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The aim of this study is to explore how sustainable livelihoods are affected by the presence of non-conventional anti-personnel landmines placed in rural areas by understanding the impact of anti-p...

This chapter presents a subnational model of governance in the city of Medellin, Colombia, based on the integration of information generated by citizens in an online news center, that may lead to the basis for government action through a collective and participatory approach to problem-solving. For this purpose, the online news center was chosen based on their interactivity characteristics. A population of 388 news items were selected resulting in a representative sample of 180 news items, chosen according to the highest scores obtained on the expansion/depth characteristics and serialization A joint analysis of news and comments identified the problems that citizens consider as priority for solutions to finally provide a governance model based on the results obtained.

La educación ambiental cuenta en Colombia con una institucionalidad que fue definida de forma inicial por la Política Nacional de Educación Ambiental, y que ha sido reforzada de manera reciente con la ley 1549 de 2012. Sin embargo, no puede decirse que su aplicación haya trascendido el compromiso normativo, pues se evidencia una desconexión entre los sectores formal, no formal e informal de la educación; por esta razón se presentan graves problemas ambientales y sociales que reflejan la necesidad de formación de quienes conforman dichos sectores. Este trabajo es de tipo documental y aborda, en primer lugar, el concepto de educación ambiental; luego se presentan la evolución y las prácticas de la misma en los tres sectores mencionados y, por último, se propone una serie de estrategias derivadas del concepto de redes de sostenibilidad, las cuales trazan horizontes para la gestión ambiental de un complejo sistema conformado por diversos agentes con variados intereses.

The livelihood approach aims at the analysis, understanding and restrictions that the poorest people have to face in order to recover from difficult situations. The Department for International Development model is applied to an urban zone with the purpose of making an assessment of the livelihood of the district ’la Comuna 1’ in Medellin, Colombia, which has been recognised as the poorest and one of the most dangerous districts of the city. The case study presents both a quantitative analysis (macro) and qualitative (micro) analysis, as a mixed method that allows a more complete analysis and understanding of livelihood, and providing a deeper understanding of the district from the livelihood approach. The results indicate a stable growth of livelihood during the period of analysis.

The aim of the article is to evaluate the national adaptation to climate change in the energy generation sector in Colombia via a composite index. To build an index, a framework by stages is used, which includes the definition of the main concepts that supports the measurements; the selection of the relevant indicators using a subject matter experts; standardization of the indicators using a mathematic formula regarding the relationship between the variables that represent the adaptation to climate change; and establishment of the weights using an analytic hierarchical process of paired comparisons and the aggregation of indicators to obtain the following three sub-indexes: reactive adaptation, wherein the replacement of hydraulic energy by thermal energy is evaluated; anticipatory adaptation, which measures the gap between the generation of total energy and the demand of the national energy system; and planned adaptation, which considers indicators such as the sectoral plan for adapting to climate change, the law of alternative energies, and the generation of alternative energies as a percentage of generation capacity. By adding these sub-indices, the climate change adaptation index (CCAI) is obtained. The results of CCAI show that progress was made from a reactive adaptation scenario in which the system vulnerability was high to an anticipatory adaptation scenario wherein the vulnerability was average, indicating that the foundations for this sector to build a planned adaptation are currently being laid.

El desarrollo desde la perspectiva económica le ha asignado al crecimiento de la producción y por ende a la utilización intensiva de los factores productivos la responsabilidad de convertirse en el principal indicador de “bienestar social” sin llegar a considerar el progresivo deterioro ambiental y la creciente destrucción de los recursos naturales, en un sistema que a todas luces ha dado resultados pero al mismo tiempo ha manifestado ser enormemente desigual. El presente ensayo constituye un ejercicio que pretende ir más allá de constituir una simple diatriba frente a los límites en los que nos ha embarcado el capitalismo, más bien pretende evidenciar, a través de la recopilación de un variado acervo teórico, una serie de reflexiones sobre la necesidad de replantear los incentivos y la regulación que existe detrás del sistema, con el fin de comprender las necesidades de afinar los modelos de crecimiento que promuevan una transición mucho más equitativa hacia la asignación de responsabilidades frente al deterioro y agotamiento del planeta.