Exploring the landscape of wind farm developments; local area characteristics and planning process outcomes in rural England

Despite broad public support for wind energy in principle, windfarm developments are often met with local opposition. There is theoretical, case-based and anecdotal evidence to suggest that ‘the local’ is relevant for planning process outcomes, but the nature and extent of this relevance is not so clear. We embark on an initial exploration of local factors that, on aggregate, may be of relevance to planning outcomes of proposed windfarms in rural England. Applying a broad scanning approach we use an existing small area GIS dataset of 117 variables related to education, health, demography, employment and housing. We identify a number of strong associations, and discuss to what extent these make sense in the light of existing literature on environmental equity and social capital, or throw up questions for further study. Notwithstanding the methodological caveats of this explorative study, and the scope for more in-depth analysis, our findings suggests that beyond the myriad of individual planning cases, the emerging landscape of wind energy development in England is markedly uneven, and sometimes inequitable. Evidence of the latter emerges notably through the strong significance of local democratic deficit (i.e. low voter turn-out) as a predictor of a ‘positive’ planning outcome for windfarms and the further strengthening of predictive associations at the appeal stage.     

Measuring the Sustainability of Tourism in Manuel Antonio and Texel: A Tourist Perspective

This paper examines tourist perceptions of sustainability in Manuel Antonio/Quepos, Costa Rica and Texel, The Netherlands. It also reviews tourist opinions of site-specific sustainability aspects and assesses differences between tourist types and their perceptions of sustainability. The ecological dimension of sustainability was perceived the most important, followed by social-cultural and economic dimensions. Among tourists to Manuel Antonio/Quepos there was no distinctive difference between the last two dimensions while the economic dimension was far less important among Texel tourists. Loss of local lifestyles and processes of urbanisation were the most serious problems perceived in Manuel Antonio/Quepos. For Texel, a fewrespondents indicated problems such as increase of prices, urbanisation and loss of local lifestyles. Results demonstrate tourist awareness of sustainability issues and that in the long run this awareness might lead to changes in tourist preferences.     

The impact of cash transfers on household welfare in Namibia

Namibia has a long history of providing a universal and non-contributory old age pension, child grants using means testing and quasi-conditionalities, and other cash transfers. Multivariate analysis presented in this paper confirms that these transfers play an important role in alleviating poverty, especially for the very poor. The poverty-reducing effects of the child grants are likely to increase further as access is being rapidly expanded. However, the impact in terms of reducing Namibia's extremely high inequality is limited. The targeting of the cash transfers towards the poorest groups takes place through two main channels. For the child grant, targeting occurs as a result of the orphan status eligibility criteria, as orphans are over-represented in lower-income households. For the universal social pension, it appears that some of the relatively less poor do not receive it even if they are eligible. Means testing of child grants appears ineffective, even without considering administrative costs.     

Entrepreneurship,export orientation,and economic growth

In this paper the relationship between a country’s prevalence of new ventures and its rate of economic growth is investigated, while taking into account new ventures’ export orientation. It is generally acknowledged that new venture creation as well as export activity may both be important strategies for achieving national economic growth. However, to our knowledge no attempt has been made to investigate empirically the role of export-driven new ventures in economic growth. We focus on the national level and use data for a sample of 34 countries over the period 2002–2008. Our results suggest that, on top of a positive relation between entrepreneurial activity in general and subsequent macroeconomic growth, there is an additional positive effect of export-oriented early-stage entrepreneurship in higher-income countries. However, there is no such additional effect in lower-income countries.     

Book review

This article analyses the strategies of the agro-biotechnology industry to control and exploit plant-genetic knowledge, and the dilemmas that these strategies involve. The replicability of plants limits markets for commercial seeds, as it enables farmers to reproduce seeds themselves. The industry has therefore invented genetic-engineering techniques that will block the replicability of plants, and will effectively prevent farmers from saving their own seeds. However, this copy-protection technique— dubbed ‘Terminator’—is widely condemned in farming communities. The technology overrules intellectual property laws that exempt seed saving for private use, and it is likely to have a negative impact on medium-sized and small farming systems in developing countries. In this article it is argued that while copy protection in plants may expand seed markets, it may also seriously damage the reputation of the biotechnology industry. Corporate scientists and strategists should be more open to a public discussion about the fairness and legitimacy of seed production for private use.     

What tenure security? The case for a tripartite view

In the face of advancing urban informality in the developing world there appears to be increasing consensus that tenure security is an important engine driving settlement development. This has, however, not led to a consensus about what tenure security exactly entails. In both theory and policy, the idea of tenure security for low-income settlement dwellers is encountered in three distinct forms: tenure security as perceived by dwellers, tenure security as a legal construct and de facto tenure security. The main argument of this paper is that much controversy that surrounds the debate arises precisely as a consequence of the indiscriminate use of these different kinds of tenure security. To address this problem, a tripartite conceptualization of tenure security that incorporates its three constituent components (perception, de jure, de facto) and clarifies their interrelations is presented.     

Metaphors and the Application of a Corporate Code of Ethics

This article researches how a corporate code of ethics (CCE) implemented in local government X has influenced the behavior of its employees, middle managers, and managers. Metaphors from the existing and desired CCE elicited by these three groups provided information on how to improve the effectiveness of the CCE. This method proved to be very fruitful. It appeared that continuous systematic attention needed to be paid to the CCE after the CCE had been implemented, particularly by management. Initiatives from management to start discussions about relevant questions of integrity appeared to be also necessary to make the topic a “normal” topic which employees were no longer afraid to discuss. In this way, the possibility could be created to develop collectively a “practical” frame of reference concerning relevant questions of integrity that would help employees to make decisions in difficult situations during their work in the future.