Through the commodification of nature, the framing of the environment as a ‘natural resource’ or ‘ecosystem service’ has become increasingly prominent in international environmental governance. The economic capture approach is promoted by international organizations such as the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) through Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD), Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) and The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB). This paper will inquire as to how forest protection is related to issues of social and ecological justice, exploring whether forest exploitation based on the top-down managerial model fosters an unequitable distribution of resources. Both top-down and community-based approaches to forest protection will be critically examined and a more inclusive ethical framework to forest protection will be offered. The findings of this examination indicate the need for a renewed focus on existing examples of good practice in addressing both social and ecological need, as well as the necessity to address the less comfortable problem of where compromise appears less possible. The conclusion argues for the need to consider ecological justice as an important aspect of more socially orientated environmental justice for forest protection. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0376892916000436 https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/
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In this article, we assess the potential of alternative land use systems using non-drainage peatland species which could eventually phase out or partly replace oil palm plantations on undrainable peatlands. We have used the ecosystem services approach to analyse what scenarios using drainage-free peatland species could be suitable alternatives for oil palm cultivation on peat and how these scenarios compare to oil palm plantations in terms of selected ecosystem services. Our results indicate that alternative paludiculture systems will provide more direct and indirect ecosystem services than oil palm plantations on peat. We also found that stakeholders were aware of issues with growing oil palm on peat, and that there was a general intention for sustainable use of peatlands amongst several groups of stakeholders. Replacing oil palm with alternative systems such as paludiculture in Malaysia is not yet realistic. The most important impediments are a lack of knowledge on potential of non-drainage peatland species and its associated value chains, as well as the technical difficulty for smallholders to implement such a system. We recommend starting experimental plantings with paludiculture systems to further test species performance, life cycle analysis, growth, intercropping limitations and possibilities, yields and improvements in the value chain.
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In service design projects, collaboration between design consultant and service provider can be problematic. The nature of these projects requires a high level of shared understanding and commitment, which providers may not be used to. We studied designer-provider collaboration in multiple real-life cases, in order to uncover determinants for successful collaboration. The case studies involved six service innovation projects, performed by Dutch design agencies. Independent researchers closely monitored the projects. Additional interviews with designers and providers gave insights in how both parties experienced their collaboration in the innovation projects. During data analysis, a coding scheme was created inductively. The scheme supported us in formulating 12 themes for designer-provider collaboration, amongst them four contextual determinants of shared understanding and stakeholder commitment in SD-projects. The insights from this study were then grounded in literature. Knowledge gaps were identified on themes about agreements of responsibilities, the open-endedness of an SD-process, an opportunitysearching approach, and organizational change that is required for the successful implementation of innovative service concepts.
The seaweed aquaculture sector, aimed at cultivation of macroalgal biomass to be converted into commercial applications, can be placed within a sustainable and circular economy framework. This bio-based sector has the potential to aid the European Union meet multiple EU Bioeconomy Strategy, EU Green Deal and Blue Growth Strategy objectives. Seaweeds play a crucial ecological role within the marine environment and provide several ecosystem services, from the take up of excess nutrients from surrounding seawater to oxygen production and potentially carbon sequestration. Sea lettuce, Ulva spp., is a green seaweed, growing wild in the Atlantic Ocean and North Sea. Sea lettuce has a high nutritional value and is a promising source for food, animal feed, cosmetics and more. Sea lettuce, when produced in controlled conditions like aquaculture, can supplement our diet with healthy and safe proteins, fibres and vitamins. However, at this moment, Sea lettuce is hardly exploited as resource because of its unfamiliarity but also lack of knowledge about its growth cycle, its interaction with microbiota and eventually, possible applications. Even, it is unknown which Ulva species are available for aquaculture (algaculture) and how these species can contribute to a sustainable aquaculture biomass production. The AQULVA project aims to investigate which Ulva species are available in the North Sea and Wadden Sea which can be utilised in onshore aquaculture production. Modern genomic, microbiomic and metabolomic profiling techniques alongside ecophysiological production research must reveal suitable Ulva selections with high nutritional value for sustainable onshore biomass production. Selected Ulva spp lines will be used for production of healthy and safe foods, anti-aging cosmetics and added value animal feed supplements for dairy farming. This applied research is in cooperation with a network of SME’s, Research Institutes and Universities of Applied Science and is liaised with EU initiatives like the EU-COST action “SeaWheat”.
Het opslaan van gevoelige bedrijfsgegevens op niet-goedgekeurde hardware, software en services, zoals Dropbox of Google Drive, gebeurt vaak, ondanks de veiligheidsrisico’s. Dit fenomeen heet Shadow IT. Shadow IT-gedrag brengt grote veiligheidsrisico’s met zich mee, doordat gevoelige gegevens opgeslagen wordt op onveilige locaties. Tegelijkertijd beschikken organisaties niet over methoden om deze risico’s adequaat te monitoren en beheersen.
Met de opkomst van digitale diensten en de impact van digitale technologie is het vraagstuk van privacy hoog op de maatschappelijke agenda beland. Burgers gebruiken steeds vaker apps en andere online services, met als keerzijde dat we steeds meer informatie over onszelf moeten delen om optimaal gebruik te kunnen maken van deze faciliteiten. Dit kan leiden tot schending van onze privacy. Ook voor de meeste (mkb-)bedrijven is het lastig om inzicht te krijgen in de privacy implicaties van hun online services en in de privacy-eisen om deze implicaties te verzachten. Het privacyvraagstuk is voor deze doelgroepen grijpbaar te maken door de privacy-eisen waar online diensten aan moeten voldoen op een beknopte, overzichtelijke en duidelijke manier te communiceren. Privacy labels, in navolging van energielabels en voedingslabels, zijn hiervoor een veelbelovende methode. Binnen het, door NWO gefinancierde, SERIOUS project is een prototype ontwikkeld om privacy-eisen te visualiseren middels een multidimensionaal privacy label (Barth, Ionita en Hartel, 2020). Op basis van een vragenlijst met betrekking op datacollectie, dataverwerking en datadisseminatie kan de mate van privacy borging en bescherming worden vastgesteld. Het huidige prototype van dit privacy label is generiek. Echter is het mogelijk dat bepaalde elementen van privacy in de praktijk binnen sommige domeinen veel zwaarder wegen dan binnen anderen. Kenniscentrum Creating 010 onderzoekt, naar aanleiding van de vraag vanuit de samenwerkingspartijen van het SERIOUS project, binnen dit project hoe het SERIOUS prototype kan worden doorontwikkeld naar een volwaardig privacy label. Hierbij wordt nagegaan of en hoe het prototype in en voor verschillende sectoren werkt, deze zijn: retail, media en cultuur. Het doel van dit project is om middels een haalbaarheidsstudie de richtlijnen voor een domein-specifiek label te achterhalen en op te stellen die dienen als uitgangspunt voor een vervolgproject voor een domein-specifieke privacy tool.
