Documents found
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3621.More information
Mayotte's coral reefs (342 km2), mangroves (8, 46 km2) and seagrass beds (7,60 km2) provide important ecosystem services of which the most important are the coastal protection, carbon sequestration, water purification and fish biomass production. The quantity and quality of these services have been decreasing steadily for several years and should continue to do so if no action is taken to contain anthropogenic pressures. The coral cover of the fringing reefs and the barrier reef has thus declined respectively by 60 % in 15 years and 15 % in 8 years, while the pioneer front of Sonneratia for mangroves has declined by 13 % in 6 years. As for the water quality, it suggests a degraded state of seagrass beds. The estimated annual value of these services amounts to EUR 151 million. This value would then rise to EUR 188 million if the ecosystems were in pristine conditions. This article shows that the preservation of coastal ecosystems is essential from an economic point of view.
Keywords: Valeurs d'usage indirect, services écosystémiques, récifs coralliens, mangroves, herbiers, Mayotte, Océan indien, Indirect use values, ecosystem services, coral reefs, mangroves, seagrass, Mayotte, Indian Ocean
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3622.More information
This article is the result of an introductory two-year case study project that investigated community libraries supported by the not-for-profit organization Libros Para Pueblos (LPP) in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico. Libros Para Pueblos (LPP) is a largely volunteer-run library organization based in the capital city of Oaxaca de Juarez. In order to analyse the work of LPP we used Mostert & Vermeulen's (1998) nine areas for evaluation of community libraries. Over the past 20 years, the number of libraries the organization supports has grown from two to more than 70 throughout the state. The work that has facilitated this growth is carried out by a small Mexican staff, along with an Executive Committee and a Board of Directors made up of Americans and Canadians living in Mexico. The work is both time consuming and demanding, but it is fuelled by a positive reading ideology that is a result of memories of childhood reading. This motivation is shared by a network of 11 Mexican Regional Volunteer Coordinators who train and support local library workers. The local workers are often doing their tequio, which is a social requirement of working for one or two years in public service. We argue that the success of LPP libraries is influenced by: 1) an organizational structure that mandates Mexican leadership at the Executive level and in paid staff positions; 2) initiation from local representative; 3) the unique and complex socialist community configurations of the Oaxacan region; 4) a community of retirees who volunteer at many levels; and 5) national and international donations.
Keywords: Bibliothèques communautaires, Mexique, Oaxaca, bénévolat, culture de la lecture, Community libraries, Mexico, Oaxaca, volunteerism, reading culture
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3623.More information
In this article, we share findings from an analysis of Ontario Catholic school board policy documents (N = 179) containing Canada’s newest human rights grounds: gender expression and gender identity. Our major finding may be unsurprising—that Ontario Catholic boards are generally not responding to Toby’s Act (passed in 2012) at the level of policy, as few boards have added these grounds in a way that enacts the spirit of that legislation. While this finding is likely unsurprising, our study also yielded findings that unsettle any facile binary of “Catholic boards/bad” and “public secular boards/good” in relation to gender diversity. We also leverage our findings to suggest a striking possibility for a vigorous and doctrinally-compatible embrace of gender expression protections in Catholic schools, if not gender identity protections. We argue that fear of gender expression protections may stem from an erroneous conflation of “gender expression” with “gender identity” when these are in fact separate grounds—a conflation that is also endemic within secular Ontario school board policy; this doubles as a conflation of gender expression with “transgender,” as the latter is unfailingly linked with gender identity human rights. We make a series of recommendations for policy, and a case for Catholic schools embracing their legal duty to provide a learning environment free from gender expression discrimination without doctrinal conflict and arguably with ample doctrinal support, so that students of all gender expressions can flourish regardless of whether they are or will come to know they are transgender.
Keywords: expression de genre, gender expression, identité de genre, gender identity, transgender, transgenre, Ontario, Ontario, conseils scolaires, school boards, policy, politiques, Loi Toby, Toby's Act, droits de la personne, human rights
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3627.More information
This article presents results of a critical review of the literature discussing the ethical issues arising in humanitarian work, following the method proposed by McCullough, Coverdale and Chervenak. Our aim was primarily to focus on how the ethical issues arising in humanitarian work are conceptualized within the literature we reviewed. We think that properly conceptualizing the ethical issues which humanitarian workers may face can provide avenues to better respond to them. We analysed 61 documents, as part of a literature review, which revealed that there truly is a need, amongst the authors and in humanitarian work, to discuss ethics. Indeed, even if only a small number of authors define explicitly the words they use to discuss ethics, the great quantity that we have uncovered in the documents seem to suggest vast and rich grounds upon which to address ethical issues. We believe it to be important that the ethical issues of humanitarian work are increasingly addressed in the literature and argue that it would be helpful for the vocabulary used by authors to be employed and developed even more rigorously, so that their discussions show more precision, coherence, relevance, exhaustiveness, and sufficiency. The review of the literature, as well as the resulting analysis in this article, is part of a broader project to suggest a way to conceptualize the ethical issues of humanitarian work based on the strengths and innovations of this and other studies.
Keywords: ethical issues, humanitarian work, conceptualization, typologies, problèmes éthiques, travail humanitaire, conceptualisation, typologies
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3628.More information
We analyze the exploration and extraction of a nonrenewable resource under asymmetric information. The principal delegates the exploitation of a resource to an agent (a mining firm) who possesses private information about the cost of exploration; the agent learns further information on extraction costs once reserves have been established and constrain extraction. The principal can only commit to current-period royalty contracts: one discovery-transfer menu and one extraction-royalty menu that is conditional on reserves discovered. Compared with the symmetric information first best, avoiding adverse selection in extraction requires the optimum mechanism to increase discoveries by the lowest cost type and possibly others. This is tempered by a countervailing effect stemming from information asymmetry in exploration that tends to reduce discoveries, especially by higher cost types. We further detail implications on the forms taken by the inefficiencies associated with asymmetric information: abandoned reserves, excessive use of low-cost exploration prospects, and inefficient levels of technological sophistication in the exploration and extraction sectors.
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3629.More information
This study addresses the lack of comparative research on the consumption of social networking sites (SNS) and SNS user behaviour in four emerging economies: Brazil, Russia, India, China. Using online survey and interviews, data are collected from individuals in order to identify different types of SNS user behaviour. From the findings, we develop a simplified framework of digital culture to show the effects of BRIC cultural context on sociomaterial context, and how these factors can be used to explain SNS user behaviour. The findings offer contemporary insights that can inform businesses operating in BRIC markets for leveraging digital interactivity.
Keywords: BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China), social networking sites, SNS user behaviour, local culture, BRIC (Brésil, Russie, Inde, Chine), sites de réseautage social (SNS), comportement des internautes, culture locale, BRIC (Brasil, Rusia, India, China), redes sociales, comportamiento de los usuarios de las SNS, cultura local
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3630.More information
Cyanotoxins in our environment threaten the integrity of aquatic ecosystems and human health. As climate change is suspected to favour cyanobacterial blooms, it is important to have an up-to-date picture of our knowledge concerning this subject. This review summarizes the effects of various environmental factors on the production and degradation of cyanotoxins, and on the detoxification of the water column in freshwater and brackish ecosystems in Quebec (Canada). The influence of some factors discussed in this paper is well known (e.g., nutrients, light, water temperature and bacterial activity), while that of others, which are equally important (e.g., salinity, wind, trace metals, pesticides and sediments), would benefit from further study.
Keywords: changements globaux, cyanotoxines, facteurs anthropiques, milieux naturels, synthèse de toxines, anthropogenic factors, cyanotoxins, global changes, natural environment, toxin synthesis