Public preferences for biodiversity conservation and climate-change mitigation: A choice experiment using ecosystem services indicators

Potential conflicts exist between biodiversity conservation and climate-change mitigation as trade-offs in multiple-use land management. This study aims to evaluate public preferences for biodiversity conservation and climate-change mitigation policy considering respondents’ uncertainty on their choice. We conducted a choice experiment using land-use scenarios in the rural Kushiro watershed in northern Japan. The results showed that the public strongly wish to avoid the extinction of endangered species in preference to climate-change mitigation in the form of carbon sequestration by increasing the area of managed forest. Knowledge of the site and the respondents’ awareness of the personal benefits associated with supporting and regulating services had a positive effect on their preference for conservation plans. Thus, decision-makers should be careful about how they provide ecological information for informed choices concerning ecosystem services tradeoffs. Suggesting targets with explicit indicators will affect public preferences, as well as the willingness of the public to pay for such measures. Furthermore, the elicited-choice probabilities approach is useful for revealing the distribution of relative preferences for incomplete scenarios, thus verifying the effectiveness of indicators introduced in the experiment.     

Changes in Brazil’s Forest Code can erode the potential of riparian buffers to supply watershed services

In Brazil, the Forest Code requires landholders to maintain fixed-width buffers of native vegetation along watercourses – legally called Areas of Permanent Preservation (APPs). In 2012, agricultural activities started to be partially allowed in APPs, but only if best management practices on soil and water conservation are adopted and if a narrow buffer strip with native vegetation is restored adjacently to the watercourse. In this paper, we present a modeling framework to investigate the capacity of legal compliant APPs to supply watershed services (erosion control and stream bank stabilization) in a 2,200 ha watershed in São Paulo State, Brazil. Our results suggest that the narrower the riparian buffer the lower the control of soil erosion dynamic within APPs, and that riparian buffers smaller than 8 m can act as a source of sediments to streams. The adoption of best management practices can contribute to controlling soil erosion within APPs but the presence of native forests in the first 15 m is necessary to guarantee equivalent protection to streams when compared to APPs completely covered by forests. Moreover, we observed that forest restoration within APPs helped to reduce the average soil loss of the watershed by only 20 %, compared to a reduction of 55 % when best practices are implemented in all watershed agricultural areas. We conclude that (i) the reduced requirements for APP restoration may contribute to stream sedimentation, which will likely affect the supply of watershed services by stream ecosystems; (ii) the implementation of best management practices in APPs will not have the same effect as native forests to reduce stream sedimentation; and (iii) the adoption of best management practices in all agricultural production areas – and not only within APPs as required by law – is the best strategy to promote the supply of watershed services to society.     

Biodiversity and Green Infrastructure in Europe: Boundary object or ecological trap?

The concept of green infrastructure is widely used in environmental planning, but so far it has no standard definition. Planners, conservationists and scientists tend to welcome the term because it can serve as a boundary object, providing links among policy makers, developers and different academic disciplines. However, the concept of green infrastructure creates risks for biodiversity conservation in its adoption. It can be used to water down biodiversity conservation aims and objectives as easily as it can be used to further them because of the different ideas associated with it and the multiple interests pursued. In this paper, we address such risks by looking, among others, at the European Union’s Green Infrastructure Strategy and we suggest how planners and conservationists might deal with its growing importance in environmental policy and planning to enhance its value for biodiversity conservation.     

商业生态系统核心企业的领导者素质浅析

本文首先简述了商业系统核心企业的内涵和核心企业领导者的重要性,归纳出商业生态系统中核心型企业领导者素质简要关系图,继而从摩尔提出的商业生态系统的四个阶段出发,研究并总结了每个阶段的成功发展核心企业领导者所需要具备的基本素质,旨在加深对成功的商业生态系统中核心企业的领导者角色的理解和认识,给予其他商业生态系统中的核心企业领导者一点启发。     

Toward a supply chain finance (SCF) ecosystem – Proposing a framework and agenda for future research

While supply chain finance (SCF) is receiving growing attention in research, it remains limited in reach and fragmented in its implementation. At the same time, technological advances are changing the shape of the overall business ecosystem in which SCF is embedded. Therefore, the aim of this research is to conduct a systematic review of the SCF literature and develop a framework of analysis to support further exploration of the SCF ecosystem. This research expands on other recent systematic reviews of SCF literature and introduces the business ecosystem concept to the SCF domain. Based on the presented SCF framework, an agenda for future SCF ecosystem research is proposed.     

人工智能技术产业化创新生态系统风险归因及治理体系研究

人工智能在迈向产业化过程中会逐渐形成独特的创新生态系统，但同时也会引发风险危机和治理挑战，给创新生态系统稳健发展带来极大隐患，亟需对创新生态系统的风险治理进行深入探讨。从创新生态系统理论视角出发，聚焦人工智能技术产业化创新生态系统风险治理议题，根据风险诱发属性，将其归结为内生性风险（数据风险、算法风险）和外生性风险（算法歧视、算法滥用），并围绕治理主体、治理原则和治理路径3个方面建立风险治理体系，系统分析人工智能技术产业化创新生态系统的风险治理主体构成以及形成的多层次群落结构，分析和归纳出风险治理需要遵循的根本原则，并详细揭示内生性风险和外生性风险的具体治理路径，旨在为降低我国人工智能技术产业化过程中的风险，促进创新生态系统升级提供理论指导和有益启示。     

平台到生态系统成长的势效应——基于iOS移动操作系统的案例研究

移动互联网的快速兴起不仅推动操作系统平台成为移动通讯产业新的竞争制高点，更加速传统通讯行业竞争格局向操作系统生态竞争转变。现有研究关于平台到生态系统的演进成长机理仍不甚清晰，通过引入平台势概念，描述平台到生态系统的持续成长历程，并对iOS移动操作系统开展探索性案例研究，尝试从持续、动态视角打开平台成长为生态系统过程的“黑箱”。研究发现，平台到生态系统的持续成长不仅存在显著阶段性特征，即平台企业在不同发展阶段不仅会依据平台发展特性、需求和组织情境特征，形成不同战略重点与目标，还蕴含着平台势的复杂积聚过程，平台势持续积聚推动着平台到生态系统的持续演进发展；不同发展阶段下，平台的借势型、造势型和应势型战略行动使平台势变化呈现出从逐渐积聚到逐渐加速积聚，再到积聚速度呈加快—减缓—加快形式的转换过程，从而影响平台到生态系统的演进成长进程。     

Cross-border marketing ecosystem orchestration: A conceptualization of its determinants and boundary conditions

The authors propose that the current trends and developments in the international marketplace call for a new theoretical concept-based approach to inform and guide cross-border marketing strategy. Specifically, the authors label this approach marketing ecosystem orchestration (MEO). The marketing ecosystem is defined as connected, interdependent, and co-evolving sets of actors, activities, and institutions enabling the marketing of an offering that has value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. MEO is a new strategic approach for an internationalizing firm to achieve sustained value creation, value appropriation, and growth in a host market. Orchestration involves developing and/or coordinating the ecosystem’s interdependent – but independent actors, resources, information, processes, and services to create, co-create, and appropriate value from firms’ market-based assets. The authors theorize three components of MEO – the orchestration of supply chains and fulfillment networks, marketing communications, and transactions and payments sub-ecosystems – and develop a conceptual framework and propositions influencing the determinants of MEO adoption by the focal firm. This paper concludes with managerial implications and offers several new directions for international marketing research.     

Economic benefit and ecological cost of enlarging tea cultivation in subtropical China: Characterizing the trade-off for policy implications

Cash crop expansion has become a global land use issue in recent decades. While the enlarging cash crop cultivation brings promising profitability, it can impair the delivery of various ecosystem services, with a risk of threat to sustainability and human well being. In order to make well-informed land use policy decisions, it requires elaborate efforts to characterize the trade-off between the benefit and cost of cash crop cultivation. This paper focuses on the enlarging tea cultivation in subtropical China, using a case of Anji County. We first monitor tea expansion from 1985 to 2016 based on time-series Landsat imageries, and then analyze the subsequent changes of water conservation service through an in-field survey of soil loss. Monetary approach is finally employed to evaluate the trade-off between economic benefit and ecological cost associated with the growing age of tea plantations. Results show that tea plantations expanded rapidly from 1985 to 2016 in Anji County. Delivery of water conservation service has been significantly impaired by the conversion from natural forests to tea plantations, but it can be gradually improved during the long rotational life cycles of tea plantations. For a given plot (1 ha at moderate slope), in theory, the economic benefit and ecological cost exhibit opposite trend associated the growing age of tea plantations, and an equilibrium point is approximately achieved at the 12-year growing age. In reality, ecological cost exceeds the economic benefit throughout the study period in Anji County. More specifically, the net difference increases from 11575 Yuan in 1985–1469167 Yuan in 2016. It denotes that economic benefit fails to compromise the ecological cost of the enlarging tea cultivation in Anji County. Conflicting land use policies (ecological conservation vs cash cropping promotion) and ‘household contract responsibility’ system should account for the unbalanced relationship between economic benefit and ecological conservation. We finally propose four major options towards the win–win possibilities between economic gain and ecological conservation associated with tea cultivation.     

Applicability of economic instruments for protecting ecosystem services from cultural agrarian landscapes in Doñana,SW Spain

Abandonment and conversion of cultural agrarian landscapes are major drivers behind the loss of ecosystem services in Europe. One incentive for land-use conversion is the higher (private) economic return from industrial mono-functional crops relative to traditional multi-functional ones. However, conversion of cultural agrarian landscapes can involve high direct and indirect costs to society through the loss of ecosystem services. Using as a case study the traditional vineyards surrounding the Doñana National Park, South-West Spain, this research has three objectives: i) to measure soil erosion impacts from the conversion of traditional vineyards in biophysical and economic terms, (ii) to identify drivers of change behind the loss of traditional vineyards, and iii) to assess the applicability of economic instruments to protect traditional vineyards. Our results suggest that uprooting of traditional vineyards is an important driver behind the siltation of the marsh in the Doñana National Park, which in turns involve socio-environmental costs in terms of loss of ecosystem services and cultural values. Subsidy reform to reward management practices that sustain ecosystem services and eco-labelling of vine-derived products are pointed at as promising economic instruments to slow down or reverse abandonment or conversion of traditional vineyards.