European firms’ corporate biodiversity disclosures and board gender diversity from 2002 to 2016

We examine how board gender diversity is associated with biodiversity disclosures of a firm, and whether the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the EU biodiversity strategy reinforce this relationship. Using institutional theory and resource dependency theory, our sample comprises 4013 firm-year observations from European corporations covering data from 2002 to 2016. We use panel regressions with country, time and industry dummy variables to analyse the disclosure of biodiversity initiatives (DBI) and logit regressions to explain biodiversity impact assessment (BIA). We find that board gender diversity is positively associated with the DBI and BIA of a firm, and that the GRI framework and the EU biodiversity strategy positively moderate this relationship. Moreover, the GRI framework and the EU strategic plan show positive relationship with the DBI, rather than BIA. Altogether, our evidence suggests that corporate boards with a higher proportion of female directors are more sensitive to the concerns of institutional pressures and respond to those concerns by increasing corporate biodiversity disclosures. Overall, we find that firms tend to comply with the GRI framework and the EU 2020 strategy by undertaking symbolic biodiversity disclosures, rather than providing a comprehensive disclosure of their impacts on biodiversity.     

The land sparing – land sharing controversy: Tracing the politics of knowledge

Feeding 9 billion people by 2050 on one hand, and preserving biodiversity on the other hand, are two shared policy goals at the global level. Yet while these goals are clear, they are to some extent in conflict, because agriculture is a major cause of biodiversity loss, and the path to achieve both of them is at the heart of a public controversy around ‘productive’ land use and biodiversity conservation. Over the years, the scientific, policy, civil society and agri-business communities have been engaged in producing evidence that can support a land sparing policy (separating intensive agricultural production from biodiversity conservation) or a land sharing policy (integrating the two in larger and more extensive landscapes). This paper contributes to this debate by analyzing land sparing and land sharing (LSS) as a socio-technical controversy. Through the analysis of large and small corpora of scientific, policy, corporate social responsibility and sustainability standards documents we explore the ethical underpinnings and social networks that support the opposing sides of this controversy. We explore these linkages in order to explain how the concept of land sparing achieved dominance in the scientific literature and how the concept has been taken up in international policy, business and civil society circles. We examine the convergences and divergences in alliances between actors in this controversy in order to map how specific actors have promoted the concept of land sparing as the best way to used land for biodiversity and food production.     

Utilizing environmental information and pricing strategies to reduce externalities of tourism: the case of invasive species in the Galapagos

The increase in demand for nature-based tourism brings economic and educational benefits but risks the introduction of invasive species. Increasing the length of tourist trips can better balance these benefits and risks by maintaining revenues while reducing the number of unique contacts with tourists. Changing the relative prices of trips can induce tourists to take longer trips. We hypothesized that providing information about the negative externalities of tourism could improve the effectiveness of such pricing strategies.

We administered one of two discrete choice surveys to tourists considering a trip to the Galapagos. One of the surveys described the Galapagos as a fragile ecosystem susceptible to invasive species; the second described it as a standard nature-based destination. For each sample, we estimated the probability of the tourist choosing a short versus long trip, given the tourist's personal information and trip options presented to him. We then simulated the demand for trips using three pricing strategies. We found that providing information on invasive species significantly increased the efficacy of strategic pricing. We propose using a two-prong approach to tourism management: educate potential tourists about the islands’ vulnerabilities, and simultaneously increase the per-day cost of short trips relative to that of longer trips.     

Trade-off relationship between modern agriculture and biodiversity: Heavy consolidation work has a long-term negative impact on plant species diversity

Human-driven land-use changes often cause a decline in biodiversity. Although traditional agricultural practices maintained biodiversity at high levels, recent land-use changes may have negative consequences on species composition. In this study, we examined the hypothesis that land consolidation, which is a major recent land-use change in agricultural areas, decreases plant species diversity over the long term (the so-called negative legacy). To test this hypothesis, we examined the relationships between consolidated areas and the occurrence of threatened plant species across Japan and at the prefecture scale. Twenty-three threatened plant species were selected, all of which were formerly common. Our results show that areas containing records of threatened plant species rarely experienced consolidation at whole-country and prefectural scales. Breakdown analysis showed that unconsolidated agricultural areas contained significantly more threatened species than consolidated agricultural areas. These results suggest that threatened plant species require unconsolidated agricultural areas (i.e., these species could not grow in consolidated areas). Thus, we propose that consolidation history could be used as an indicator of the potential for biodiversity recovery. We also suggest that consolidated agricultural areas should be used for food production rather than for the restoration of biodiversity, for reasons of cost efficiency.     

Farmers’ perceptions of biodiversity: Lessons from a discourse-based deliberative valuation study

In agricultural landscapes farmers have a large impact on biodiversity through the management decisions they apply to their land. Farmers’ perceptions of biodiversity and its different values influence their willingness to apply biodiversity friendly farming practices. The results of a discourse-based, deliberative biodiversity valuation are presented in this paper. Organic and conventional farmers’ perceptions of the different values of biodiversity were analyzed across three European countries. Focus group methodology was used to explore how farmers perceive biodiversity and how they assess its values.Our results suggest that farmers’ perceptions of biodiversity are strongly embedded in their everyday lives and linked to farming practices. Besides recognizing the importance of species and habitat diversity, farmers also acknowledge wider landscape processes and attach value to the complexity of ecological systems. Organic farmers tended to have a more complex and philosophical approach to biodiversity and they were relatively homogeneous in this aspect, while conventional farmers showed larger heterogeneity. Ethical and social values were important for all farmers. Economic value was more dominant in the conventional focus groups.The discourse based deliberative valuation method is worth applying in relation to biodiversity for two reasons. First, this method is able to reflect the heterogeneity of non-scientist participants and the context in which they are embedded, which both have a great impact on the results of the valuation. Second, deliberation upon the importance of biodiversity makes possible to understand the competing perceptions of biodiversity and to include different value aspects in the valuation process. The policy oriented consequence of the research can be drawn from the observation that farmers have a strong acknowledgement of ethical and social biodiversity values. This suggests that soft policy tools could also foster biodiversity sensitive farming methods, complementary to mainstream monetary incentives.     

Fiscal transfers for biodiversity conservation: The Portuguese Local Finances Law

Biodiversity loss is a serious and ongoing global environmental problem. Economic instruments in biodiversity policies can contribute towards reconciling the conservation costs encountered at local level with the benefits of biodiversity conservation at higher levels of governance, from regional and national levels up to the global level. This paper outlines the theoretical foundations of fiscal transfers in conservation policies and also offers a concise account of existing international experience and future prospects. The recently amended Portuguese Local Finances Law (LFL) of 2007, with its groundbreaking new article on the promotion of local sustainability, is analysed in terms of the significance of fiscal transfers for municipal budgets. It is compared with its predecessor law, highlighting changes in fiscal revenues for selected municipalities in the country in relation to their designated conservation areas. The analysis shows that these ecological fiscal transfers can be significant for those municipalities with a large proportion of land under protected status. However, because it also introduces a considerable number of changes to the Portuguese fiscal transfer scheme, the ecological impact of the new LFL is difficult to grasp due to the presence of several crossover effects. The results obtained offer significant insights both for improving the Portuguese LFL and for designing new ecological fiscal transfer schemes.     

意大利应对能源危机和气候变化的主要措施

意大利是一个能源高度依赖进口的国家,在可再生能源的利用和使用技术方面处于世界领先地位。其节能减排计划是在欧洲气候能源包计划总体框架的基础上进行的,有出台鼓励改善建筑能源效率政策、实施建筑光伏计划、热太阳能利用等;在应对气候变化方面,适时修改税收政策,加强废弃物的立法管理,推行新型城市交通变化,发展碳捕获和存储技术等。我国应看到欧美联手利用气候变化问题抬高第三世界国家发展经济的门槛。     

A study on the protection of biodiversity resources in Micangshan Forest Park in northeast of Sichuan Province

The Micangshan Forest Park is located in the northeast edge of the Sichuan Basin. The wild animals and plants resources are rich and the ecosystem is integrity. There are well-preserved areas of native biological communities. Its strip and the region decided that on the one hand biological diversity is rich; on the other hand, there is its unique ecological fragility. Once it is destroyed, it would be very difficult to restore. In order to protect the ecological environment of wild animal and plant habitats and wild animal and plant resources, this paper uses quadrat survey procedure to carry on the investigation. In the Micangshan Forest Park＇s typical land sector the author establishes the sample area of 20 m×20 m to invest the tree layer of plant species and builds five 2 m×2 m the small quadrats along the type place＇s diagonal line machinery to invest bush level and the field layer floristic component. Again according to the Micangshan Forest Park＇s terrain, the vegetation and the difference humanity interference condition, the autor builds the different quantities separately the line transect to invest the animal type. This article through to eastern Sichuan Province north the Micangshan forest park biodiversity resources investigation, has analyzed the biodiversity protection work present situation and the existence question, and put forward the proposal to the next protection work.     

马尾口岸蝇类生物多样性和携带病原微生物情况的研究

目的全面掌握马尾口岸蝇类的种群分布及季节消长变化,分析不同生境和地点蝇类携带病原微生物的差别,对相关疾病的流行风险进行评估。方法根据马尾口岸地理分布和港口类型,2007年7月至2008年6月间,抽取8个监测点7个不同生境实施为期1年的蝇类本底调查,按生境分类对携带病原微生物进行检测。结果捕获蝇类49579只,年平均密度74.67只/笼.日,隶属4科22属36种,比2004年多19种,其中4种未见在福州分布记录,大头金蝇为优势种群。垃圾堆蝇密度最高,高于荒地、居民室外和食堂。大裕堆场和中钢码头蝇密度较高,高于居委会、青州堆场、局本部和闽鑫物流。5至10月份捕获的蝇数占总数的94.57%,出现了9月和5月的双峰。蝇类体内、外均虽未检出痢疾杆菌、伤寒杆菌和霍乱弧菌等强致病菌,但普遍检出了变形杆菌、铜绿假单胞菌和肺炎克雷伯菌等,以及可引起食物中毒的病原菌如金黄色葡萄球菌、变形杆菌等,个别样本检出气单胞菌和小肠耶尔森氏菌。部分蝇体内检出柯萨奇病毒和轮状病毒（A组）。结论马尾口岸蝇种丰富,比4年前有了较大增长,出现了4种输入性蝇种,蝇类体表和体内携带的病毒,可能引起食物中毒及其他肠道传染病传播的风险。