This book explores the interactions of local inhabitants and environmental systems in the Protected Natural Areas of Mexico. Its goal is to help understand how social groups contextualize ecological knowledge, how human activities contribute to modifying the environmental matrix, how cultural and economic aspects influence the use, management and conservation of their ecological environment, and how social phenomena are to be viewed against the backdrop of ecological knowledge. The book reviews the epistemological and historical bases of the socio-ecological relationship, and addresses the evolution of human-natural systems. From a methodological standpoint, it assesses the tools required for the integration of "human" and "natural" dimensions in the management of the environmental matrix. Further, in the case studies section, it reviews valuable recent experiences concerning the retro-interactions of local inhabitants with their environmental matrix. Given its scope, the book offers a valuable asset for researchers and professionals all over the world, especially those working in Latin American countries.

In recent years, the issues of sustainability, green behavior and corporate social responsibility have become a growing global concern. This increased concern for environmental welfare has started to affect the way marketers, managers and policy makers think and organize their businesses. In Western culture, there has been widespread discussion on green related issues; however, different cultures are at an earlier stage in embracing this global change. Green Behavior and Corporate Social Responsibility in Asia seeks to apply this discussion to Asian culture, using case studies that reflect the reaction, response, managerial problems and success of seven Asian countries - India, Malaysia, Turkey, Brunei, Iran, Pakistan and Sri Lanka - in adopting green concepts. These concepts include: green organizations; eco-tourism; food loss and waste; recycling-reuse; waste management practice; green space; the plastic-bag free campaign; care for animals; and, corporate social responsibility. The cases outlined in this book illustrate how numerous companies and organizations operating in Asian countries incorporate green marketing and green management related concepts and issues into their strategy. It will appeal to researchers and practitioners, working in the fields of consumer behavior, human resource management, organizational behavior and sustainability.

This book includes the proceedings of the Mitigating Climate Change 2021 Symposium and Industry Summit (MCC2021), which brings together research from experts in academia, industry, and policy arenas to uncover the challenges, sharpen existing solutions, and formulate cutting-edge means to mitigate climate change. It highlights the need to create sustainable measures at all fronts including adaptation, policy, finance, renewable energy, solar, wind, thermoelectric, green transportation, and sustainable healthcare. This symposium will disseminate the state-of-the-art breakthroughs and promote collaborations to maximize opportunities for innovative solutions.

This book focuses on CSR in the public sector, in all its manifestations around the world, in order to consider its application in practice and its connections to sustainable objectives. This book is unique in that all chapters were written by members of the Social Responsibility Research Network. Their ideas have been tested and refined through the feedback given after they were presented at the 16th International Conference. The approach used in this book is based on the tradition of the Social Responsibility Research Network - a worldwide body of scholars that, over its 20-year history, has sought to broaden the discourse and to treat all research as inter-related and business-relevant. The book examines diverse aspects of how CSR and sustainability apply to, and are applied by, a variety of public bodies in a variety of ways. Thus, the authors focus on the priorities of these organisations, in order to consider the extent to which the focus has changed so much that we need to think about new approaches to our understanding of CSR and sustainability and differing effects in practice. The international mix of authors makes this an original contribution, sharing some of the best ideas from around the world

This book discusses sustainable development decision-making. Focusing on decisions to invest in wind turbine technology as part of a corporation's CO2 emission reduction strategy, it presents a new evaluation framework, based on the triple bottom line framework widely used by businesses to communicate their adherence to corporate social responsibility. This new framework allows the evaluation of strategic corporate decisions to invest in wind turbines to mitigate global warming in the context of a corporation's social responsibility, and includes an objective measurement stage to add rigor to the evaluation process. The book describes the use of measured data from wind turbine projects to both develop and validate the methodology, and also identifies key enablers and barriers as businesses attempt to successfully integrate corporate social responsibility into their overall business strategy. Given its scope, the book appeals to postgraduate students, researchers, and business professionals interested in the environmental impact of corporations. Featuring case studies from Ireland, it is particularly relevant to audiences within Europe.

This book explores vegetable fiber composite as an eco-friendly, biodegradable, and sustainable material that has many potential industrial applications. The use of vegetable fiber composite supports the sustainable development goals (SDGs) to utilize more sustainable and greener composite materials, which are also easy to handle and locally easily available with economical production costs. This book presents various types of vegetable fiber composite and its processing methods and treatments to obtain desirable properties for certain applications. The book caters to researchers and students who are working in the field of bio-composites and green materials.

This book provides cutting-edge scientific idea and novel concepts on the ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management. It begins by reviewing the scientific fundamentals and problems currently faced by conventional fisheries science, based on population dynamics. In turn, it reviews the theoretical basis of ecosystem dynamics, including selected ecosystem indicators. Surplus production and balanced harvests are discussed in the ecosystem dynamics context. Several ecosystem-holistic indicators are described, but particular emphasis is placed on two: the noxicline (gain in entropy due to loss of biomass) and resilience, which are expressed as ecosystem (holistic) points of reference for defining allowable harvest rates. Both biological (population) and ecosystem (holistic) points of reference are subsequently analyzed in the context of fisheries management and conservation. An adaptability concept is also discussed as a management policy for facing climate change. In closing, the concepts presented are applied to six study cases involving a range of different ecosystems and fisheries.

Nearly one-third of the land area on our planet is classified as arid or desert. Therefore, an understanding of the dynamics of such arid ecosystems is essential to managing those systems in a way that sustains human populations. This second edition of Ecology of Desert Systems provides a clear, extensive guide to the complex interactions involved in these areas. This book details the relationships between abiotic and biotic environments of desert ecosystems, demonstrating to readers how these interactions drive ecological processes. These include plant growth and animal reproductive success, the spatial and temporal distribution of vegetation and animals, and the influence of invasive species and anthropogenic climate change specific to arid systems. Drawing on the extensive experience of its expert authors, Ecology of Desert Systems is an essential guide to arid ecosystems for students looking for an overview of the field, researchers keen to learn how their work fits in to the overall picture, and those involved with environmental management of desert areas.

Ecosystem Service Potentials and Their Indicators in Postglacial Landscapes: Assessment and Mapping provides valuable guidance for anyone involved with ecosystem service potential monitoring, use and management-from landscape ecologists and environmental managers, to policymakers and environmental economists. The book highlights effective measurement tools for evaluating the overall potential of ecosystem services from multiple perspectives. Beginning with an introduction to ecosystem services and the theoretical assumptions and objectives associated with their assessment, the book goes on to outline interdisciplinary methods of evaluation and analysis that are fully supported and illustrated throughout using an insightful case study focused on Wigry National Park. A range of different spatial reference units are also discussed, followed by chapters on both analytical and synthetic approaches to identifying service supply potential. In addition, the use of services and the impact of these uses on the assessment of potential is included, along with a discussion of the future shape of ecosystem service assessment.

The Global Carbon Cycle and Climate Change examines the global carbon cycle and the energy balance of the biosphere, following carbon and energy through increasingly complex levels of metabolism from cells to ecosystems. Utilizing scientific explanations, analyses of ecosystem functions, extensive references, and cutting-edge examples of energy flow in ecosystems, it is an essential resource to aid in understanding the scientific basis of the role played by ecological systems in climate change. This book addresses the need to understand the global carbon cycle and the interrelationships among the disciplines of biology, chemistry, and physics in a holistic perspective. The Global Carbon Cycle and Climate Change is a compendium of easily accessible, technical information that provides a clear understanding of energy flow, ecosystem dynamics, the biosphere, and climate change. "Dr. Reichle brings over four decades of research on the structure and function of forest ecosystems to bear on the existential issue of our time, climate change. Using a comprehensive review of carbon biogeochemistry as scaled from the physiology of organisms to landscape processes, his analysis provides an integrated discussion of how diverse processes at varying time and spatial scales function. The work speaks to several audiences. Too often students study their courses in a vacuum without necessarily understanding the relationships that transcend from the cellular process, to organism, to biosphere levels and exist in a dynamic atmosphere with its own processes, and spatial dimensions. This book provides the template whereupon students can be guided to see how the pieces fit together. The book is self-contained but lends itself to be amplified upon by a student or professor. The same intellectual quest would also apply for the lay reader who seeks a broad understanding." --W.F. Harris| Deputy Assistant Director, Biological Sciences, National Science Foundation (Retired); Associate Vice Chancellor for Research, University of Tennessee, Knoxville (Retired)

Sustainable horticulture is gaining increasing attention in the field of agriculture as demand for the food production rises to the world community. Sustainable horticultural systems are based on ecological principles to farm, optimizes pest and disease management approaches through environmentally friendly and renewable strategies in production agriculture. It is a discipline that addresses current issues such as food security, water pollution, soil health, pest control, and biodiversity depletion. Novel, environmentally-friendly solutions are proposed based on integrated knowledge from sciences as diverse as agronomy, soil science, entomology, ecology, chemistry and food sciences. Sustainable horticulture interprets methods and processes in the farming system to the global level. For that, horticulturists use the system approach that involves studying components and interactions of a whole system to address scientific, economic and social issues. In that respect, sustainable horticulture is not a classical, narrow science. Instead of solving problems using the classical painkiller approach that treats only negative impacts, sustainable horticulture treats problem sources.

This Palgrave Pivot looks through social, economic, institutional, and environmental lenses to examine sustainable development in India and Bangladesh. The effects of climate change make this comparative study particularly pertinent, as rising sea levels and severe weather events will lead to displacement and migration, exacerbating existing issues. India and Bangladesh share similar cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds and, as a result, face similar challenges: rapid population growth, widespread poverty, food insecurity, and gender inequality. Developing a sustainable future will require policymakers to consider all of these elements in their efforts to create human security.

This book analyzes the theory of ecological engineering of human settlements and provides case studies on the improvement of degraded lands and vegetation restoration, especially focusing on saline-alkali land, abandoned land, water source areas, and the impact of green belts on noise and air quality on the highways. In addition, it discusses the issue of biodiversity conservation strategies in rural landscape construction and demonstrates experiment measurement and field survey methods. The results obtained are supplemented by numerical calculations, presented in the form of tables and figures. As the first monograph on this subject, the book provides a wealth of ideas and resources for researchers, professionals and practitioners in the field of human settlements.

This book provides a comprehensive, global exploration of the scale, scope, threats, and drivers of wildlife trafficking from a criminological perspective. Building on the first edition, it takes into account the significant changes in the international context surrounding these issues since 2013. It provides new examples, updated statistics, and discusses the potential changes arising as a result of COVID-19 and the IPBES 2019 report. It also discusses the shift in trafficking 'hotspots' and the recent projects that have challenged responses to wildlife trafficking. It undertakes a distinctive exploration of who the victims and offenders of wildlife trafficking are as well as analysing the stakeholders who are involved in collaborative efforts to end this devastating green crime. It unpacks the security implications of wildlife trade and trafficking and possible responses and ways to combat it. It provides useful and timely information for social and environmental/life scientists, law enforcement, NGOs, and policy makers.

One of the world's leading scholars of religious trends shows how climate change has driven dramatic religious upheavals. Long before the current era of man-made climate change, the world has suffered repeated, severe climate-driven shocks. These shocks have resulted in famine, disease, violence, social upheaval, and mass migration. But these shocks were also religious events. Dramatic shifts in climate have often been understood in religious terms by the people who experienced them. They were described in the language of apocalypse, millennium, and Judgment. Often, too, the eras in which these shocks occurred have been marked by far-reaching changes in the nature of religion and spirituality. Those changes have varied widely - from growing religious fervor and commitment; to the stirring of mystical and apocalyptic expectations; to waves of religious scapegoating and persecution; or the spawning of new religious movements and revivals. In many cases, such responses have had lasting impacts, fundamentally reshaping particular religious traditions. In Climate, Catastrophe, and Faith historian Philip Jenkins draws out the complex relationship between religion and climate change. He asserts that the religious movements and ideas that emerge from climate shocks often last for many decades, and even become a familiar part of the religious landscape, even though their origins in particular moments of crisis may be increasingly consigned to remote memory. By stirring conflicts and provoking persecutions that defined themselves in religious terms, changes in climate have redrawn the world's religious maps, and created the global concentrations of believers as we know them today. This bold new argument will change the way we think about the history of religion, regardless of tradition. And it will demonstrate how our growing climate crisis will likely have a comparable religious impact across the Global South.

This book is designed as a basic text for courses that are part of an interdisciplinary program in environmental studies. The intended reader is anyone who expects environmental stewardship to be an important part of his or her life, as a citizen, a policy maker, or an environmental management professional. In addition to discussing major issues in environmental ethics, it invites readers to think about how an ethicist's perspective differs from the perspectives encountered in other environmental studies courses. Additional topics covered include corporate social responsibility, ecological citizenship, property theory, and the concept of stewardship as a vocation.

The Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) was initiated by US President Bush on 31 May 2003. Its purpose is to prevent elements of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) from reaching or leaving states or sub-state actors of proliferation concern. Such states include first and foremost North Korea, but also Iran, the Sudan, Syria and Cuba. Countries publicly adhering to its Principles have grown from a core of 11 to more than 20, including in Asia, only Japan and Singapore.
Most WMD traffic moves by sea. The focus of the PSI is on interdictions and seizures. There have been 11 successful intercepts so far. This includes an intercept of WMD related materials to Libya that purportedly forced Libya to abandon its WMD programs. Moreover Liberia, Panama, the Marshall Islands and Croatia have signed bilateral WMD boarding agreements with the United States.
Although the PSI has made considerable progress, its aggressive promotion and implementation has created considerable controversy. It hasbeen criticized for lacking sufficient public accountability, stretching if not breaking the fundaments and limits of existing international law, undermining the UN system, limited effectiveness, and being politically divisive. Moreover, countries that are key to a successful PSI ---like China, India, Indonesia and South Korea---have not publicly joined the activity despite US pressure to do so, and Japan and Russia seem to be rather reluctant participants. Each is weighing the pros and cons of public participation.
The PSI has been cast upon already stormy political seas. In both Northeast and Southeast Asia, Cold War relationships and alliances are being stressed as the region's countriesre-adjust to each other, the United States and the new security environment. China's rise, Japan's drive to become a 'normal' country, and big power competition for influence in Southeast Asia set the political context. Within this context, maritime security issues are rising to the forefront of national concerns. Jurisdiction is creeping seaward and perceptions of threat and concepts of sovereignty are diverging, greatly elevating maritime sensitivities.
Options for increasing PSI participation and enhancing its effectiveness include changing existing international law; expanding existing conventions or developing a new one; obtaining an unambiguous empowering UN Security Council Resolution; obtaining NATO endorsement; arguing pre-emptive self-defense; and building a coalition of countries willing to perform such interdictions on each other's ships and aircraft or in or over their territorial seas. However each of these options has obstacles and limitations that must be overcome. The PSI has some ways to go before it becomes the comprehensive effective tool its founders envisioned.

1 Plantation forests and biodiversity: Oxymoron or opportunity? Forests form the natural vegetation over much of the Earth's land, and they are critical for the survival of innumerable organisms. The ongoing loss of natural forests, which in some regions may have taken many millennia to develop, is one of the main reasons for the decline of biodiversity. Preventing the further destruction of forests and protecting species and ecosystems within forests have become central issues for environmental agencies, forest managers, and gove- ments. In this di?cult task science has an important role in informing policy and management as to how to go about this. So how do industrial and other pl- tation forests 't into this? Plantation forests, comprised of rows of planted trees that may be destined for pulp or sawmills after only a few years of growth, appear to have little to c- tribute to the conservation of biodiversity. Yet there is more to this than meets the eye (of the casual observer), and there are indeed numerous opportunities, and often untapped potential, for biodiversity conservation in plantation forestry. With plantation forests expanding at a rate of approximately three million hectares per year, it is crucial to understand how plantations can make a positive contribution to biodiversity conservation and how the potentially negative impacts of this land use can be minimised. That is the topic of this book.

Phytoremediation Potential of Perennial Grasses provides readers with the knowledge to select specific perennial grass species according to site-specific needs. In addition, it demonstrates the potential opportunities for grass-based phytoremediation to yield phytoproducts, especially biomass-based bioenergy and aromatic essential oils as a green economy while in the process of remediating contaminated sites. The book brings together recent and established knowledge on different aspects of grass-based phytoremediation, providing this information in a single source that offers a cutting-edge synthesis of scientific and experiential knowledge on polluted site restoration that is useful for both practitioners and scientists in environmental science and ecology.

Living Deep Ecology: A Bioregional Journey is an exploration of our evolving relationship with a specific bioregion. It is set in Humboldt County in northwestern California, in the Klamath-Siskiyou bioregion. By focusing on a specific bioregion and reflecting on anthropogenic changes in this bioregion over three decades, Bill Devall engages the reader in asking deeper questions about the meaning we find in Nature. He addresses questions such as how do we relate the facts and theories presented by science with our feelings, our intimacy, and our sense of Place as we dwell in a specific bioregion. This book engages the reader to consider our place in Nature. Devall approaches the bioregion not from the perspective of agencies and government, but from the perspective of the landscape itself.

Advances in Ecological Research, Volume 61, the latest release in this ongoing series includes specific chapters on the Mechanistic links between biodiversity and ecosystem function, A multitrophic, eco-evolutionary perspective on biodiversity-ecosystem functioning research, Linking species coexistence to ecosystem functioning - a conceptual framework from ecological first principles, Species contributions to above and below ground biodiversity effects in the Trait-Based Experiment, Plant diversity effects on element cycling, Plant diversity effects on consumer community structure, stability, and ecosystem function, Plant community assembly and the consequences for ecosystem function, and more.

This book investigates how actors organize in order to solve a water quality problem. Research on the use of environmental resources has mainly focused on the circumstances needed for users to self-organize or to maintain an already sustainable way of resource use. Few studies have investigated the reasons why actors start to cooperate when they are faced with an environmental problem. Actor networks in three regions of the Rhine catchment area are scrutinized regarding a) actors' cooperation pattern when managing an environmental problem; and b) the factors that trigger actors in a common-pool resource situation to initiate cooperation. Water quality policy is analysed in two European countries - Germany and Luxembourg - and one non-European country - Switzerland -, providing an overview of the distinctive measures applied in these regions aiming to tackle the water quality problem of micro-pollutants in river surface water. Applying the social-ecological system framework (SESF) devised by E. Ostrom and her colleagues and Social Network Analysis (SNA), the current book combines qualitative and quantitative methods to answer the question of why actors cooperate in the management process of an environmental problem like water pollution.

In Nuclear Weapons and the Environment, John Perry highlights the environmental damage caused by nuclear device testing. The failure of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty and the continued proliferation of nuclear weapons is a grave risk to not only human life but to the environment. Pointing to the unstable political situation between a variety of state and non-state actors, the remediation of nuclear test sites, and the risks involved in the production of nuclear weapons, Perry makes a clear case for the dire importance of non-proliferation.

This book gathers selected papers from the International Conference on Sustainable Design, Engineering, Management and Sciences (ICSDEMS 2019), held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It highlights recent advances in civil engineering and sustainability, bringing together researchers and professionals to address the latest, most relevant issues in these areas.

Lough Neagh is the largest lake in the British Isles. It covers an area of 383 km2 being 30 km along its longest axis. From pre-historic times the lake and its rivers influenced the settlements of man in the role of a fishery and communication link with the interior of Ireland. Ireland's first canal, completed in 1787, linked the small but significant coal deposits of Tyrone to Dublin by way of the lough and later the Lagen Canal became an important commercial route to the new city of Belfast. Today, only sand barge transport persists but the lough supports Europe's largest eel fishery and provides commercial salmon, trout and perch catches, besides acting as an important centre for recreational pursuits. Increasingly it has become the major water resource for Northern Ireland supplying much of the demand for the heavily populated Belfast area. Biologically the lough is rich, sustaining enormous invertebrate populations of, for example, chironomids and gammarids alongside the comparatively exotic glacial relict, Mysis relicta. Its bird life makes the lough an area of very special conservation interest as a Ramsar site. The book describes the basic ecology of the lough with particular emphasis on both the interaction of the physical, chemical and biological components and the role of ecology in resource management. Extensive recent researches are set in geological, geographical and historical context and together with palaeolimnological studies of the sediments are used to trace major changes in the ecology of the lough under man's influence, especially in the past 100 years.