Gathering plants and fungi along the urban-rural gradient: Uncovering differences in the attitudes and practices among urban,suburban, and rural landowners

Gathering non-timber forest products (NTFPs) in cities and rural areas has received growing attention in research and news media. Yet little is known about the frequency of these activities and how attitudes about and the practice of gathering differ across urban, suburban, and rural areas. We report on findings from a mail survey of landowners across two urban-rural gradients in central and eastern Massachusetts, USA. The survey queried (a) attitudes towards gathering and a variety of other environmental benefits, (b) the practice of gathering, and (c) where gatherers harvest species. Survey responses reveal that gathering is not a controversial use of land and is a relatively widespread activity across urban, suburban, and rural areas. Further, the results show that gathering occurs on a mix of private and public lands and that there are important differences in the practice of gathering among individuals living in urban, suburban, and rural areas. Our findings have implications for understanding the social and ecological dynamics of gathering and suggest that more research on gathering and other natural resource management issues is needed, particularly in (sub)urban areas.     

The direct use value of municipal commonage goods and services to urban households in the Eastern Cape, South Africa

To redress past racial discrepancies in ownership and tenure, the ANC government of South Africa initiated programmes to make land accessible to the previously disadvantaged. A key component of the national land reform programme was the provision of commonage lands to urban municipalities for use by the urban poor. However, there has been no assessment of the contribution that urban commonage makes to previously disadvantaged households. This study assessed the economic benefits of the commonage programme to local households, through an in-depth survey of 90 households across three small towns in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. We examined the marketed and non-marketed consumptive direct-use values of land-based livelihoods on commonage, calculated via the ‘own reported values’ approach. The results indicate that a proportion of South Africa's urban population rely to some degree on municipal commonage for part of their livelihoods. Commonage contributions to total livelihood incomes ranged between 14 and 20%. If the contributions from commonage were excluded, the incomes of over 10% of households in each study town would drop below the poverty line. Overall, the value of harvests from commonage was worth over R1 000 (US$ 142) per hectare per year and over R4.7 million (US$ 0.68 million) per commonage per year. However, the extent and nature of use and reliance was not uniform among households, so that we developed a typology of commonage users, with four types being identified. However, rapidly growing urban populations and high levels of poverty potentially threaten the sustainability of commonage resource use. Yet the national land reform programme focuses largely on the transfer of land to municipalities and not on sustainable management. Municipalities, in turn, invest relatively little in commonage management, and the little they do is focussed on livestock production. Non-timber forest products are not considered at all, even though this study shows that they are a vital resource for the urban poor, notably for energy and construction materials.     

Assessing the financial contribution and carbon emission pattern of provisioning ecosystem services in Siwalik forests in Nepal: Valuation from the perspectives of disaggregated users

Provisioning Ecosystem Services (PS) from the forests contribute much to peoples’ livelihoods as well as to the national economy. Previous studies have been constrained by their primary focus on biophysical quantification of PS through modelling and mapping or aggregated monetary valuation, while little attention has been paid to the issues of the distribution of financial benefits among the different forest subgroups. Using market price and substitute good price methods, this paper assesses how local users exploit financial benefits and emit carbon from the use of PS in two dominant community-based forest management systems (community forestry—CF and collaborative forestry—CFM) based on proximity (nearby vs. distant users) and socio-economic class (rich vs. poor users) in the Siwalik region, Nepal. Results indicated that the wealth level of the users plays a key role in the amount of financial benefits generated from the use of PS: (1) users living near forests receive the highest economic benefits compared to those living long distances from the forest area. However the distribution of benefits differs according to management modality and socioeconomic status; (2) CF users, on average, receive higher economic benefits than CFM users; and (3) compared to poor households, rich households receive higher benefits. On average, a rich household adjacent to CF receives USD 1214/year while a poor household living in the same area receives almost half of that (USD 630/year). Similarly, a poor household living far from a forest area generates USD 189/year, slightly higher than that of a rich household in the same area (USD 109/year); and (4) an average CF user emits more carbon (7.4 tCO₂/HH/year) from the consumption of PS than an average CFM user (5 tCO₂/HH/year). Finally, we discuss the reasons behind these differences and draw policy implications for developing and refining constitutions and operational plans of forest user groups.     

Economic development,food demand and the consequences for agricultural resource requirements: an application to Indonesia

We analyse food demand patterns of Indonesian households from a resource intensity perspective and quantify the impact of changed demand patterns on the use of three major resource inputs: fossil fuel; land; and water in agricultural production. Using Indonesian Family Life Survey data, 13 major food items (which constitute 70 per cent of food expenditure) are categorised into low, moderate and high resource intensity, and income elasticity and Engel curves are estimated for the period from 1997 to 2007. Our results show that income growth in Indonesia is associated with demand patterns that are more resource intensive. By 2007, per capita requirements of fossil fuel, land and water increased by 42.7 per cent (3.13 MJ), 44.9 per cent (1.24 m²) and 50.4 per cent (2.1 kL), respectively, relative to 1997. The results imply that, at least for Indonesia, changed food demand patterns resulting from economic development will increase the demand for natural resources substantially.     

Credibility of institutions: Forestry, social conflict and titling in China

In the reform of a forestry sector governed by centralist, socialist principles towards a sector suited to the challenges of the market economy, the Chinese government needs to establish institutions that can be perceived as credible by social actors. In other words, the creation of institutions that rally sufficient social and political support in order to be effective. Against this backdrop, this article consciously opts to refer to institutional “credibility” instead of the more fashionable concept of institutional “trust”. Whereas scholarly discussions about trust focus more on the relation of trust between social actors, credibility puts more emphasis on the institution itself, and the role of government in its successful creation or failure. Failure to effectively undertake institutional reform might put the social acceptability or credibility of institutions at risk, and can lead to the emergence of “empty institutions” with little, or even, a negative effect on social and political actors. Applying this concept to China's forestry sector, this article identifies three critical areas that call for careful rethinking how to “get institutions right”: the titling of forest holdings; the restructuring of the forest administration; and the design of forest laws and policies with particular reference to lease and ownership.     

Urban crops and livestock: The experiences,challenges, and opportunities of planning for urban agriculture in two Canadian provinces

While many municipalities globally are currently undertaking initiatives to support urban agriculture, policies and zoning regulations can act as barriers, with the former usually not integrated with planning. Extensive research has been conducted on urban agriculture policies in the global South, but much less is known about associated practices and policies in the global North. This is especially true for the Canadian context and therefore the present study aims at improving our overall understanding of the urban agriculture situation in two Canadian provinces. Relevant policies, such as official plans or official community plans, alternate policy documents and guidelines, zoning by-laws, and animal-related by-laws were reviewed for 10 municipalities in Ontario and in British Columbia, all varying in socio-economic and climatological characteristics. Additional key informant interviews were conducted with municipal planners, community garden coordinators, and other municipal staff familiar with urban agriculture policies from six of the selected municipalities.In line with global trends, our results suggest that urban agriculture is becoming more widespread in the two provinces. However, even though all studied municipalities consistently support urban agriculture, they vary significantly in their approach, with some municipalities focusing much more narrowly on certain types of activities than others. Overall, community advocacy and municipal council support are the most important drivers in the policy process. Key informants expressed a need to bridge existing gaps between policy adoption and implementation of tools, emphasize public education and public awareness, create inventories of land available for urban agriculture, incorporate urban agriculture in the development review process, and focus on the commercial potential of the practice. Encouragingly, despite the many challenges that need to be addressed, we found that many opportunities exist that municipalities could consider when creating improved local urban agriculture policies and tools to enhance the urban food system.     

An analysis of green infrastructure in municipal policy: Divergent meaning and terminology in the Greater Toronto Area

The concept of green infrastructure has been rapidly adopted by several disciplines and is increasingly appearing in policy discussions. While the use of the term has recently expanded, there is no single definition of green infrastructure. To date most of the research examining green infrastructure in policy has occurred in Europe and the US, and to a lesser extent Asia, highlighting differences in the term’s meaning between these regions. Green infrastructure has also recently become part of policy discourse in Canada, but it is unclear how widespread its use is or how it is being defined in a Canadian policy context. This study examines inclusion of the term ‘green infrastructure’, and the broader ideas it represents, in municipal policy through a content analysis of 81 municipal plans from the 25 municipalities in the Greater Toronto Area (Ontario, Canada). Examined plans includes those addressing land use, urban forests, stormwater and other relevant sectors. We found that the term appears in 30 % of the examined municipal plans, with three distinct definitions used: living green infrastructure, non-living green infrastructure and ‘greening’ gray infrastructure. Closely related terms (e.g., low impact development) and incorporation of the concept of green infrastructure without using the specific term are more common than direct references to green infrastructure. The variety of terminology and definitions incorporated into the municipal plans raise questions about potential confusion around basic policy goals associated with green infrastructure.     

Governance of non-wood forest products in Russia and Ukraine: Institutional rules,stakeholder arrangements,and decision-making processes

Aspects of governance of non-wood forest products (NWFPs) include institutional rules, stakeholder arrangements, and decision-making processes that govern production systems from access to resources, their use, and to markets. Compared with other forest products, few studies have investigated the governance of NWFPs in European post-socialistic countries transitioning from a planned to a market economy. This study compares institutional frameworks and stakeholder arrangements related to NWFPs in Russia and Ukraine using a case study approach. Both countries have a legacy of top-down forest government, state-owned forests, and rural communities with a long dependence on plant- and animal-based NWFPs. We analysed legal documents for NWFPs in each country and conducted expert interviews with stakeholders from the public, private, and civil sectors involved in the decision-making process of NWFPs. Institutional frameworks for NWFPs in both countries are complex, unclear, and overlap. Multiple legal documents contain restrictions regarding the extraction and sustainability of NWFPs. However, no special laws or policies are solely for NWFPs; all measures are included in legislation that regulates nature conservation and forest management. The government of both countries tends to overlook non-industrial forest use undertaken by marginal local communities, even if economic, social, and cultural values of NWFPs are relatively high for local and regional development. A misfit is observed between legal frameworks and forest companies’ business policies with customary rights. This phenomenon caused a shift to introduce new stakeholder arrangements related to NWFPs as a special type of resource in areas where NWFPs are heavily used both for subsistence and for generating household income by local communities. Landscape approach initiatives such as model forests and biosphere reserves may empower local communities to find means to protect their rights, needs, interests, and values related to NWFPs.     

Approaching reality: Comparing stakeholder analysis and cultural theory in the context of natural resource management

Increased pressure on ecosystems and enhanced competition over the use of natural resources makes it necessary to develop sustainable methods for natural resource management (NRM). However, NRM is a complicated issue. It involves numerous stakeholders, with different needs, resources and perceptions of nature. Stakeholder participation will necessarily be selective, based both on theoretical assumptions about who is a legitimate stakeholder and unevenly distributed power among stakeholders. Although stakeholder involvement is important, sometimes the theory appears to be rather blunt. It has been suggested that, since different categories of stakeholders embody different perceptions of nature, cultural theory could provide important additional criteria for stakeholder involvement. Based on field studies in Naivasha, Kenya, this paper analyses pros and cons of stakeholder analysis and investigates the usefulness of cultural theory for improved stakeholder analysis.     

Assessing the fragmentation of construction land in urban areas: An index method and case study in Shunde, China

The fragmentation of construction land due to decentralised urban development, disorderly mixed land use, and large-scale transportation infrastructure poses a threat to urban integrity. There is a need to quantify the fragmentation level in a consistent way for inclusion in planning-related decisions. In the context of China's urban sprawl, this study develops a quantitative and intuitive index approach that planners can use to analyse multiple fragmentation features of construction land within urban areas. The approach can be used in planning policy reviews for timely land-use assessment and can be integrated into urban planning processes for developing strategic land-use scenarios. The method was applied in Shunde, a typical urban area in southern China, and construction-land fragmentation and its impacts on environmental quality were analysed. The results show that the entire built-up area in Shunde displays a high level of fragmentation. Patches of industrial and rural residence have been identified specifically higher fragmentation level. The shortage of available construction land makes land consolidation within built-up areas very important in planning Shunde's future development. Moreover, the land shortage requires the progressive reduction of construction land fragmentation. The results of the study also indicate that although land fragmentation has been affected by transportation infrastructure and the existence of rivers and hills in this region, decentralised decisions from hierarchical local governance regimes have greatly exacerbated this situation. Shunde provides examples of typical land-use problems associated with quasi-urbanised regions in China; construction-land fragmentation is a greater determinant for the sustainable development of urban and rural areas than construction-land growth.     

Assembling land for urban revitalization in the presence of linchpin parcels and information asymmetries: An experimental investigation

This study uses economic experiments to determine if information asymmetries are likely to frustrate government efforts to assemble land for urban revitalization when there is a linchpin parcel that must be acquired to move a development project forward. Results suggest holdout behavior is more pronounced when landowners know a linchpin parcel exists. Surprisingly, landowners who know they control such parcels are found to be more willing to sell than those who are uncertain about the strategic importance of their properties. These observations raise interesting questions about the nature of holdout problems and how they can potentially be overcome by approaching land assembly in a transparent manner.     

Agriculture and the city: A method for sustainable planning of new forms of agriculture in urban contexts

Contemporary cities are threatened by urban development decreasing the overall environmental quality and fragmenting natural and agricultural landscapes. As a result of this fragmentation the number of Non Urbanized Areas (NUAs) present in urban contexts is dramatically decreasing. These areas include cultivated land, Abandoned Farmlands, Grassland, Woods and Shrubs that are often located at the peri-urban cities’ fringes. Among NUAs, farmlands and other forms of urban and peri-urban agriculture provide all three major categories of ecosystem services, provisioning, regulating and cultural services. Recently, New Forms of Urban Agriculture (NFUA) have gained increasing attention from researchers for their promising multifunctionality. Incorporating NFUA into the urban environment will thus improve the sustainability of cities, taking advantage of the multiple benefits and services they can provide.This paper presents a method for the characterisation of NUAs in terms of their physical, ecological and social features. These areas are analysed with different criteria and related indicators structured according to a GIS-based Multi Criteria Suitability Model. The proposed model checks the suitability of transformation of the NUAs toward NFUA, thereby enhancing their ecological and social function as well as accessibility and overall connectivity. Different scenarios of spatial configurations for NFUA have been explored with a sensitivity analysis on the values of used indicators. The method was tested for the municipality of Catania, south Italy, an urban context characterised by a relevant shortage of public green spaces and services.     

The loss of land devoted to allotment gardening: The context of the contrasting pressures of urban planning,public and private interests in Prague,Czechia

Prague, the capital of Czechia, has a long history of allotment gardening, however, since 1989 allotment gardens are diminishing at a considerable rate. Allotments are being transformed into recreation sites, permanent residences, or used for the construction of residential projects, transportation infrastructure or commercial facilities. Often, they simply turn into vacant land. This paper critically assesses the decline of allotment gardens in Prague. The analysis is based on an extensive field survey. Land use changes of allotment gardens in Prague were monitored during three time periods and the main reasons and motives that have led to a diminution of gardening as a sustainable productive and recreational function during the nineties and the first decade of the new millennium are presented (construction of second homes, transformation to residential dwelling, destruction). The need for a much broader community and civic movement involvement in the planning decision-making processes is viewed as crucial to secure the continuity of the allotment gardens within the city. A successful case of negotiation with local government and further conversion of one of Prague´s threatened allotment garden colonies into public access garden is then presented as a suitable solution to the problems with allotment gardens´ extinction.     

The hidden edifice of (food) sovereignty: Rights,territory, and the struggle for agrarian reform in Venezuela

This article seeks to make a critical contribution to the “sovereignty problem” in food sovereignty (FS) studies. Contemporary scholarship has largely struggled to answer the question of who or what is sovereign within the realm of FS politics—underpinned by the relocalisation of agrarian production, sustainable nature–society relations, and a radical democratisation of food systems. Although the most recent scholarship has made significant progress on this issue, I offer an alternative historical materialist account of sovereignty understood as the combination of rights and territory. From a critical Marxian perspective, I deconstruct the basis of sovereign power as the intersection between social property rights (exploitation) and territorial governance (political technology) congealed within both capital and the state. This approach thus provides some clarity as to the necessary breaks required to establish an FS regime (self‐directed labour and cooperative territorial governance). The framework is then applied to the case of Bolivarian Venezuela. While witnessing some important achievements, Venezuela's FS experiment has encountered a number of contradictions. As this case study shows, peasant struggles aiming to retake control over production and establish cooperative forms of governance must traverse the entire terrain of the state and thus affect a broader socialisation of society's sociopolitical infrastructures.     

2017年土地科学研究重点进展评述及2018年展望——土地资源、利用与规划分报告

研究目的：总结2017 年国内外土地资源、利用与规划方面的研究进展,展望2018 年国内研究趋势。研究方法：文献调研法。研究结果：2017 年国外研究主要集中在土地资源的保护与管理、土地生态问题与生态恢复、土地利用变化驱动及影响、土地利用规划观念与技术等方面;国内研究侧重于土地资源配置、土地生态、土地利用及其评价、土地利用管控以及规划理论与实践创新等方面。研究结论：2017 年土地资源、利用与规划领域在基础理论层面进一步基于时空锥理论研究了规划机理,提出了科学认知 “多规合一”的理念,初步探索了供给侧结构性改革和土地利用规划的关系;在实践层面提出了“一张蓝图”、“多规合一”的技术路径,探讨了空间规划体系的建构与规划的核心任务,探索了村级土地利用规划的现存问题与未来编制工作重点。创新具有中国特色的土地利用规划理论和方法、构建国土空间开发保护制度、推动“土地用途管制”向“国土空间用途管制”发展、推进基于生态文明建设视角的空间规划体系创新、深化土地节约集约利用、土地领域供给侧结构性改革研究将是2018 年及未来土地资源、利用与规划领域着重研究的方向。