Much environmental activism is caught in a logic that plays science against emotion, objective evidence against partisan aims, and human interest against a nature that has intrinsic value. Radical activists, by contrast, play down the role of science in determining environmental politics, but read their solutions to environmental problems off fixed theories of domination and oppression. Both of these approaches are based in a modern epistemology grounded in the fundamental dichotomy between the human and the natural. This binary has historically come about through the colonial oppression of other, non-Western and often non-binary ways of knowing nature and living in the world. There is an urgent need for a different, decolonised environmental activist strategy that moves away from this epistemology, recognises its colonial heritage and finds a different ground for environmental beliefs and politics. This book analyses the arguments and practices of anti-GMO activists at three different sites - the site of science, the site of the Bt cotton controversy in India, and the site of global environmental protest - to show how we can move beyond modern/colonial binaries. It will do so in dialogue with Gilles Deleuze, Bruno Latour, Maria Lugones, and Gayatri C. Spivak, as well as a broader range of postcolonial and decolonial bodies of thought.

This book contains papers on the topics of brought together wetland SCientists from all wetland ecology and management, most of continents and provided an opportunity to exchange valuable information on a variety of which were presented at the 2nd International Wetlands Conference in Trebon, Czechoslovakia aspects on the ecology and management of wetlands. (13-22 June 1984). The conference, hosted by the Hydrobotany Department of the Institute of Botany, was organized by the Czechoslovak This volume contains papers that represent aspects of wetland management. Like most Academy of Sciences and the International ecological topics, the papers clearly Wetlands Working Group of the International Association of Ecology (INTECOL) with demonstrate that the science of wetland management is not evenly developed around the cooperation from the SCOPE (SCientific Committee on Problems of the Environment) world. In some areas, wetlands have not even Working Group on Ecosystem Dynamics in been adequately described and there is little Freshwater Wetlands and Shallow Water Bodies, information about the impacts that man is UNESCO Man and the Biosphere (MAB) having on them. In other areas, information on Program, International Society for Ecological wetland ecology and management has developed Modelling, and the International Society for to the point where regulations and laws provide Limnology (SIL). Partial sponsorship for the some protection against development. It is our conference and these proceedings was provided hope this collection of papers will demonstrate by UNESCO (Contract SCjRPj204. 079.

This volume is intended to provide an overview and scholarly analysis of state-of-the-art developments within the field of environmental simulation research. Environmental simulation involves the presentation of scale model previews, full-scale mock-ups, and computer images of planned environments and activities taking place within them to designers and to prospective users of those settings. Environmental simulations are under taken for many purposes, including (1) the training of environmental de sign students and professionals, (2) the assessment of people's environ mental preferences, and (3) the incorporation of observers' assessments of simulated settings into the planning, design, and renovation of actual envi ronments to maximize the degree of fit between occupants' needs and the arrangement of their physical surroundings. Environmental simulation research has expanded rapidly during the past two decades as the result of increasing collaboration between behav ioral and social scientists, environmental designers, and professional plan ners. During this period, alternative conceptual and methodological ap proaches to environmental simulation have emerged, and numerous programs of simulation research have been initiated worldwide. To date, however, no attempt has been made to present a comprehensive review and assessment of these research developments and an analysis of their implications for design and public policy. Accordingly, the major objectives of this volume are to provide an overview of key conceptual and meth odological advances within the field of environmental simulation research and to place these diverse developments within a broader scientific and public policy context."

Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology provides detailed review articles concerned with aspects of chemical contaminants, including pesticides, in the total environment with toxicological considerations and consequences.

Transdisciplinarity is a new way of scientifically meeting the challenges of sustainability. Indeed, interdisciplinary collaboration and co-operation with non-academic 'practice partners' is at the core of this; creating contextualised, socially relevant knowledge about complex real-world problems. Transdisciplinary Research and Sustainability breaks new ground by presenting transdisciplinary research in practice, drawing on recent advances by the vibrant transdisciplinary research communities in the German-speaking world. It describes methodological innovations developed to address wide-ranging contemporary issues including climate change adaptation, energy policy, sustainable agriculture and soil conservation. Furthermore, the authors reflect on the challenges involved in integrating non-academic actors in scientific research, on the tensions that arise in the encounter of theory and praxis, and on the inherently normative, political nature of sustainability research. Highlighting the need for academic institutions to be transformed to reflect transdisciplinarity, this timely volume will appeal to postgraduate students and postdoctoral researchers interested in fields such as Sustainability Science, Transdisciplinary Studies and Philosophy of Science.

This is the seventh volume in a series designed to publish theoretical, empirical and review papers on scientific human ecology. Human ecology is interpreted to include structural and functional changes in human social organization and sociocultural systems.

This work has evolved, by a process of updating and expansion, from Ecology of Woodland Processes by Packham and Harding (1982). It is based on the factors which govern the composition of woodland communities, but goes on to explore the dynamics of interactions between various ecosystem components. Topics of particular current interest include root productivity, competitive foraging by plants, patch dynamics and regeneration, the significance of so-called defensive compounds, population dynamics of forest insects, and a re-think of conventional ideas on nutrient cycling in tropical forests and on succession.

Demands for sustainability policies have set new challenges for business both on the individual firm level and on the level of organized business interests. This edited volume brings together economic, social, environmental, and cultural dimensions of sustainability that comprise different challenges for business processes and activities. The aim is to develop an overarching framework to the study of sustainability and business and to advance an interdisciplinary analytical perspective. The book establishes a balanced account that equally represents business as problem causers as well as problem solvers, and therefore responds to the urgent need to investigate the intersection between sustainability issues and business participation.

Research in Antarctica in the past two decades has fundamentally changed our perceptions of the southern continent. This volume describes typical terrestrial environments of the maritime and continental Antarctic. Life and chemical processes are restricted to small ranges of ambient temperature, availability of water and nutrients. This is reflected not only in life processes, but also in those of weathering and pedogenesis. The volume focuses on interactions between plants, animals and soils. It includes aspects of climate change, soil development and biology, as well as above- and below-ground results of interdisciplinary research projects combining data from botany, zoology, microbiology, pedology, and soil ecology.

Pine forests face a global threat of pine wilt disease, which is being spread by vector beetles carrying pathogenic nematodes from dead trees to healthy ones. Among the host pines there are varying degrees of susceptibility, and nematode strains also contain a variety of virulences, both of which factors help to determine whether infected host trees will die or survive. As well, biotic and abiotic environmental factors influence the fate of infected trees. This book describes the history of the disease, pathogenic nematodes, vector beetles, the etiology and ecology of the disease, microorganisms involved, and control methods that utilize host resistance and biological control agents. Concrete, comprehensive, and the most up-to-date knowledge about this worldwide forest epidemic is presented for readers, enabling them to understand the nature and epidemic threat of pine wilt disease.

This title was first published in 2000: The book analyses the development of arctic environmental cooperation since the late 1980s until the establishment of the Arctic Council in 1996. The study is based on the discourse analysis of statement, documents and interviews by the different actors in the cooperation. In this book, the problem of the environment is seen as a problem of order: it is a problem of ordering relations among related actors, of ordering priorities of action and of ordering relations between different institutional arrangements locally, regionally and internally. Three discourses were found in the cooperation: discourses of sovereignty, knowledge and development. In the discourse of sovereignty, the development of relations between state and indigenous peoples in terms of international environmental cooperation is central. In the discourse of knowledge, the different forms of knowledge and the role of different producers of knowledge in cooperation has been discussed. The discourse of development focuses on the idea of sustainable development and its applications in defining the future of the Circumpolar North and the activities of the Arctic Council. The arctic cooperation can be understood as a regional effort to make an order of sustainability into practice.

Since the late 1960s the Indonesian state of East Kalimantan has witnessed a marked increase in the impact of human activities chiefly commercial logging and agricultural exploitation. Located on the island of Borneo, East Kalimantan also was subjected to prolonged droughts and extensive wildfires in 1982-83 and 1997-98 that were linked to the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon. The changes in the rainforest ecosystem in East Kalimantan during this 15-year cycle of severe ENSO events are the subject of this book. With an eye toward development of rehabilitation techniques for sustainable forest management, the authors examine possible interactive effects of drought, fire, and human impacts on the flora and fauna of the area.

This book brings together research into the process of stream acidification and its impact on Welsh surface waters, carried out over the past decade or so. It is perhaps surprising that not until the 1980's was clear evidence of stream acidification assembled. In Wales, concerns over pollution had focused water quality sampling principally on the areas of traditional heavy industry and large urban popula tions served by inadequate sewerage systems and sewage disposal arrange ments. Mistakenly, it had been assumed that, with its prevailing westerly winds, Wales would receive precipitation substantially unpolluted by the industrial and urban emissions from Britain and mainland Europe. Assurance of the high quality of Welsh upland streams, the traditional nursery ground of salmonids, was eroded particularly by studies in the vicinity of Llyn Brianne reservoir in the catchment of the River Tywi of Central Wales. These demonstrated a clear correspondence between the biological quality and fisheries of streams in the catchment and aspects of stream chemistry, par ticularly pH, aluminium and calcium on the one hand, and catchment land use on the other. It is salutary to record that the first signals were of an inexplicable failure of the runs of migratory salmonids into the upper catchment, occupied by the Llyn Brianne reservoir and its influent streams, and the failure to restore the fishery by re-stocking with eggs and fry. Only then did the significance of the recent decline in some other upland lake and reservoir fisheries in Wales become apparent."

Alaska's great size is mirrored by the large number and diversity of its freshwater ecosystems. This volume reviews and synthesizes research on a variety of Alaskan freshwaters including lakes, rivers and wetlands. The vast range of Alaskan habitats ensures that the chapters in this book will provide valuable information for readers interested in freshwaters, particularly nutrient dynamics, biotic adaptations, recovery mechanisms of aquatic biota, stream succession and the management of human-induced changes in aquatic habitats.

This book discusses the concepts of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) that are the core of various paradigms used in strategic management to understand competitive advantage as well as flexibility in organizational boundaries. It serves as a valuable reference resource in the area of VUCA markets. An increase in the levels and types of uncertainty has important implications potentially for the durability of a company's advantages, the way firms learn and adapt, approaches for managing innovation and knowledge, and the attractiveness of different strategies and organizational models. In today's world, strategic flexibility in VUCA is essential for business leaders to sustain market advantage and attain a clear vision amid the chaos. Business leaders who stay focused and are aware of external volatility as the prevalent characteristic are successful, while those who are not flexible in this VUCA world and lock themselves into fixed positions lose out. The book includes empirical and conceptual research papers along with case studies and models discussing strategies for emerging markets in volatile and uncertain environments. It also covers a variety of issues, including innovation, people and processes, financial management, and leadership and strategies in VUCA markets. Apart from research fraternity and academia, the contents of the book will be useful for practitioners as well as industry watchers.

What lies beyond the era of fossil fuels? While most answers focus on different primary energy resources, "Energy Systems in the Era of Energy Vectors" provides a completely new approach.

Instead of providing a traditional consumption analysis of classical primary energy resources such as oil, coal, nuclear power and gas, "Energy Systems in the Era of Energy Vectors" describes and assesses energy technologies, markets and future strategies, focusing on their capacity to produce, exchange, and use energy vectors. Special attention is given to the renewable energy resources available in different areas of the world and made exploitable by the integration of energy vectors in the global energy system.

Clear definitions of energy vectors and energy systems are used as the basis for a complete explanation and assessment of up-to-date, available technologies for energy resources, transport and storage systems, conversion and use. The energy vectors scheme allows the potential realization of a worldwide sustainable energy system to fulfill global development expectations by minimizing both the impact on the environment, and the international political frictions for access to limited and concentrated resources.

"Energy Systems in the Era of Energy Vectors" is an informative read for researchers and advanced students in industrial, energy and environmental engineering. It also contains valuable information for managers and technicians working in the energy sector.

The purpose of this contributed volume is to consider how global consumption patterns will develop in the next few decades, and what the consequences of that development will be for the economy, policymakers, and society at large. In the long run, the extent to which economic growth translates into better living conditions strongly depends on how rising affluence and new technologies shape consumer preferences. The ongoing rise in household income in developing countries raises some important questions: Will consumption patterns always continue to expand in the same manner as we have witnessed in the previous two centuries? If not, how might things evolve differently? And what implications would such changes hold for not only our understanding of consumption behavior but also our pursuit of more sustainable societies?

The objective of the book is to make a comprehensive documentation of the observed variability and change of the regional climate system over the Indian region using the past observed data. The book addresses all the important parameters of regional climate system so that a physically consistent view of the changes of the climate system is documented. The book contains 16 chapters written by the subject experts from different academic and research institutes in India. The book addresses all important components/parameters of the climate system, like rainfall, temperature, humidity, clouds, moisture, sea surface temperature and ocean heat content, sea level, glaciers and snow cover, tropical cyclones and monsoon depressions, extreme rainfall and rainstorms, heat waves and cold waves, meteorological droughts, aerosols, atmospheric aerosols, ozone and trace gases and atmospheric radiative fluxes. One chapter deals with the past monsoon using monsoon proxy data. The last chapter deals with the future climate change projections over the Indian region (rainfall and temperature) made using coupled climate models. Most of the analyses (especially on rainfall, temperature, extreme rainfall, sea surface temperature, meteorological droughts) are based on the data for a longer period of 110 years, 1901-2010. For some other parameters like moisture, clouds, heat waves and cold waves, atmospheric aerosols, ozone and trace gases and radiative fluxes, data of shorter period have been used. The articles documented inter-annual and decadal variability in addition to documenting long term trends of different parameters. The trends have been tested for statistical significance using standard techniques. It is expected that the present book will be an excellent reference material for researchers as well as for policy makers. These results will be useful in interpreting future climate change scenarios over the region being projected using coupled climate models. Further analysis of these results is required for attributing the observed variability and change to natural and anthropogenic activities.

This book brings together a selection of 22 original studies submitted to Biodiversity and Conservation that address aspects of methods and practice in biodiversity conservation. The contributions deal with a wide variety of approaches to site selection and management, especially the use of bioindicators, surrogates, and other approaches to site selection. As no complete inventory of all taxa in any one site has yet been achieved, alternative strategies are essential and bioindicators or surrogates come to the fore. The articles included cover a wide range of organisms used in such approaches to in situ conservation: annelids, anurans, arthropods, birds, bryophytes, butterflies, collembolans, flowering pants, a lobster, molluscs, rodents, and turtles. Further, the habitats considered here embrace estuaries, forests, freshwater, grasslands, the marine, mountains, and sand-dunes, and are drawn from a wide range of countries notably Australia, Brazil, India, Italy, Mexico, Nigeria, Spain, Switzerland, Tanzania, and the U. K.

Cryopreservation, well established for ex situ preservation of bacteria and fungi, is shown here also applied to bryophyte conservation. Finance is always a problem, and the final contribution examines the sources of money available for conservation action in an examplar country, Mexico.

Collectively, the studies presented here provide a snap-shot of the range of methods and practices in use in the conservation of biodiversity today. This makes the volume especially valuable for use in conservation biology and biodiversity management courses.

Reprinted from Biodiversity and Conservation, Volume 18 No 5 (2009)."

We live in unprecedented times. Climate change and ecosystem collapse are altering our world beyond recognition, and a growing global population is exacerbating the pressure on the resources that power our economies. How should the private sector respond to the new risks and uncertainties of our Crowded Planet? Frugal Value contests the notion that companies can rise to the great challenges of our time by adopting so-called 'sustainable business' practices. Instead, the acute ecological crisis requires an all-round rethink of what business does, and how it does it. This book explores what business responsibility looks like today, and how it could be put into practice through far-reaching changes to companies, ranging from new approaches to product design and business models to reconfiguration of operations and innovative ownership structures. Frugal Value provides practitioners and scholars with the perspective and tools they need to design companies that help drive the socio-economic changes so urgently required for a sustainable and just world.

On 21 November 2007 the grand and elegant Delegates Hall of the Hungarian Parliament was the scene of the opening of a conference to discuss some of the most pressing issues of the day, those related to our unending thirst for energy, its environmental consequences, and the challenges that these bear on security. Over the next 3 days scientists, parliamentarians and their guests confronted, challenged, teased and cajoled each other in a NATO Advanced Research Workshop (ARW) entitled "Energy and Environmental Challenges to Security," affirming that knowledge and public service hold the keys to solving our greatest challenges. The magnitude of the security challenge was confirmed while this volume was being prepared. In mid-2008, the International Energy Agency issued a report concluding that US$45 trillion would be needed over the next half century to prevent energy shortages and greenhouse gas emissions from undermining global economic growth. But lest such large numbers cause us all to shrug, this volume brings attention to some of the more manageable aspects of the environment and energy security challenge - from addressing conflict resources such as illegal timber that contribute to corruption and regional instability, to means and mechanisms to enable the diversification of energy supplies, to environmental risk reduction strategies for particular installations. The participants in the Hungarian Parliament building were atypical for a NATO Advanced Research Workshop.

Floodplains are ecosystems which are driven by periodic inundation and oscillation between terrestrial and aquatic phases. An understanding of such pulsing systems is only possible by studying both phases and linking the results into an integrated overview.
This book presents the results of a 15-year study of the structure and function of one of the largest tropical floodplains, the Amazon River floodplain. It covers qualitative aspects, e.g., adaptations of aquatic and terrestrial organisms to the flood pulse as well as quantitative aspects, e.g., studies of biomass, primary production, decomposition, and nutrient cycles. The authors interpret their findings and the most important data from other studies under an integrating scientific concept, the Flood Pulse Concept.

Water is life. Managing water quantity and quality is a big part of human responsibility. Water Management and Sustainability in Asia covers topics related to water resources management, including multi- and interdisciplinary research on flood, soil infiltration, contaminants, sediment, water quality, hydrological modelling, and water resources systems. Presenting case-studies on soil infiltration and contaminants, the impacts of flood with risk assessment, as well as water modelling and management systems. The lessons shared in this volume focus on rapidly developing countries in the South-east Asia who have a complex climate system which presents challenges. This research provides models and projections that can support water management in the region.

This book, the second in Chapman & Hall's Wildlife Ecology and Behaviour Series, focuses on studies of both European and Siberian roe deer to provide an authoritative insight into their taxonomy, ecology, feeding patterns, social behaviour and population dynamics. It uses this information to tackle the fascinating question of what environmental factors underly ranging patterns and trigger migratory behaviour in some populations but not in others, adding new perspectives and depths to our understanding of general issues in behavioural ecology. This book is an important addition to the literature on ungulate ecology, offering for the first time in the English language, a distillation of the knowledge and understanding gathered in over twenty years' ground breaking research by Aleksey Danilkin and other Russian and Eastern European researchers on European and Siberian roe deer. Mark Hewison's extensive experience with European roe deer in France and Great Britain ensures the work presents a definitive and integrated analysis of the current state of knowledge on roe deer worldwide. Students and researchers in zoology, conservation, ecology and wildlife management as well as many naturalists will welcome this stimulating synthesis.