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Iran’s challenges in maintaining sustainable development: from the lens of ecotourism
No full textIran being rich in historical, cultural, and natural resources appears to be an appropriate country for ecotourism. Iran has a unique natural beauty that can be leveraged to develop the tourism industry, particularly around ecotourism. The unique diversity of natural phenomena and geography has caused Iran to be recognized as the fifth most crucial natural diversity globally; nonetheless, planning for using these conditions is still not provided. Ecotourism is primarily founded on the resources that the natural environment is obtainable to tourists that use it and suitable conditions and requires protection of natural resources, which can be comprehended through evaluation of capacity and capability of the natural environment to attract tourists. However, it is not free of challenges to maintain sustainable development. The concept of sustainable development emerged after the industrial revolution. The problems shaped concerning industrialization and technological development of cities and connecting different cultural, economic, political, and social development with an exceptional attention to ecological considerations. Based on a literature review complemented by thematic analysis and funnel approach, this study examines the ecotourism of Iran along with its challenges. The significance of urban development and the difficulty of environmental problems have the foreseeable existence of green spaces and their development. In addition, the country’s ecotourism is confronted with economic, social, and environmental difficulties, and for planning in the field of overcoming this challenge, first there is a need to recognize these challenges. Due to the role of urban management in attaining sustainable urban development, this research attempts to explain the concept of urban management, its components, and its objectives, then provide effective urban management to achieve sustainable development
To be or not to be in the EU: the international economic effects of Brexit uncertainty
Get PDFThis paper evaluates the impact of Brexit-related uncertainty on the economies of the UK, EU, and the US. We propose a measure of Brexit uncertainty that has not been employed before in the literature. We first construct a binary variable by selecting Brexit-related events. We subsequently employ the Qual VAR model of Dueker [2005. “Dynamic Forecasts of Qualitative Variables: A Qual VAR Model of US Recessions.” Journal of Business & Economic Statistics 23: 96–104] to transform this variable to a continuous latent variable that captures uncertainty on important economic and financial variables. Next, this latent variable enters a structural Factor-Augmented Vector AutoRegression model combined with 452 macro and financial variables for the sample countries. Overall, our results indicate that the prolonged period of uncertainty, had a positive effect on the economies of major EU countries and negative effects for the UK economy. Additionally, the UK is the most important net sender of uncertainty spillovers in the EU, while Germany and France are among the most important net receivers of uncertainty shocks
The state and perceptions of human-crocodile interactions around Murchison falls conservation area, Uganda
No full textWildlife conflicts between people and large herbivores or mammalian carnivores are widely researched in Africa, but there is limited work on human-crocodile conflicts (HCC). In Uganda, conservation efforts have enabled the recovery of the Nile Crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus) population, yet the expanding human population and activities increasingly overlap with crocodile habitats resulting in negative interactions. This study used a combination of literature review, surveys, and the Nominal Group Technique to investigate the factors underpinning HCC around Murchison Falls Conservation Area. Results indicate that 115 attacks on humans occurred during 2012–2017, 84.3% of
these being fatal. Also, 93.1% of the attacks occurred as victims were either fishing or collecting water. Construction of crocodile exclusion enclosures and translocation of problem crocodiles to protected areas were the most preferred mitigation measure. To reduce the prevalence of human injuries and offset local hostility toward crocodiles, conservation actors need to actively engage the affected communities
Introduction to special issue: Coexistence with Reptiles
Get PDFThis general introduction focuses on two major topics. First, the nature of reptiles and the poor (but improving) state of the study of reptiles and perceptions of their cognitive and social capabilities. Second, on what we mean by coexistence with wildlife, and how studying coexistence might improve our civility to other kinds of creatures in the future. I guest edited this special issue on coexistence with reptiles, commissioning articles on coexistence with crocodiles in East Timor (Sebastian Brackhane), Solomon Islands (Jan van der Ploeg), Philippines (Merlijn van Weerd, Myrna Cureg, Marites Balbas and Jan van der Ploeg) and urban Vadodara in Gujarat, India (Raju Vyas), and cobras in India (Janaki Lenin) and Komodo Dragons on Komodo (Maria Rosdalima Panggur, Ayu Wijayanti and Ardiantiono)
The neurodiversity movement. A tipping point. Community reflections on the lived experience of neurodivergent people through the lifespan
Get PDF(PowerPoint Presentation: art by Gabrielle Goodridge; editing by Marianne Cole
Equitable global value chain and production network as a driver for enhanced sustainability in developing economies
Get PDFRecent studies on the global value chain (GVC) have highlighted the need to better integrate the value chains of developing countries of the global South with that of the global North regions, which are more highly developed. This is aimed at enhancing the economic and social sustainable upgrading of the value chains of the global South regions. The paper thus seeks to answer a critical question as to whether the existing GVC set-up pertaining to global North and South countries is equitable and whether it would yield the needed socio-economic and wider sustainable benefits, particularly to global South countries. a conceptual Global Value Chain (GVC) model is developed based on the economy-wide and system-based Multi-Regional Input–Output methodology to achieve this goal. Subsequently, this was empirically tested to measure embodied flows in capital and labour for sustainable development between global North and South regions. These are achieved using the GVC networks of the UK (from the global North) and some countries in sub Saharan Africa (from the global South) to exemplify these developments. With implications for equitable, sustainable development, our study shows significant imbalances exist in the flows of value added activities from the global South to the global North, particularly in the primary industries, which produce low-value products in their raw state. Subsequently, this creates a disproportionate economic disadvantage for South countries. As such, if global South countries are to fully benefit from GVC, the study shows that these imbalances must be addressed, such as through structural changes in the economies of global South countries from their dependencies on the primary industries
Not all litter is littered: an exploration of unintentional means of public waste generation
No full textHistorically, studies have equated the presence of litter to the act of littering; however, the results of a disposal behaviour analysis suggest that the connection is not as straightforward. In this study the concept of polite littering was established, where if there are no means for disposal, litter is placed neatly in creative spaces in lieu of actively littering. As common perception towards littering is that it is done in a flagrant and untidy way, in the act of polite littering, individuals negotiate their actions as non-contributory. Ultimately, the study found that methods of polite and accidental littering accounted for 63% of all observed non-cigarette littering events. Second, the identification of vermin dispersal furthers the disparity between the presence of litter and the act of littering. The influence of animals in distributing waste that had previously been binned falsely attributes human behaviour to litter generation, and leads to misplaced mitigation efforts. To address the contribution of polite and accidental littering, it is suggested that a rebranding of the term and legislation of littering is crucial to include both intentional and unintentional acts, that product packaging design integrate characteristics that lead to packaging being less easy to misplace and that bin placement take into consideration needs of the end user. Additionally, structural and mechanical approaches such as bin design and proactive cleansing schedules that consider the influence of vermin dispersal would lead to significant litter reduction
Learning to live more equitably
Get PDFSeventeenth century European societies were in many ways radically unjust. While there is now a broad consensus that the members of a state are entitled to equal political rights, early-modern theorists lived in a world where most people – all women and many men, together with members of non-Christian religions and some Christian sects – were excluded from voting and political office. Where there is now a consensus that spouses should have the same basic rights regardless of their gender, early modern marriage laws subjected women to the power of their husbands. While slavery is nowadays held to be an appalling abuse, this was the era in which the European slave trade was established. These are troubling reflections. They distance us from our philosophical forebears whose sense of justice must, it seems, have been vastly different from and even inferior to our own. They may even prompt us to wonder why we should study them. What is to be gained from trying to understand the attitudes of people whose ways of life were shockingly unjust?
Seductive as these doubts may be, I aim to show that they are not decisive. The early modern philosophers whose work I shall discuss thought deeply about what justice is, and about the virtues that enable us to live justly. For them, understanding justice was not only a theoretical project - a matter of articulating distributive norms that could in principle be implemented. They were equally concerned with practical questions about the qualities we need to cultivate if we are to be capable of making just judgments. How can we become more just? The answers they give, as I argue in the concluding section of this paper, are a source of inspiration and at the same time contain a warning. Inspiringly, they offer sophisticated insights into habits and dispositions that hold back our understanding and block our ability to act justly. Here are ideas from which we can learn. By way of warning, they show how taxing it is to act on these insights and how easily we fall short of them. While identifying limitations within early modern conceptions of justice may be relatively straightforward, identifying comparable shortcomings in our own attitudes is arguably less so. Early modern philosophical culture offers us a mirror in which to examine our own failures to practise justice
On testing for bubbles during hyperinflations
Get PDFWe consider testing for the presence of rational bubbles during hyperinflations via an analysis of the non-stationarity properties of relevant observable time series. The test procedure is based on a Markov regime-switching model with independent stochastic changes in its intercept, error variance and autoregressive coefficients. This model formulation allow us to disentangle fundamentals-driven changes in the drift, bubble-driven explosiveness, and volatility changes that may be fundamentals-driven and/or bubble-driven. The testing methodology is illustrated by applying it to data from hyperinflations in Argentina, Brazil, Germany and Poland
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