Geo-Geography and Environment最新文献

High conservation values (HCVs) are a set of characteristics or attributes that are considered to be of exceptional significance for the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Himalayan ecosystems are under constant threat due to the high dependence of local communities on natural resources, illegal wildlife trade, extensive use of medicinal plants and infrastructural development. This study provides a framework for HCVs assessment in the high-altitude landscapes of Himalayan ecosystems. Demarcation of HCVs was carried out using six sub-categories: Species Diversity (HCV 1), Landscape Level Ecosystems (HCV 2), Threatened Ecosystems and Habitats (HCV 3), Ecosystem Services (HCV 4), Community Needs (HCV 5) and Cultural Values/Identity (HCV 6). We have used a weighted multi-model approach to identify the HCVs in three high-altitude landscapes, namely Changthang, Gangotri-Govind and Darma-Byans-Chaudans of the Indian Himalayan region. Species distribution model (SDM), fragstat models (FM), landscape change model (LCM), ecosystem loss model (ELM), ecotone demarcation model (EDM), soil loss model, forest fire susceptibility model and groundwater potential zone model have been used for assessing HCV 1 to 4. Household survey and participatory GIS have been used for assessing HCV 5 and 6. The final high-priority high conservation values areas (HPHCVAs) were successfully demarcated based on expert opinions, stakeholder consultations and Indigenous People and local community (IPLC) engagements from the identified 1–6 HCV layers in the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) model. The study has identified 16 HPHCVAs in Changthang, 14 HPHCVAs in Gangotri-Govind and 9 HPHCVAs in the Darma-Byans-Chaudans landscape. These HPHCVAs represent areas within the landscapes that are critical for biodiversity conservation, ecosystem services, community needs and cultural values. The identification and demarcation of these areas can guide conservation efforts and prioritise resource allocation for their protection and sustainable management. Steps should be taken for the conservation of HPHCVAs by engaging local stakeholders for future planning and management of HCVs.

Environmental problems, notably deforestation and climate change, pose significant threats to humanity and demand urgent intervention. In Ethiopia, where these challenges are pronounced, addressing these issues requires a solid foundation of knowledge and positive attitudes, especially among young people. This study examines secondary school students' level of environmental knowledge and attitudes and the determinants related to deforestation and climate change in the Metekel Zone, Ethiopia. A cross-sectional survey was used for the study, and a total of 372 secondary school students selected through a multistage sampling technique from seven government secondary schools in the Metekel Zone were participants. Data were collected via standardised tests, questionnaires interviews and focus group discussions, and analysed via descriptive statistics, chi-square tests and binary logistic regression. The findings revealed that the knowledge levels and attitudes of secondary school students towards environmental issues related to deforestation and climate change were low. The results from the regression model revealed significant correlations between students' knowledge and attitudes, except for personal interest in environmental matters. A notable correlation comprises age, gender, residence, the educational level of the students' parents, the family income level, and the social environment, access to information, the students' grade levels and the students' participation in school-based environmental clubs. The study also identifies key barriers to students' environmental knowledge and attitudes, including curriculum challenges, resource gaps, low awareness, emotional detachment and limited personal agency. To inspire pro-environmental behaviours among students, enhancing environmental education in various disciplines to address gender, age and grade level variations, along with proper content integration of deforestation and climate change issues, promoting problem-solving approaches, strengthening extracurricular activities such as environmental clubs, exposing students to media, fostering partnerships for place-based learning initiatives, organizing workshops, incorporating localised and experiential learning and providing teachers with specialised training and resources are acclaimed.

Policy-makers and researchers are increasingly focused on the decarbonisation of clusters of energy-intensive industries. However, relatively little is known about the trajectory of different cluster decarbonisation initiatives. This paper aims to bring clarity to an emerging field. It highlights the evolving landscape of industrial decarbonisation initiatives, and the growing importance of clear definitions for effective communication and knowledge exchange among stakeholders. Drawing on insights from cluster theory, it proposes a typology of industrial cluster decarbonisation initiatives to understand and categorise different types of project. These four categories— ‘forerunner clusters’, ‘dispersed clusters’, ‘classic clusters’ and ‘dispersed sites’—allow a more focused understanding of the policy implications and challenges associated with each type. To demonstrate the application of the typology, the paper presents profiles of three cluster initiatives that illustrate some of the dynamics involved. Through this work, we seek to provide guidance for future research and policy development in the transition towards a low-carbon industrial future.

This paper argues for policy solutions addressing energy poverty to look beyond the level of individual households. Drawing on commons thinking and recent turns in geographical literature to the idea of commoning as a post-capitalist response to the managing of needs and resources, this paper addresses keeping warm as a human need that can be met collectively. Through empirical research in ‘warm spaces’, which are community-led responses to the growing problem of energy poverty in the United Kingdom, the paper reframes typical understandings of energy poverty as an individual or household problem by demonstrating the value of more collective responses. Community warm spaces in Devon were visited over the winter of 2022–2023, and qualitative interviews and focus groups were conducted with both providers and users. Using this evidence, we demonstrate that community warm spaces can also combat loneliness and isolation, providing a cross-benefit to simply staying warm. Energy poverty and food insecurity are also closely linked, and these spaces tended to address multiple needs that were exacerbated by high costs of living, poor housing and low incomes. The key contribution of this paper is that energy poverty should be framed as a social rather than an individual challenge, bringing commons-based approaches into the discourse on tackling energy poverty.

In the recent decades, the increase in irrigated agricultural areas has been a constant trend in the Mediterranean region, being concurrent with a reduction in the availability of water resources, due not only to an increase in demand but also to a reduction in supply as a result of the climate crisis. This study has analysed the evolution in land use changes between 1991 and 2021 in the Mediterranean region of southern Spain; the increase in the areas occupied by irrigated crops has been quantified; the climatic and edaphic dynamics linked to water risks have been identified, analysing the evolution of the annual precipitation, the number of rainy days and the distance to the wilting point of the soil; and, finally, it has been determined which factors are the most explanatory in this dynamic of land use. Using several machine learning methods, we could state how the current dynamics of land use are not in accordance with the availability and evolution of water resources, and how the areas where irrigated crops have increased the most are those where the climatic pattern shows a greater decrease in water resources, indicating how decisions on land uses are not done considering climatological conditions, but economic benefits.

As dominant approaches to biodiversity loss and climate change continue to fail in mitigating current socio-environmental crises, scholars and activists are exploring novel conceptual frameworks to drive transformative change in conservation. Among these, more-than-human care has emerged as a concept at the intersection of feminist debates about care and post-humanist discussions around the more-than-human. Although more-than-human care is increasingly referenced in the literature, it remains sparsely situated in the Global South. This article investigates the concept's potential to articulate care relations that can foster more plural, respectful, and transformative biodiversity conservation practices in local communities. Our research is situated in an artisanal fishing village in Brazil, where we engaged with both human and non-human members of the community to engage with their perspectives on more-than-human care and its relevance to their local concerns. From our analysis, four key dimensions emerged: the vital and everyday nature of caring; the relationality between humans and non-humans; reciprocity; and the fostering of flourishing for as many as possible. Our core argument is that the interaction between community practices and care theory enables new perspectives that center on daily and reciprocal care relations often overlooked in mainstream conservation approaches. By situating the conceptual potential of more-than-human care within the Global South, we underscore its ability to make the invisible visible and to inspire action for transformative change.

In light of the UK's 2024 general election and new government, UK policy on climate change is likely to see a shift in direction. This paper presents the proceedings of an event held at the UK Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) (RGS-IBG) in February 2024, exploring the path ahead for UK climate policy. Four expert panelists were asked to reflect on the achievements and shortcomings of climate policy over the past five years and to provide insights into the future of climate policy for the coming five years. Presenting the transactions of this panel, this dialogue paper aims to highlight the interrelationship between research and scholarship, media portrayals, and political discourse on climate change in the UK, demonstrating how preconceptions and dominant ideas in each sphere will shape action and policy in the coming years.

Field courses are widely regarded as integral to geography degree programmes, providing students with opportunities for experiential learning, often in unfamiliar international environments. Yet, this key area of pedagogy appears increasingly unsustainable and complex for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) within the context of the urgent need for decarbonisation, increasing financial costs, and the institutional challenges of comprehensively embedding necessary Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) considerations into these activities. Here, we report on a national-level workshop (April 2024) that brought together a wide range of HE practitioners to discuss the future of UK field course pedagogy, using the fieldwork principles adopted by the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) (RGS-IBG) in 2020 as a basis for framing future discourse. Using a Three Horizons approach to guide our conversations, we critically explored the (un)sustainability of current academic and institutional practices, alongside future directions and ‘disrupting’ (innovative) practices for promoting transformative change in this area of education. Here, we argue for two sector-wide discussions that require collaborative engagement with practitioners, institutions and students. Firstly, we highlight the urgent need for transparent and critical reflection on the challenges and hypocrisy of aeromobility in academia and the need for more widespread adoption of low-carbon (‘slower’) modes of travel. Secondly, we call for the immediate reconceptualization of field course pedagogy to place EDI considerations at the core of field course design and practice, aiding a transition towards Universal Design for Learning (UDL). As such, we call on the geography community in higher education to engage in critical reflection on how we take meaningful and urgent action to address the disconnect between our stated educational values around environmental sustainability and EDI, and our actual educational practices.

Large-scale marine protected areas (LSMPAs) are an increasingly important feature of global conservation as countries strive to meet international commitments to protect 30% of all land and sea areas by 2030. In this paper, we contribute to current interest in the imaginaries that underpin environmental governance. Drawing together work on spatial and sociotechnical imaginaries, we examine how ocean imaginaries get bound up with the rise of large, protected areas in the ocean. We develop a typology of three ocean imaginaries associated with LSMPAs, which is elaborated through an empirical analysis of the political discourse that surrounded the designation of 17 LSMPAs since 2010. We examine extracts of government statements, speeches and press releases predominantly in news article sources and government websites to consider how these ocean imaginaries are institutionally stabilised and aligned with advances in science and technology. Our analysis reinforces an understanding that the kinds of spatial imaginaries that are created for environmental governance shape and are shaped by policy and management strategies. We also find that both visions of ocean spaces and the social worlds that perceive them can be multiple. We contend that research and policy need to recognise LSMPAs and other area-based conservation measures as more-than-technical pursuits, and harness geographic scholarship to consider and enable a multiplicity of imaginaries in exploring options for environmental governance.

The transition to Net Zero marks a radical reshaping of many aspects of everyday life in the effort to reduce human-caused climate change. It also has the potential to influence positively a number of social challenges: improving public health, reducing the effects of poverty, increasing well-being and bringing neighbourhoods together. However, these positive outcomes are by no means a given. Households on low incomes are less resilient than ever following austerity, COVID-19 and the cost-of-living crisis. In this paper, we report on research undertaken in seven low-income neighbourhoods in Leeds and Newcastle in the UK, in which we ran a series of workshops to understand perspectives and concerns on this issue. We found that people's perceived ability to engage in Net Zero was shaped by the neighbourhood they live in (due to its geographical location, local services and infrastructure), their housing (the building and its tenure) and household (the people they live with) as well as by their inability to access funds. It is clear from our data that people have big concerns about their ability to participate in the substantial changes they can see ahead. Our research suggests that ensuring a successful Net Zero transition for low-income neighbourhoods will require a place-based and people-centred approach. We conclude by offering three principles for tailoring research and policy to specific geographic and socio-economic needs, including (1) recognising patterns of difference and their spatial and social roots, (2) bringing whole life experiences into narratives of the future and (3) prioritising social inclusion in climate policy.