of economic efficiency to predict the most likely outcomes under different fishing strategy scenarios

2021

The current European Union has been progressively implementing since January 2014 a discard ban which includes the obligation to land unwanted catch for certain regulated species and sizes. Although a full enforcement of the landing obligation has a direct impact on discard reduction through more responsible and selective fishing, fishers argue that it will prompt both a decrease in incomes and an increase in working time onboard. Thus, the measure is in a hold in south-western waters due to the difficulties to implement the ban in mixed fisheries This paper analyzes some possible scenarios which fishers could face under the landing obligation. It is shown the construction of a spatial bio-…

Mitigating forest biodiversity and ecosystem service losses in the era of bio-based economy

2018

Abstract Forests play a crucial role in the transition towards a bioeconomy by providing biomass to substitute for fossil-based materials and energy. However, a policy-policy conflict exists between the desire to increase the utilization of bio based renewable resources and the desire to protect and conserve biodiversity. Increasing forest harvest levels to meet the needs of the bioeconomy may conflict with biodiversity protection and ecosystem services provided by forests. Through an optimization framework, we examined trade-offs between increasing the extraction of timber resources, and the impacts on biodiversity and non-wood ecosystem services, and investigated possibilities to reconcil…