生态畜牧业初探

本文在分析畜牧业的本质和特点的基础上,提出生态畜牧业是畜牧业发展的高级阶段,并介绍了生态畜牧业的基本设计及基本类型。     

我国草地的发展观

本文通过对我国草原起源的追溯和现代草原不可持续性的分析,指出以人为主的因素加速了草地退化,导致草畜矛盾的加剧、抗灾能力及生态系统服务功能的减弱,影响了我国的粮食安全和生态安全。文章认为,亟须建立产业化与集约化经营的现代人工草地畜牧业,实现草地的可持续发展。     

低碳经济下畜牧业发展问题与对策研究

发展低碳经济对畜牧业健康可持续发展和促进粮食安全具有重要意义。文章利用文献分析和统计数据分析法对低碳经济发展内涵和重要性进行阐述,并分析畜牧业发展对环境和粮食安全的影响。结果显示,传统畜牧业向低碳畜牧业的转型过程中存在农村居民的环保意识薄弱、干部对环保工作重视程度不够、自主研发技术水平低、相关政策法规不健全、监管存在漏洞等瓶颈问题。并从加强政策引导,增强低碳意识;加强营养调控,改进饲料加工工艺;加大科技创新力度,增加对畜牧业资金扶持;加强畜禽污染废弃物的资源化利用;大力发展循环畜牧养殖模式等方面提出促进低碳畜牧业发展的对策建议,以期为我国畜牧业的健康可持续发展奠定理论基础。     

Proximity and animal welfare in the context of tourist interactions with habituated dolphins

The long-term sustainability of wildlife tourism depends on integrating visitor demands with resource management, requiring an understanding of tourist motivation. Managing the conflict between access to the animals and welfare, however, may diminish the experience for tourists. This paper identifies trade-offs tourists are willing to make between access and animal welfare, associated with feeding habituated bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops sp.) in Monkey Mia, Western Australia. Using a choice modelling technique, we were able to determine monetary values of visitor experiences. Compared to the current guaranteed interaction with dolphins (and a daily resort entrance fee), respondents were willing to pay significantly higher hypothetical entrance fees to avoid a decrease in proximity to, or probability of, the dolphin interaction. However, negative impacts on dolphin welfare had a negative impact on visitor utility. Over 80% of visitors (n = 244) accepted management regulations resulting in decreased time with and proximity to dolphins, if those addressed welfare concerns and were communicated clearly. Thus, while visitors placed the greatest value on the proximity and predictability, they were willing to trade off these aspects if they improved dolphin welfare. We provide management suggestions based on these results.     

Situating the wildlife spectacle: ecofeminism,representation, and polar bear tourism

This paper presents a critical investigation of power relations circulating in promotional materials associated with polar bear tourism in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada. Drawing on precepts of ecofeminism, critical discourse analysis, and the content of cultural texts (websites, souvenirs) produced by tourism operators, businesses, and crown corporations, the study interprets how representations of polar bears re-inscribe regimes of truth that marginalize non-human animal others and are complicit with patriarchal ideologies. Focus in our analysis is placed first, on illustrating the portrayal of “performing spectacle bears” – a socially constructed subjectivity designed to serve the desires of wildlife tourism producers and consumers – and, second, on diagnosing the privileged discourses that work to maintain and normalize this construction, along with the interspecies dynamics they support. In effect, the paper sheds light on the complex and recurrent effects of anthropocentric and instrumentalist orientations in tourism, including their contingency upon masculine systems of value and rationality. The paper also points out the potential of ecofeminist ethics of care for enhancing interspecies relationships in sustainable tourism.     

Unethical use of wildlife in tourism: what's the problem,who is responsible,and what can be done?

Wildlife tourism is a huge global market, the revenue from which can promote local livelihoods and tourist education, enact conservation, and improve animal welfare. Such benefits arise if wildlife tourist attractions (WTAs) prioritise ethical deliverables above financial profit, but recent work has shown that the majority of WTAs have substantial negative animal welfare and conservation impacts. In the absence of global regulatory authorities, tourist revenue has become the ultimate arbiter of what constitutes acceptable use of animals in WTAs. Tourists, however, are not adequate assessors of WTAs’ animal welfare and conservation impacts: they lack the specialist knowledge required and are subject to a number of psychological biases that obscure the ethical dimensions of decisions to attend particular WTAs. This inadequacy is evidenced, and compounded, by overwhelmingly positive reviews on TripAdvisor (the industry-leading review site), even for WTAs with objectively poor ethical standards. Our suggested solution is to empower tourists by presenting unequivocal assessments of WTAs' animal welfare and conservation impacts, hosted in the fora that tourists already use to make their travel decisions. We would thereby promote a subjective norm that tourists should consider and limit their individual negative impacts when choosing which WTAs to visit.     

The value of nonindigenous species risk assessment in international trade

Managing the introduction of nonindigenous species is becoming a major goal of policy-makers at regional, national and international scales. Here we investigate, at the national level, the ideal design and expected net benefits of a risk assessment program for evaluating the desirability of nonindigenous species imports. We show how to enhance the statistical rigor of such a system by correcting a common non-random sampling problem encountered in the data. This correction enables model output to be interpreted in an economically relevant way and facilitates a theoretically rigorous characterization of the balance between trade and nonindigenous species establishment risk. Using reptiles and amphibians imported to the U.S. as a case study, we characterize economic outcomes over a range of cases and demonstrate substantial expected returns to such a screening program, relative to the current effectively open-door policy. Our results are informative for the current debate in the U.S. about whether to require federal agencies to apply risk assessment before allowing a species for import. The framework presented decomposes a complex argument about risk management into component economic and statistical parts, allowing for debate and improved understanding over each element to inform the overall program in a transparent fashion.     

松辽平原农牧结合循环农业技术研究现状及展望

松辽平原是我国重要的种植业和畜牧业生产基地,发展循环农业是其实现农业现代化的重要战略选择。根据循环农业内涵、技术目标和基本原理,结合松辽平原农业发展现状,分析了其发展农牧结合循环农业的必要性。最后,在循环农业研究实践基础上,探讨了未来松辽平原循环农业科技的重点研究方向。     

Measuring the consumer benefits of improving farm animal welfare to inform welfare labelling

Policy makers in the European Union are envisioning the introduction of a community farm animal welfare label which would allow consumers to align their consumption habits with their farm animal welfare preferences. For welfare labelling to be viable the market for livestock products produced to higher welfare standards has to be sufficiently segmented with consumers having sufficiently distinct and behaviourally consistent preferences. The present study investigates consumers’ preferences for meat produced to different welfare standards using a hypothetical welfare score. Data is obtained from a contingent valuation study carried out in Britain. The ordered probit model was estimated using Bayesian inference to obtain mean willingness to pay. We find decreasing marginal WTP as animal welfare levels increase and that people’s preferences for different levels of farm animal welfare are sufficiently differentiated making the introduction of a labelling scheme in the form of a certified rating system appear feasible.     

Chinese tourists' views of nature and natural landscape interpretation: a generational perspective

This study investigates Chinese tourists’ views of nature, interest in animal experiences and their preferred natural landscape interpretation content from a generational perspective. Eight hundred and eight self-administered questionnaires were collected at Wulingyuan, a UNESCO World Natural Heritage Site, in China. It suggests that overall Chinese traditional cultural values and beliefs, notably the thinking of tian ren he yi (oneness of nature with humans), still have considerable impacts on Chinese tourists. They were found to have a strong sense of connection with nature and a preference for cultural interpretations of natural landscapes. Meanwhile, Chinese might be reaching a point of convergence in terms of attitude towards nature and animals with their Western counterparts, as reflected by their weak anthropocentric view, and strong ethical and aesthetic appreciation of animals, regardless of generation cohorts. Yet, the study shows significant generational gaps: older generations have a stronger connection with nature, are more concerned about environmental issues and show more support for the Western approach towards nature protection; the younger generations hold weaker anthropocentrism, and are more interested in animals, yet are less likely to learn about nature through tourism interpretation.