Fish and food security
Johann Bell / Secretariat of the Pacific Community
Posted: 21-11-2008

The right to food security is central to human development and many of the major human rights treaties. It is also implicit in Goal 1 of the Millennium Development Goals – eradicating extreme poverty and hunger. Food security is under threat in the Pacific. Agricultural production is not keeping pace with population growth and two thirds of Pacific Island countries and territories (PICTs) are now net importers of food. Regrettably, the low nutritional quality of many of these imports has increased the incidence of obesity, diabetes and heart disease.

Simulated urbanism and its effects on the negotiation of hyperreal cities
Rowland Atkinson and Paul Willis / Housing and Community Research Unit, University of Tasmania
Urban spaces have become blended even more seamlessly with their portrayal. Such representations are generated via a broad range of media which both influence and sculpt our sense of their constitution so that our sense of what the urban ‘is’ is inflected by a range of interpretations, atmospheres, inherited viewpoints, dialogues and scenarios derived from these media.

In this paper the authors look at this interpretive skew as generated through intense video gaming activity and from a particular simulated urban context, the city of the game Grand Theft Auto 3: Liberty City. Their objective is to conceptualise the linkages between gamers’ apprehension of the relative realism of this in-game environment and its influence on their experience of traversing ‘real’ urban environments. They suggest the notions of slipped and segued viewpoints as a means of understanding the differential degrees to which real and artificial interactive representations, based around violence, gang ecologies and dystopian urban space, bleed unevenly into the everyday urban life of these players.

This sense of space appears to influence perceptions of risk, the navigation of urban space, and received understandings of social ecologies and stereotypes which overlap with the non-game world. Gamers move within what we call the ludodrome – a mediated space between immersion in urban simulation and a real world that is simultaneously generated, destabilised and blurred by the effect of such gameplay.

To view the full text click here.

Climate change, vulnerability and adaptation for south west Western Australia from 1975 to the present, by Luke Morgan / Climate Change Adaptation, RMIT Global Cities Institute.
Luke Morgan, Senior Policy Officer at the Western Australian Department of Agriculture and Food, writes, ‘Awareness and adaptation to climate change during the past 30 years has been emerging, with most sectors only responding in the last five to 10 years. Most past responses focused on mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, but as the inevitability of climate change becomes clearer and world-wide attention shifts to adaptation, so too SWWA’s sectors are considering how to adapt.’

To read the full text click here.

The book will pursue three aims. Firstly, it will present a review of the approaches and methods to inform, communicate and educate university students and the public on climate change being used by universities around the world. Secondly, it will introduce initiatives, projects and communication strategies undertaken by universities with a view to informing different stakeholders and raising awareness on matters related to climate change. Finally, the book will document, promote and disseminate some of the on-going initiatives today all around the world, with an emphasis on replicable and inspiring projects being undertaken at and by
universities, aimed at encouraging a better understanding and a stronger personal involvement in climate change issues and inspiring more works in this field.

Schedule
1. Call for papers: 1st October 2008
2. Deadline for submissions of 200 words abstracts: 30th January 2009
3. Selection and commissioning of papers: 1st March 2009
4. Deadline for submissions of papers: 30th June 2009 (no extensions possible!)
5. Publication of book: 29th October 2009 with a launching at the 3rd European Fair on Education for Sustainable Development whose theme is “Renewable Energy and Climate Change: a challenge for European Schools and Universities”

Editorial office and further information
Research and Transfer Centre “Applications of Life Sciences”, Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Life Sciences, Hamburg, Germany
Home page: http://www.haw-hamburg.de/9769.html
E-mail: ftz-als@ls.haw- hamburg.de

Living planet report 2008
World Wildlife Fund
Posted: 30-10-2008

Australian’s exploitation of the environment is worse then ever, with the nation now boasting the fifth largest ecological footprint per capita in the world - up from sixth worst just two years ago - according to the WWF biennial assessment of the state of the natural world.

This report uses complementary measures to explore the changing state of global biodiversity and of human consumption. The Living Planet Index reflects the state of the planet’s ecosystems while the Ecological Footprint shows the extent and type of human demand being placed on these systems.

The Living Planet Index of global biodiversity, as measured by populations of 1,686 vertebrate species across all regions of the world, has declined by nearly 30 per cent over just the past 35 years.

For the first time in this report, the volume of data in the Living Planet Index has allowed species population trends to be analysed by biogeographic realm and taxonomic group as well as by biome. While biodiversity loss has levelled off in some temperate areas, the overall Living Planet Index continues to show a decline. It appears increasingly unlikely that even the modest goal of the Convention on Biological Diversity, to reduce by 2010 the rate at which global biodiversity is being lost, will be met.

To read the full document download the Living Planet Report 2008.

The thin green line: Climate change and Australian policing
Anthony Bergin and Ross Allen / Australian Strategic Policy Institute
Posted: 24-10-2008

This report examines the implications of climate change for Australia’s police forces and officers. It is written by Anthony Bergin and Ross Allen. The report has a number of recommendations including the creation of an information hub and the development of risk assessments of the locations that will be most affected by climate change as part of a multi-agency strategic approach to climate change adaptation.

To read the full document download The thin green line: Climate change and Australian policing.

An article of interest for people in the local food production/ relocalisation area:
Forte, M. (2008). Knowledge, Food and Place. A Way of Producing, a Way of Knowing. Sociologica Ruralis. 48(3): 200-222.

Abstract
This article examines the dynamics of knowledge in the valorisation of local food, drawing on the results from the CORASON project (A ‘cognitive approach to rural sustainable development the dynamics of expert and lay knowledge’). It is based on the analysis of several in-depth case studies on food relocalisation carried out in 10 European countries (Ireland, Scotland, Sweden, Germany, Norway, Poland, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Greece). In the different fields of rural studies (rural sociology, geography, anthropology) there is currently a wide debate about the relocalisation of food production and consumption.

Born out of a critique of the ‘conventionalisation’ of organic agriculture, attention to local food has grown in recent years to assume the features of a new orthodoxy or paradigm that is now undergoing, as is suitable to any orthodoxy, deep and critical scrutiny. Many points are discussed, from the definition of ‘local’ to its transformative role in the current agri-food system and rural community, whether relocalisation of food is a sustainable strategy and whether its character is radical or merely reformist. The perspective adopted here, which is relatively neglected in the literature, derives from the overall focus of CORASON on the role of knowledge in rural development. We look at the valorisation of local food as a knowledge-based practice that mobilises the various forms of knowledge embodied in both rural and non-rural actors. Following knowledge in the valorisation of food leads us to differentiate between patterns of food relocalisation across Europe and to analyse the interplay among knowledge forms and actors in the contested construction of the local food project.

The study was undertaken as part of the European Commission’s CORASON project whose goal is to ‘identify and explain the dynamics of the variety of knowledge forms used in rural projects relevant to rural economic development, rural civil society, and the protection of rural nature.’ See: www.corason.hu for more.

You can download various publications / working papers from the Corason website – in addition you might like to have a look through the special Issue of Sociologia Ruralis (the one in which the Fonte article is published) http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/120083630/ issue  as this one presents the various outputs of the Corason project.

This report by the Food Ethics Council examines the impact of food distribution networks on our environment, economy, culture and communities, and their contribution to climate change. It offers ‘a sustainable vision for the future of food distribution, and provides a roadmap for government, business and civil society to help get us there.’ The elements of the report’s vision for food in 2022 are as follows:

· The biggest cuts in greenhouse gas emissions come from changing what we eat and how it is produced rather than from cutting food miles. That means less meat and dairy, and more fruit and veg.
· We still trade food internationally but shift away from highly perishable produce to products that gain ‘added value’ and long-shelf life from basic processing near the point of production – fair trade chocolate or sun-dried fruit are examples where this happens already.
· Local food and urban farming flourish as efficient distribution hubs give small producers access to thriving independent high streets in towns and cities. This has the added benefits of giving shoppers the opportunity to support their local economy and engage with the people who grow and make their food.
· The weekly car trip to the supermarket gets replaced by well-stocked community convenience shops with direct delivery for the basics.

The report recommendations make interesting reading – see pages 7, 8 and 9 - and are directed at Government, the food industry and civil society.

You can download the report here: http://www.foodethicscouncil.org/node/399 and read the press release here: http://www.foodethicscouncil.org/node/398

We welcome a range of different contributions to the theme ‘low carbon communities’, including for example the following:
• The role of planning in facilitating (or impeding) community owned energy services
• Low carbon housing initiatives
• Co-operative energy programmes
• Technologies and communities
• Partnership approaches and the role of the private sector
• Social enterprises and their place in communities
• Low carbon outcomes through communities of place
• Achieving low carbon outcomes through community of interest
• Values and outcomes associated with a low carbon community
• Accounting for direct and indirect energy in community-based initiatives
• Participation, ownership and responsibility
• Social cohesion through low carbon community schemes
• Institutions for community-based initiatives: divergent experiences
• Community networks and their value for decarbonisation
• Food miles, diet and health in communities
• Low carbon travelling initiatives (work and leisure)
• Legislation, policy and governance to encourage distributed energy
• Community action: cycling, car sharing schemes
• Economic incentives and market mechanisms for collective action
• Social innovation and social ownership
• Localisation and carbon reduction
• Co-production and co-use arrangements
• The cost of decentralisation and centralisation
• Urban municipal cases

We welcome contributions from practitioners, researchers and scholars – and we are happy to provide feedback or guidance on abstracts or draft documents. We particularly invite submissions that use a comparative analytic framework and use empirical evidence to address theoretical questions. Full papers will be 6000 to 8000 words in length. We are looking for about 12 papers.

Scope of Special Issue
The transition to a sustainable energy economy poses significant challenges to national energy policies across OECD and emerging economies. The latest IPCC report is an authoritative plea for significant reductions in carbon emissions over the coming decades in order to respond to the challenge of climate change. This call for action is complemented by other concerns including security of supply and fuel poverty that together give justification to pursue a new energy pathway. Clearly, this will have important implications for the nature and structure of energy supply where profound transformations are required in the energy service delivery as well as the capabilities of technology suppliers to innovate in response to new societal demands.

But perhaps more significantly, the transition to a sustainable energy economy has ramifications to energy demand. As such, interrogations into consumption behaviours and practices have taken centre stage in public policy discussions in recent years like never before. These discussions suggest that traditional energy policy instruments of informing energy end-users and the use of price incentives to discourage ‘bad’ practice have a limited effectiveness in delivering the level of behavioural change needed to fulfil the multiple attributes of a sustainable energy economy. There is a need for new policy initiatives and instruments which have the capacity to influence the behaviours and practices of energy consumers whose consumption patterns depend on a complex interaction of continually evolving personal values, social norms and cultural narratives. These need to be supported by new forms of governance that are suited to understanding the social, psychological, cultural and political economy terrain as part of the aim to meet long-term environmental and social objectives. This remains a new terrain for policy-makers but there is increasing recognition that such an engagement is essential if long-term social and environmental policy targets are to be met.

While the policy terrain in the area of influencing individual behavioural change through a variety of incentive-based instruments is expanding, there is a growing call for extending policy and practical support to encourage further community-based energy initiatives. Part of the reason for this plea relates to the difficulty of relying on and mobilising individual consumption decisions to deliver broad public benefits. The private sector is a key player in energy provision but the assumption that markets can self-regulate and therefore consumption choices are meaningful exercises of freedom has been challenged by the scale of the social and ecological problems we face. Moreover, while the engagement of individual citizens is a necessary condition for the delivery of a low carbon future, there are also wider structural concerns to consider when exploring the range of models for mobilising individual action. Implicit in this is the construction of new institutions and forms of governance (ranging from public to private and from local to international) that enable ‘collectivising’ individual action into low carbon communities.

There are many community-level or community-led initiatives world-wide that are achieving good results and if scaled-up would play a significant role in climate stablisation efforts. There are also many lessons to be learned from community efforts that have faltered or failed. Low carbon communities may evolve from or may become communities of place and/or communities of interest. It is worthwhile to examine the social and political epistemologies (and processes) behind the creation of different types of community-driven practices as a way to explore their internal dynamics and external factors that limit and enable ’success’, and to identify commonalities and differences embedded in different types of low carbon communities. This would help to identify the opportunities and limitations of transferring the experiences acquired from low carbon communities to other groups and a wider section of society.

Schedule:
• 20 November 2008: Deadline submission of papers
• 10 January 2009: Distribute reviewers’ comments
• 15 February 2009: Deadline for final revised papers
• Publication: Spring/Summer 2009

* Research Group on Lifestyle, Values and Environment (RESOLVE), University of Surrey, UK. Y.Mulugetta@surrey.ac.uk
** Research Group on Lifestyle, Values and Environment (RESOLVE), University of Surrey, UK t.jackson@surrey.ac.uk
*** School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, UK d.vanderhorst@bham.ac.uk