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This paper examines the relationship between global energy security and climate change policy. There are growing concerns about the sustainability of the future supply of hydrocarbons. The energy system is the single largest source of anthropogenic greenhouse gases, therefore it is no surprise that decarbonising the supply of energy services is a key element of climate change policy. The central proposition of this paper is that the world faces a global energy dilemma: can we have secure, reliable and affordable supplies of energy and, at the same time, manage the transition to a low-carbon energy system? The paper is divided into five sections. The first section considers the contemporary challenges to global energy security, focusing on the possibility that in the future oil production might not be able to meet demand. The second section considers how the perils of climate change are forcing us to rethink the very meaning of energy security such that a low-carbon energy revolution is now called for. The third section explains that while the developed world is largely responsible for the anthropogenic carbon emissions currently in the atmosphere, a global shift in energy demand is underway and over the next 20 years it is the developing world that will contribute an ever-increasing share of global emissions. The fourth section introduces the notion of the global energy dilemma nexus to explain how the processes of globalisation are the driving force behind this global shift in energy demand and carbon emissions. The final section explains how the global energy dilemma nexus plays itself out in different ways across the globe. The conclusions suggest that human geography can make a significant contribution to social science research on energy security and climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many Aboriginal Australians in regional and urban Australia hold attachments to their homelands that have been compromised by policies of removal and dispossession. Government agencies and community groups have ‘protocols’ for engaging with Aboriginal communities, but these protocols have been transferred from remote parts of Australia where land tenure and rights are relatively secure and people can readily claim their community of belonging. The efficacy and applicability of engagement protocols are rarely evaluated, and have not been evaluated with respect to the differing tenure regimes of settled Australia under which rights to land and its resources remain contested and unfolding. This paper describes research conducted in three study areas of regional Australia, where resource management practitioners apply projects according to engagement protocols transferred from remote Australia. Analysis of government and community-based documents, and interviews with agency staff and Aboriginal people, identifies that genuine participation, cultural awareness, agreement-making, appropriate representation and the unique place-based factors affecting engagement remain key barriers to effective engagement with Aboriginal people by institutions in urbanising Australia. In particular, appropriate representation and a need for place-based approaches emerge as critical to engagement in settled Australia. This paper recommends that engagement be considered as a multi-layered approach in which generic ‘engagement’ threads are selected and re-selected in different combinations to suit contexts, places and purposes. Thus each place-based engagement initiative is not readily typified at the local scale, but taken together, make up a regional mosaic of different engagement structures and processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As concern about the sustainability of industrialised economies has increased, analysts have developed various indicator-based methodologies to explore environmental policy implications of human consumption and production activities. Critical and social constructivist theorists have challenged the presumption of objectivity underlying such research, however, by highlighting the role that social process and tacit assumptions play in accounts of human–environment interactions. While the ‘science wars’ hostility between realists and constructivists has abated and many in both camps agree that environmental analysts should be more open and reflexive about the empirical limitations of their work and its potential to encode social, political and cultural bias, practical guidance and clear examples for doing so remain rare. This paper is situated within this gap: it is at once an attempt by an environmental analyst to show what a ‘self-reflexive’ approach to environmental assessment might look like and a rumination on the opportunities and challenges that such an undertaking entails. At the same time, the paper makes traditional scientific claims to creating new knowledge and advancing methodological sophistication by identifying a general problem of spatial indeterminacy that limits the empirical basis of all manner of place-based environmental assessment. The paper uses a climate change-related case study regarding the attribution of carbon emissions from electricity use to various US states to show the strong, though generally unrecognised, representational and political implications that can be introduced through the common methodological responses to spatial indeterminacy. I argue that in such cases both positivist and constructivist approaches to understanding human–environmental relations are needed to thoughtfully navigate options for constructing indicators and analysing policy options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the environmental knowledge of small-scale rural landholders and comments on the implications of this for environmental policy. The paper draws on conceptualisations of knowledge as ‘know what’, ‘know why’, ‘know how’ and ‘know who’, recognises a distinction between tacit and codified environmental knowledges and highlights the need to consider the politics of knowledge surrounding environmental issues. Both quantitative and qualitative data are reported, and are derived from structured interviews with 30 small-scale landholders who were participants in a nature and landscape conservation initiative – the Landscape Heritage Scheme – within South Devon, England. These data are used to explore the place of environmental concerns within the land management objectives of respondents; the nature and extent of their environmental knowledge; how a range of factors alongside their environmental knowledge shaped the environmental practices of respondents; and the politics of knowledge associated with the Landscape Heritage Scheme. The paper suggests that small-scale landholders should be of interest to environmental policy, prioritising environmental objectives in their land management, being relatively knowledgeable about the environment and highly responsive to environmental advice and financial incentives that support environmental management. A case is made for developing research in this area, given ongoing processes of rural demographic change and the rising importance within this of an increasingly diverse landholding population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theory on environmental governance and water governance emphasises decentralised, devolved forms of interaction between stakeholders. As previously excluded actors are empowered to take part in governance, new forms of cooperation are created. This paper examines how the cooperative principle has influenced stakeholder interaction at the local and international scales of water governance in South Africa. Water policies and initiatives have been set up to promote multi-level governance that emphasises cooperation between various stakeholders. The emphasis on cooperation and inclusiveness is particularly pertinent to the South African context because of its apartheid past. The paper asks whether there have been new forms of cooperation between a wider array of actors, as the theory proposes. By using the case studies of the Sabie catchment and the Lesotho Highlands Water Project to examine local and international level governance, the paper finds challenges related to power disparity and interdependence of actors, and risk perceptions of inclusive decision-making. It is found that at both the local and international level, the state, which is a ‘traditional’ actor, still plays an influential role in decision-making. ‘New’ actors such as businesses, civil society, and regional institutions are more visible but have limited decision-making power. Non-linear, time-consuming forms of cooperation occur in water governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent years have seen a rapid rise in the political saliency of the ever growing volumes of municipal waste produced in the UK. In this paper, we examine how one particular part of the municipal waste stream – biodegradable waste – has come under the policy spotlight. As targets to divert biodegradable waste from landfill under the Landfill Directive come into force, the need to focus explicitly on recovering value from biodegradable materials has risen up national and local policy agendas, not least with the introduction of the Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme. Accompanying this new rationality for managing waste has been a suite of different policy interventions. In this paper we examine the impact of the changing nature of municipal waste policy and the ways in which it has sought to rework the disposal and collection of biodegradable waste. We argue that the predominantly technical framing and instrumental rationality of these interventions does not sufficiently challenge entrenched understandings regarding the boundaries between public and private responsibility for waste, and thus short-circuits their capacity to engage with everyday community/individual waste practices. In conclusion, we suggest that, in order to move waste management towards sustainability, there is a need both to engage with the institutional and infrastructural dimensions of the systems of provision within which waste management occurs, and to take seriously the everyday contexts within which making waste is practiced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, decentralisation has become the dominant paradigm for environmental governance. This paper explores the linkages between green governmentality approaches to subjectivity and Gramscian notions of hegemony to examine recent efforts in Rajasthan, India to decentralise groundwater governance through targeted formal regulations and outreach activities, such as water awareness campaigns ( Jal Abhiyaan). The latter seeks to alter the beliefs and practices of farmers by institutionalising their support for state groundwater conservation efforts, including privatisation. The paper draws on household surveys and interviews with farmers and government agents to examine the relationship between the political economic motivations for and practices of state subject-making and differential resistance to these efforts based on farmers’ multiple subject positions. Findings suggest, first, that the state is motivated through its monetary and advisory relationship with donor agencies, such as the World Bank. Through both outreach activities and coercion, it attempts to gain ‘consent’ for its proposals, which devolve state control rather than truly decentralising decision-making, to make self-conducting and willing subjects of specifically neoliberal groundwater conservation. But, second, these attempts are being resisted by some farmers through protests, informal discussions, non-participation, and the collectivisation of access to groundwater and irrigation through irrigation partnerships. Third, resistance to these efforts, or support for them, is different between farmers based on their multiple subjectivities (caste, class and ecological conditions). The paper advances both our understanding of the processes of environmental subject-making and of the devolution of environmental governance, by integrating the lessons from governmentality and Gramscian approaches to social power and subjectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 a number of academics published texts in attempts to make sense of the disaster. Frustrations and feelings of inability to do something useful to assist were expressed. The academic discussions arising from the disaster may be linked with more general discussions around conducting relevant and responsible research in the social sciences. This paper addresses the role of researchers in the aftermath of the tsunami disaster in Sri Lanka and explores how the debate following the tsunami can move on to refine researchers’ roles in geography by way of participatory action research (PAR), a research strategy that has received limited attention in research on disasters. The paper begins by situating the debate in the spatial politics of humanitarian work and academic research. Then discussions that arose among geographers in the aftermath of the tsunami are presented and potentials for conducting responsible research by engaging with the field are introduced. In the final section, starting with the notion of responsible research, how PAR can potentially bring us forward in developing principles and tools for more responsible geographical research in the context of emergencies is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to reconsider the contemporary relevance of the resource frontier, drawing on examples of nature's commodification and enclosure under way in the peripheral Southeast Asian country of Laos. Frontiers are conceived as relational zones of economy, nature and society; spaces of capitalist transition, where new forms of social property relations and systems of legality are rapidly established in response to market imperatives. Customary property rights on the resource frontier can be seized by powerful actors in crucial political moments, preparing the territorial stage for more intensive phases of resource commodity production and accumulation. Relational frontier space is understood through the work of geographers such as Doreen Massey, who views the production of space as ‘constituted though the practices of engagement and the power-geometries of relations’. In Laos, a twenty-first century resource frontier is being driven by new corporate investments in natural resources, and a supporting array of land reform programmes. The paper focuses on both the material and representational aspects of the production of the resource frontier, through policy and discourse analysis, and village level research in Laos’ Khammouane province. By rethinking a dualist and hierarchical-scaled imaginary of frontier places, both rural people and local ecologies are shown to be key actors, in a complex, relational reproduction of frontier zones. An emerging Lao spatial and political assemblage – a form of ‘frontier-neoliberalism’– is shown as producing dramatic changes in socio-natural landscapes, as well as new patterns of marginalisation and livelihood insecurity for a vulnerable rural population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the oil palm frontier regions of West New Britain and Oro provinces, Papua New Guinea, customary land tenure arrangements are changing in response to the growing demand for land for agricultural development. This paper examines one aspect of these changes, namely the gifting and selling of customary land for oil palm development to people who have no customary birthrights to the land. By analysing how access rights are maintained over the relatively long cultivation cycle of oil palm (approximately 25 years), and in the context of the rapidly changing socio-economic and demographic environments of the oil palm frontiers, the paper demonstrates that while land transactions seemingly entail the commodification of land, land rights and security of land tenure remain embedded in social relationships. For customary landowners, the moral basis of land rights is contingent on ‘outsiders’ maintaining particular kinds of social and economic relationships with their customary landowning ‘hosts’. In exploring how these social relationships are constituted through the performance of particular kinds of exchange relationships, the paper provides insights into relational concepts of land rights and how these are able to persist in Papua New Guinea's oil palm frontier regions where resource struggles are often intense and where large migrant populations are seeking land for agricultural development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to their dependence on a single crop, agricultural frontiers are often considered to be formed through phases of ‘boom and bust’. These phases are closely related to fluctuations in world market prices of the commodity that constitutes the frontier's economic basis. This paper demonstrates how although migration patterns and economic growth are conditioned by world market dynamics, local socioeconomic outcomes within frontier regions are diverse. Frontier formation is far from a homogenous process that slowly incorporates all localities and communities in the same way. Dak Lak Province, in the Central Highlands of Vietnam, produces more than 50% of Vietnam's coffee. As Vietnam is the world's largest exporter of Robusta coffee, Dak Lak is highly embedded in the dynamics of the world coffee market. Planned settlement in Dak Lak started in the 1950s and has continued in phases orchestrated by the state's changing economic, social and political motives. Spontaneous immigration has dominated since the early 1990s when the coffee sector took off and regulations on population mobility were relaxed. This paper shows how household livelihoods differ substantially between four communes in Dak Lak Province due to different combinations of migrant and indigenous groups, the ease of transport to the main urban centres, and the timing of coffee planting in the settlements. These temporal and spatial variations in livelihoods both condition and are conditioned by the organisational set-up of the local coffee marketing chain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the notion of frontiers as ‘in-between’ spaces that define particular transitions. Three contexts of frontier and their rapidly changing nature form the basis of the analysis. Agricultural frontiers (typically between farmland and forest) are defined by new relations of production and interplays between conservation, shifting modes of agriculture and natural resource use and management. Peri-urban frontiers (between countryside and city) are taken beyond their desakota/chaan-meuang locations to a more generic interplay between urbanity and rurality in defining livelihood and identity. National frontiers (between nation states with sharply different political and economic conditions) are transcended from above in the form of new regionalisms, and, from below, in migrations and other transboundary influences and flows. The paper proposes the frontier as both a spatial and temporal heuristic for understanding development and associated societal transitions in Thailand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integrated coastal zone management (ICZM) is a challenging process, defined by stakeholder engagement and underpinned by knowledge on the integrated behaviour of coastal systems. While significant advancements in ICZM have been made, a range of difficult and important questions about ‘integration’ remain to be explored. This paper discusses opportunities for addressing such challenges of integration through the application of geographical thinking to understanding and managing coastal environments. It focuses on geographical traditions on systems thinking, the process-based nature of geographic research and geographical contributions to conceptualising place and our relationships to it. Using UK-based case studies the paper explores integration challenges from three different coastal contexts and management perspectives, examining: adaptation through managed realignment in a local community, integrated flood risk management in London and the Thames Estuary and enhancing the ‘socially just’ nature of coastal management. The case-study discussion highlights the importance of ‘geographical thought’ to improving the integrative basis of strategies for managing complex coastal environments. This paper argues that ‘thinking geographically’ is one logical vehicle for increasing our understanding of, and providing solutions to, barriers which limit progress towards greater ‘integration’ in coastal management. Geography is dynamic, plural and based on the recognition that reality is contested and as such geographical ideas could add considerably to emerging cross-disciplinary knowledge on the interactions and interdependencies of behaviours within coastal systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a new discussion of the emerging governance regime for marine and coastal environments. It examines the evolution from a non-statutory to a statutory planning regulatory regime for marine aquaculture in Scotland. Specifically, the definition of development, which underpins the statutory operation of the terrestrial planning system, has been extended to include aquaculture developments within 12 nautical miles of the coast. This effectively expands the geographical territory over which land use planning controls operate in Scotland, and coincides with an emerging interest in the governance, planning and management of the marine environment. Taking into account the various controls put in place over time, the paper identifies the changing state–market–civil relations involved in this shift. Notably, over time, the state has progressively intervened in different ways to correct the perceived market failures associated with aquaculture and its environment. The analysis presented here illustrates the deliberate transition to a statutory planning context through a review of the steps taken by the stakeholders involved to devise a regulatory regime that better serves a contemporary social construction of the public interest. It provides evidence of an explicit attempt within the wider modernisation project to design an appropriate form of governance that is open, participative, accountable, coherent and effective. The paper suggests that the elaboration of such contemporary forms of active mediation remain iterative, partial and dysfunctional and points to an important research agenda to inform the emerging marine environmental planning and governance debates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effectiveness of institutional arrangements and policies for governance has become a key question within the sustainability paradigm. The term ‘Coastal Partnerships’ describes a variety of arrangements in the UK that bring together interested stakeholders to advocate sustainable management of the coast, based on the principles of integrated coastal management (ICM). This paper considers the unique role, achievements and challenges facing local Coastal Partnerships in the UK. The paper examines empirical evidence of how Coastal Partnerships are contributing to sustainable coastal management. The first section considers their shortfalls, the second section their achievements, and the final section discusses their potential role in the context of the evolving policy framework. The policy drivers include European Directives, the reform of the Terrestrial Planning System, and proposals for Marine Spatial Planning through a UK Marine Bill. The authors present a blueprint for the future of Coastal Partnerships, based on this policy analysis. The findings contribute to the ongoing debate in geographical literature on how the scale and structure of governance can be best organised to deliver local sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a case study from Sahelian Senegal, this paper analyses how various actors perceive the importance of pastoral mobility and presents issues of importance for understanding the use of mobility among Fulani of Ferlo. One knowledge system is a scientific one, the ‘new rangeland paradigm’. According to this, pastoral mobility is a means to balance variability in dryland resources; hence, ‘nature’ is the point of departure. Another knowledge system is local pastoral knowledge. For the pastoralists, the well-being of their animals is the point of departure and mobility is used to ensure that the livestock are in good condition. The paper shows that it is important to distinguish between mobility of pastoralists and of their herd; even though the pastoralists of northern Senegal have become semi-sedentary, their herds are still quite mobile. The pastoralists are willing to move around within a small territory, which they consider their place, but are unwilling to employ large-scale mobility themselves. Mobility is not of importance for their ethnic identity and some use paid herders to care for their livestock. By looking at both knowledge systems, we achieve a better understanding of pastoral mobility and how this may change in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Development geography has long sought to understand why inequalities exist and the best ways to address them. Dependency theory sets out an historical rationale for under development based on colonialism and a legacy of developed core and under-developed periphery. Race is relevant in this theory only insofar that Europeans are white and the places they colonised were occupied by people with darker skin colour. There are no innate biological reasons why it happened in that order. However, a new theory for national inequalities proposed by Lynn and Vanhanen in a series of publications makes the case that poorer countries have that status because of a poorer genetic stock rather than an accident of history. They argue that IQ has a genetic basis and IQ is linked to ability. Thus races with a poorer IQ have less ability, and thus national IQ can be positively correlated with performance as measured by an indicator like GDP/capita. Their thesis is one of despair, as little can be done to improve genetic stock significantly other than a programme of eugenics. This paper summarises and critiques the Lynn and Vanhanen hypothesis and the assumptions upon which it is based, and uses this analysis to show how a human desire to simplify in order to manage can be dangerous in development geography. While the attention may naturally be focused on the ‘national IQ’ variables as a proxy measure of ‘innate ability’, the assumption of GDP per capita as an indicator of ‘success’ and ‘achievement’ is far more readily accepted without criticism. The paper makes the case that the current vogue for indicators, indices and cause–effect can be tyrannical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to examine how value chains impinge upon firms within the Chilean wine sector. The value chain analysis will further link the production and export of wine in Chile with the import and retailing of this wine in one key core economy market, namely that of the UK. The analysis is divided into three sections. First, the political economy of value chains in agro-industry is discussed, particularly in relation to the distinction between network or quasi-hierarchical relationships. Then the paper examines the theme of retail concentration in the UK and the impacts that this has on global value chains which incorporate Chilean wine firms. The focus then moves to value chains and the nature of upgrading within Chilean wine firms by examining the strategic example of the lead firm and firm upgrading as a response to demands of UK retailers and through the flying winemaker model. Broad conclusions on the comparative nature of value chains and the scramble for value within them are finally made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sales in Fairtrade wine have been growing rapidly worldwide, and the UK is the most important market. This paper reports on an action research project undertaken with different economic actors along the value chain of a Chilean Fairtrade wine. The aim of the interdisciplinary project was to explore how the internet and tracking and tracing technologies could be used to render value chains more transparent for consumers and producers. An internet interface combined with a barcode-based data retrieval system could allow actors in the value chain to call up economic, social and environmental information about a product. Early findings from the action research process show that while supermarkets are the lead firms in the Fairtrade wine chain in terms of economic power, the producers and the Fairtrade certification body wield ‘moral power’ over other actors in the value chain. Fairtrade producers and the Fairtrade certification body relate to each other in cycles of mutual recognition, thus underpinning each others’ legitimacy and moral power. The paper argues that action research, in particular the positionality of the researcher team as a collaboration partner, can lead to a better understanding of the nature of linkages and power relations between the economic actors in value chains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a new discussion of how people learn through deliberative processes, drawing upon empirical analysis of a novel public engagement process for urban river restoration. Such critical evaluation is rare and yet will be crucial to both theoretical development and learning about engagement practice, not least in a policy area subject to strong regulatory drivers for public participation. The analysis supports two important learning mechanisms – the use of ‘gatekeepers’ of knowledge, interests and values, and the privileging of narrative. It provides new evidence of instrumental and communicative learning about shared priorities and criteria for effective river restoration that evolved through the deliberative process and directly informed the restoration scheme. It is important to question whether and how such site or context-specific learning might inform other restoration schemes. Finally, the paper questions the often ignored issue of expert learning, not least the issue of the link between individual and organizational learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the challenges facing English flood risk management (FRM) policy and practice when considering fair decision-making processes and outcomes at a range of spatial scales. It is recognised that flooding is not fair per se: the inherent natural spatial inequality of flood frequency and extent, plus the legacy of differential system interventions, being the cause. But, drawing on the three social justice models – procedural equality, Rawls’ maximin rule and maximum utility – the authors examine the fairness principles currently employed in FRM decision-making. This is achieved, firstly, in relation to the distribution of taxpayer's money for FRM at the national, regional and local levels and, secondly, for non-structural strategies – most notably those of insurance, flood warnings and awareness raising, land use control, home owner adaptation and emergency management. A case study of the Lower Thames catchment illustrates the challenges facing decision-makers in ‘real life’: how those strategies which appear to be most technically and economically effective fall far short of being fair from either a vulnerability or equality perspective. The paper concludes that if we are to manage flood risk somewhat more fairly then a move in the direction of government funding of nationally consistent non-structural strategies, in conjunction with lower investment decision thresholds for other local-level FRM options, appears to offer a greater contribution to equality and vulnerability-based social justice principles than the status quo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After considering how well Azerbaijan's economy follows the trajectory of a ‘resource curse’ state, this paper investigates the political dimensions of the resource curse evident in Azerbaijan. Of particular interest is how Azerbaijan appears to establish external and internal political legitimacy. These dimensions of sovereignty are not necessarily balanced or present in equal measure. The paper assesses the recent transition in leadership in Azerbaijan as well as Azerbaijan's interactions with, and assessment by, the international community. Additionally, national survey data provide insights into public concerns, satisfaction with government policy, and views on democracy and freedom of expression. The paper concludes that at present there appears to be sufficient public expectation for future benefits, combined with institutional stability, to stave off widespread political instability for the time being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local knowledge has played an active role in the lives of rural communities in virtually every part of the world. In Jamaica, traditional cropping systems based on local informal knowledge have been practiced since the days of slavery and play a vital role in meeting food security. Yet, some negative attitudes remain about the legitimacy and relevance of small-scale farmers’ local and traditional knowledge. This paper discusses some conceptual and empirical issues related to the application of local knowledge among small-scale food farmers in central Jamaica. The paper argues that contextually speaking, local and traditional knowledge is valuable, adaptable and necessary in coping with risk and uncertainty in a changing world, while cautioning against a misguided notion of traditional knowledge as a panacea to all the ills of local agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines social, political and economic processes within the former KaNgwane bantustan to understand the changing relationships between society and space in the post-apartheid era. Research on rural development and reconstruction in South Africa attest to the spatial legacy of apartheid while suggesting that dynamic transformations are occurring within the former bantustans. A central concern of this paper is the ways the apartheid government constructed and presented KaNgwane as a development project in order to justify racial segregation and control. While the bantustans have been effectively erased from the popular imagination, these spaces continue to be framed developmentally in ways that provide limited attention to local context and change. In order to consider the shifts in environment and development discourses within these territories, a case study is employed to evaluate livelihood production systems, environmental change, and governance institutions. It is argued that these patterns reveal the simultaneously static and dynamic nature of the bantustans while demonstrating that their reincorporation will remain an ongoing process in the post-apartheid era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the spatial impact of land reform and the redrawing of internal boundaries on South Africa's former bantustans. It argues that, in contrast to the democratic government's intention to use land reform and boundary demarcation to effectively change the spatial legacy of apartheid, these processes tend to cement the geography of the former bantustans. Though earlier research correctly projected that post-apartheid policies could result in the enlargement of the areas of the former bantustans, the ways in which this could happen were still unclear. This paper draws on experiences of land reform and boundary demarcation to demonstrate how and why the areas of the former bantustans have been enlarged over the 12 years of democracy in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to contribute to Rwanda's ongoing restructuring of protected area management. The early part of the paper draws on experiences elsewhere in Africa, as well as key contexts in Rwanda, to assert that conservation of national parks may best be served by flexible and inclusive partnerships that seek to integrate conservation activities across different agents and scales. This assertion is then explored more critically through empirical research that investigates the views of potential conservation partners. The findings suggest that attempts to develop partnerships that are built around national parks will face difficulties. Whilst there is a general willingness to be further involved in park management, this is complicated by cleavages in beliefs about how wider participation might be implemented. In particular, it is only international conservation NGOs that currently seem to be comfortable with the national park approach to conservation management: only they see themselves as having the expertise to be decision-making partners and only they would want their role in a partnership to be formalized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whatever their eventual outcome, the current round of international trade negotiations taking place as part of the Doha Development Round offers a clear demonstration of the growing influence of a neoliberal agenda for international agricultural policy reform. Despite being powerfully supported by an alliance of agribusiness interests and country groupings, neoliberalism is far from universally accepted as the model for the future governance of an agriculture which is both commodifying and market led. This paper assesses the nature of the resulting debate and the range of alternative visions being proposed. It analyses the development of the European negotiating stance within the current round of trade talks and compares the merits of a decoupled policy approach to managing the rural environment with one much more closely linked to the practice of farming. The paper concludes by suggesting that an outcome of the continuing liberalization of agricultural policy will be a more demarcated countryside, in which productive and internationally competitive operators will increasingly be removed in space and in terms of policy treatment from the large number of economically marginal producers whose role will be to supply the public environmental goods under contract from the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been particular interest in ‘alternative’ food over the last 10 years, with many policymakers and researchers throughout the Minority World following a growing number of consumers and producers in supporting organic farming and a host of ‘alternative’ food networks. To date, there has been a tendency for theory and policy to emerge somewhat divorced from the grounded practices and experiences of producer-suppliers themselves within these networks. Urging a shift from ‘alternativity’ to ‘sustainability’ as a more critical and valuable tool to analyse food networks, this paper draws upon in-depth ethnographic research with small-scale producer-supplier case studies in south Wales and southern Ontario. In so doing it explores often overlooked voices and stories within sustainable food discourses. Focusing on the value of farmer-led understandings and responses, the paper highlights important implications for policymakers and consumers and outlines future research on sustainable food networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the struggle against malaria undertaken by the fascist regime in the Pontine Marshes, south of Rome, and relates it to discourses of domination of nature on the one hand, and modernization and civilization through technological networks such as health and medical networks on the other. The marshes’‘first nature’ is described first of all, focusing on malaria and the difficulty of making an impact on marsh biology before the fascist enterprise and before the large-scale employment of modern technology for the subjugation, channelling and development of the marshes. Secondly, the paper focuses on the organization of medical anti-malaria networks in the marshes during the years immediately preceding and during the fascist period (1922–43). Thirdly, the ‘second nature’ produced in the marshes following the land reclamation and anti-malaria projects is examined, and an assessment is provided of the fascist anti-malaria project in the marshes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neoliberal restructuring in Morocco has been taking place for over twenty years. Beginning with a decade of structural adjustment, from the early 1980s to the early 1990s, parts of the public sector have been privatized, state services such as health care and education reduced, tariffs lowered and exports heavily promoted. In the dryland agricultural areas, a declensionist colonial environmental narrative has been appropriated to help justify and implement the neoliberal goals of land privatization and the intensification of agricultural production in the name of environmental protection. This paper contributes to areas of growing interest for geographers through an analysis of the underexplored relationship between neoliberalism and environmentalism, in the form of questionable environmental narratives, in Morocco. Land degradation in the dryland agricultural areas of Morocco is commonly blamed on overgrazing by local pastoralists despite existing documentation that suggests instead that ploughing of marginal lands and over-irrigation are the primary drivers of land degradation in the region. The deployment of this colonial environmental narrative of ‘native improvidence’ has facilitated an expansion of state power over collective rangelands under neoliberalism at the same time that government involvement has decreased in other sectors. The effects of neoliberalism in Morocco have been complex and thus the paper argues that current neoliberal reforms such as the Morocco–US free trade agreement need to be scrutinized carefully to prevent a further exacerbation of poverty as well as to prevent further land degradation in these areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores some of the ways in which a dialogue between development and postcolonial scholarship might contribute to the theorizing of transnational networks in contemporary development. It does so through consideration of three inter-related themes: epistemologies, spatialities and ethico-politics. The discussion of epistemologies points to the potential benefit in reworking the analysis of the relationship between structure and agency in networks, whereas the discussion of spatialities focuses attention on the interface between the global and the local. Dialogue between development and postcolonial approaches also creates space for considering the politics and ethics of transnational development networks. In particular, this discussion prompts challenges around how to ethically research subaltern knowledge in transnational development networks, including how to trace the translation and redeployment of subaltern knowledge through networks. Consideration of these themes highlights not just overlaps and disjunctures between development and postcolonial approaches, but opportunities for further dialogue and future research on transnational development networks. To illustrate the points made in the paper, examples are drawn from Slum/Shack Dwellers International (SDI), a transnational network of civil society organizations working with urban poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between mainstream development policy (and perhaps also development studies) and postcolonial theorists has often been characterized as a dialogue of the deaf. Rather like in the old ‘debates’ between adherents of modernization and neo-Marxist theories, the protagonists are often thought to be talking at or past one another, rather than with each other. This paper reassesses some firmly held views on both sides of the schism. On the one hand, many official development agencies appear to promote business as usual (often quite literally, as a recent War on Want report attests in the case of the UK's DFID using its aid budget to promote profitable opportunities for British corporations). On the other hand, some postcolonial purists rely on surprisingly modernist, totalizing discursive techniques while claiming post-structural credentials, or baulk at the prospects of practical engagement. Discrepancies between theory, discourse, policy and practice are not the preserve of one side. However, the middle ground is firmer and better trodden than most believe. Considerable progress has been made and the paper assesses examples of productive engagement and concludes with suggestions for carrying forward the challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Post-colonial critiques of development reveal the neo-colonial potential of the development project, embedded in the imbalances of power in relations between West and East, First World and Third World. One of the core responses to the challenge of such a critique has been to turn to new participatory approaches that privilege local knowledges, locally defined needs and priorities, above the vagaries of aid agencies or the ‘expertise’ of development professionals. In this paper I argue that such a shift in development discourse and method has had a significant impact on the discursive practices of professionalism and professional responsibility. Drawing on ethnographic research with development professionals in northern Thailand, I argue that participation has emerged as a new orthodoxy among development professionals who seek to identify themselves as ethical and moral agents of an emancipatory development project. The rise of such orthodoxy has had clear impacts in terms of fostering the emergence of local organization and advocacy groups. At the same time, however, this paper considers how a ‘pro-local’ orthodoxy may also be having dis-enabling effects for the very project of emancipation that professionals wish to carry out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Moshav, a family farm-based settlement, has been a prime example of the major changes in the rural space in Israel. The aim of this paper is to present and understand these changes by studying the economic characteristics of second-generation – that is relatively younger – households in the Moshav. This group has shown a higher tendency to either adopt a livelihood strategy of pluriactivity, or to disassociate itself from agriculture in favour of non-agricultural income-generating activities, both inside and outside the settlement. Both trends have emerged in response to the increasing difficulty of deriving income from agriculture. The paper identifies the major patterns of economic activity and income sources among this group and assesses future attitudes towards operating the farm, choosing pluriactivity as a livelihood strategy, and remaining on the farm in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much research in recent years has addressed the contribution of indigenous knowledge (IK) to development initiatives in developing countries. An IK system that continuously evolves and adapts in response to environmental and socio-economic change is often considered to be at the core of sustainable natural resource management practices and rural livelihoods. In the context of indigenous wetland management in western Ethiopia, this paper examines the relationship between IK and wetland sustainability, focusing on the mechanisms through which IK evolves and how local adaptive capacity is built up. A series of participatory research activities undertaken in four wetland communities revealed spatial variations in the degree of innovation and communication taking place. The paper argues that these mechanisms are key factors influencing adaptive capacity, suggesting a key link between wetland sustainability and the occurrence of innovation and communication among communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to wider debates on the dominant factors determining the emergence and sustainability of intermediate systems of forest management in developing countries. The theoretical framework and propositions for analysing tree integration in homestead farms are presented, with reference to southeast Nigeria. The paper argues that, first, at the household level, livelihood strategies constitute the main determinant of the decision to integrate trees in homestead farms. Secondly, induced innovation has a wider and more significant role at the community level than at the household level in encouraging the integration of trees in farms. Thirdly, the sustainability of observed patterns of tree integration is influenced by the interaction of environmental, ecological, political, economic and social factors. Based on these propositions, the paper analyses the internal (household) and external (wider community) factors influencing tree integration in homestead farms in southeast Nigeria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tin mining carried out on the Jos Plateau since the beginning of the last century has disturbed some 320 km2 of agricultural land. Formal attempts at reclamation of this land failed, but local farmers have developed a successful informal strategy for reclamation. This paper reports on a study undertaken to comprehend the farmers’‘informal’ approach to soil fertility management. Their soil fertility management practices centre on the use of a complex combination of traditional organic manures and ‘modern’ inorganic fertilizers that they have developed entirely on the basis of experimentation. A central focus of this paper is therefore the empirical knowledge base of the farmers and an assessment of any underlying scientific explanations for their strategies, including an analysis of their assertion that different brands of NPK fertilizers differ in their nutrient value. This discussion is followed by a consideration of the difficulties in accessing and understanding empirical knowledge. It is concluded that farmers’ knowledge and understanding of the values of different fertilizers and manures does have a scientific basis. It is argued that for further agricultural development to take place on the Jos Plateau, there must be synergy between farmers’ empirical knowledge (which has led to the development of successful and effective soil fertility management strategies, unlike the attempts of the local ‘scientific’ communities) and scientific knowledge (which can identify health and environmental hazards which may not be immediately visible to farmers). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last 15 years there have been dramatic shifts in the consensus over how best to cope with natural hazards in economically developing regions such as South America. One very positive outcome of the United Nations sponsored International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR 1990–2000) has been that there is now greater interchange between the work of earth scientists examining the processes and mechanics of hazard occurrence and impact, and social scientists exploring the causes of human vulnerability to hazard – and thereby disaster. This paper traces the development of this new understanding with reference to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions in Peru, one of the most hazardous countries in South America. Particular focus is placed on the excellent progress currently being made by scientists in better understanding the physical dimensions of natural hazard exposure, and the ground-breaking work by social scientists in promoting new approaches to understanding and mitigating human vulnerability to disaster. The paper concludes by emphasizing the need to build on this research to produce more inclusive, incultured and unified strategies of disaster mitigation at the local, national and international levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Cerrado, the tropical savanna covering 22% of Brazil's territory, or approximately 1.783 million km2, has suffered significant human impacts during the past three decades. This paper re-examines estimates of Cerrado vegetation change dynamics using high-resolution satellite remote sensing data from an area of interest extracted from eastern Mato Grosso State. This region has undergone a high degree of typical agricultural development since the early 1970s. Results indicate significant loss of original vegetation as well as high levels of regeneration, suggesting Cerrado vegetation may be more resilient to human impacts than catastrophic estimations suggest. The paper concludes with a critical review of Cerrado land-cover change studies and the implications of evidence for vegetation regeneration, land-cover dynamism and land-use intensification, paying particular attention to spatial scale and research methods. The discussion concludes that Cerrado land-cover change studied at a higher resolution and larger scales (smaller area) is required to represent more effectively the complexity of land conversion for better assessment of human impacts and environmental policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From 1899 to 1939, Halford Mackinder was active in imperial affairs. In 1899, the same year he climbed Mount Kenya, he set out the case for free trade. Rapidly he converted to imperial protectionism, left the Liberal Party and joined the Conservatives. Mackinder, along with his associates in the Conservative Party, Leo Amery and Lord Milner, promoted the cause of imperial unity and imperial preference in trade. During the period 1899–1903, Mackinder's evolving ideas about empire helped shape the Pivot paper, and he spelt out a prescription to avoid imperial decline: bind Britain and the Dominions into a League of Democracies with one fleet and one foreign policy, and encourage economic growth within the empire by a system of tariffs that promoted imperial trade. In Mackinder's parliamentary career (1910–22), his party was never in power and the Liberals retained free trade. Only after World War I, at the end of his parliamentary career, did Mackinder become active in imperial policy as chair of the Imperial Shipping Committee and the Imperial Economic Committee. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the geographical work of Peter Kropotkin and Halford Mackinder, making clear the political choices behind their very different geographical imaginations. Both writers responded directly to Keltie's report on geographical education and the paper uses these manifestoes as the starting point for an analysis of their relations to geographical thought and geographical institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes that, although Mackinder never mentions New Zealand in his influential 1904 paper and despite the absence of a formal Kiwi geopolitical tradition,‘The geographical pivot of history’ provides a useful framework with which to approach New Zealand geopolitics. The argument uses two Mackinderian ideas to suggest three phases in New Zealand's security relationships during the Mackinder century. First, New Zealand's commitment to Mackinder's‘pivot area’ notion of‘imperial defence’ and‘collective security’ characterized its dependent security phase. Between 1973 and 1990/91 there was a transitional security phase towards Mackinder's second‘global interconnectedness’ idea. Third, this shift led to a current interdependent security phase which is characterized by the recognition that New Zealand's security relationships, despite its geographic isolation, are mutually dependent on political, economic, and military events around the world. The impact of 11 September 2001 and the consequent‘war on terror’ are also considered. The paper concludes by suggesting that New Zealand's post-conflict reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq point to the continuing relevance of Mackinder's‘The geographical pivot of history’ to New Zealand geopolitics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the concept of sustainable tourism and how it applies to urban destinations such as Singapore. As tourism is an important industry in Singapore, in terms of employment, business activity and an income generator, the Singapore Tourism Board is continuously looking at potential avenues to make Singapore a competitive destination. We examine the use of thematic zones in Singapore as a strategy to achieve its ambition of becoming a tourism capital of the world. By focusing on a case study of the Singapore River thematic zone (one of the 11 thematic zones identified by the Singapore Tourism Board), we assess the viability of thematic zones in ensuring sustainable urban tourism. The paper closes with some theoretical reflections and policy implications arising from our key findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental justice is both a vocabulary for political opportunity, mobilization and action, and a policy principle to guide public decision making. It emerged initially in the US, and more recently in the UK, as a new vocabulary underpinning action by community organizations campaigning against environmental injustices. However, as the environmental justice discourse has matured, it has become increasingly evident that it should play a role in the wider agendas for sustainable development and social inclusion. The links between sustainability and environmental justice are becoming clearer and more widely understood in the UK by NGOs and government alike, and it is the potential synergy between these two discourses which is the focus of this paper. This paper argues that the concept of ‘just sustainability’ provides a discourse for policymakers and activists, which brings together the key dimensions of both environmental justice and sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at how the term ‘sustainable development’ has been used in the process of regional plan making over the past decade. It emphasizes the differing geographies of these debates within England, in terms of how sustainable development has been used to justify different types of approach in different parts of the country. Both drawing on and challenging recent work on state theory, the paper argues the need to see regional planning as a part of a multi-scalar governance system, whose importance should not be underestimated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the influence of ecofeminism on policy concerning gender (in)equality and the environment during the past 20 years. It reviews the broad contours of the ecofeminist debate before focusing on the social construction interpretation of women's relationship with the environment. It will argue that there have been substantial policy shifts in Europe and the UK in both the environmental and equalities fields, and that this is in part a result of lobbying at a range of scales by groups informed by ecofeminist debates. Nevertheless, the paper cautions that these shifts are largely incremental and operate within existing structures, which inevitably limit their capacity to create change. As policy addresses some of the concerns highlighted by ecofeminism, academic discourse and grass roots activity have been moving on to address other issues, and the paper concludes with a brief consideration of contemporary trajectories of ecofeminism and campaigning on issues that link women's, feminist and environment concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how transnational gold mining operations are transforming rural household livelihoods in the Cajamarca region of Peru. In particular, this paper evaluates how Newmont Mining Corporation's Minera Yanacocha (MYSA) mining operations are altering access to the produced, human, natural and social capital resources that households utilize to produce their livelihoods. The paper argues that while access to produced and human capital resources has increased in the past decade, albeit unevenly, access to natural and social capital resources has declined. The paper begins with a discussion of new frameworks for evaluating local livelihood change and household access to resources. Subsequently, the paper describes Peru's new transnational mining sector, livelihoods and livelihood change in the Cajamarca region. The paper then presents the results of case study field research evaluating the impacts of MYSA on household access to resources in three communities. Finally, the paper concludes with a critical discussion of livelihoods frameworks and how they can contribute to geographic studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the interrelationship between urbanization and water supply privatization in cities in the global South. The purpose of the paper is not to evaluate the impacts of privatization; rather, the paper analyses the differences in pathways and modes of water supply privatization, focusing on urban and contrasting with rural areas. A distinction is drawn between privatization (organizational change) and commercialization (institutional change) of water supply. Emphasis is placed upon the interrelationship between regulatory change (a shift from public to private management of water supply systems), human use of and access to water, and urban waterscapes. In contrast to metaphors of ‘networks’ so often applied in analyses of water management, the ‘archipelago’ is posited as a metaphor which better captures the complex overlapping strategies of water supply provision in urban areas in the South. Building on this metaphor, and in response to the ‘public–private’ dualism often invoked in studies of privatization, the paper outlines an alternative typology of water management in urban areas in the South. This typology foregrounds the concepts of the territorialization of corporate power as a means of understanding the articulation between privatization and urbanization processes in the South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Structural adjustment and neoliberal policy implementation in Latin America have had dramatic consequences for livelihoods and patterns of natural resource use in mountain regions. Restructuring of the agricultural economy has increased socio-economic hardship and reduced industrial labour requirements, altering traditional patterns of seasonal migration from these areas. This paper examines the implications of recent economic and political transformation for Andean livelihoods in the mountains of north-west Argentina. Case study material illustrates the local impacts of such changes on socio-economic dynamics, patterns of urban–rural interaction, and natural resource use. The research highlights the influence of agro-industrial restructuring, protected areas creation, and the distribution of social funds in the region. It reveals that local development is constrained and controlled not only by distant policies but also by contemporary local networks of political clientalism. The influence of both distant and proximate factors governing livelihoods and environmental impacts reinforces the value of geographical study in mountain areas, given its acute spatial and scalar awareness. The paper reaffirms the conception of mountain livelihoods as diverse and dynamic, shaped by economic, political, social and cultural factors as well as physical reality, and critiques the economic rationality of resource use assumed by policymakers and economic models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In light of the new cooperative water development agreements in South Asia since 1996 and, in particular, the 1996 Ganges Waters Treaty between India and Bangladesh, this paper explores the geopolitical obstacles to cooperation between states in the joint development of large-scale river systems and current opportunities for successful development. The general problems of cooperation faced by the riparian states which share successive rivers are examined with reference to the geopolitical obstacles to cooperation in the Bengal delta since the Partition of the Indian subcontinent through which India and Pakistan gained Independence as separate states in 1947. Against the background of repeated attempts to resolve water-sharing issues between India and East Pakistan and its successor state, Bangladesh, this paper concludes that for cooperation to succeed contemporary large-scale river development has to meet a wide range of criteria which go beyond conventional engineering or economic cost-benefit analyses to include geopolitical criteria. These range from global-scale environmental concerns to micro-scale issues of mutual regional benefit. This paper proposes a major new development on the Brahmaputra and Ganges which the authors argue could break the log-jam of a zero-sum game approach to surface water development in the Bengal delta. Unlike most large-scale dam-building proposals, the barrage construction outlined would cause negligible population displacement, and making maximum use of existing river channels would minimize the environmental impacts associated with the large canal or dam construction envisaged in earlier Ganges–Brahmaputra–Meghna (GBM) schemes. Yet the paper also recognizes that while such a proposal could bring economic, environmental and political advantages to all users in the GBM basin, new thinking on the management of international rivers is less in favour of supply-side solutions, and the case would need to be... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]