Search Results (88)

Pesticide contamination poses significant threats to both humans and the environment, with residues frequently detected in surface waters worldwide. This study compares the effectiveness of passive samplers (POCIS and Chemcatcher) and grab sampling coupled with Stir-Bar Sorptive Extraction (SBSE) and Solid-Phase Extraction (SPE) for monitoring pesticides in surface waters. The comparative study was conducted at three sites in Victoria, Australia, representing different land uses. A total of 230 pesticides were screened, with 79 different pesticides detected overall. SBSE extracted the highest number of pesticides from grab samples, followed by SPE and passive samplers. The study highlights the complementarity of different sampling and extraction techniques in detecting a wide range of pesticides. The study also explores the suitability of these techniques for citizen science applications, emphasizing the importance of selecting appropriate methods based on specific research objectives and available resources. The findings underscore the need for a tiered approach, combining passive samplers for initial screening and grab sampling for quantitative analysis, to develop a robust monitoring strategy for protecting water quality. Full article

A previously buried paleosol was found on the continental shelf during a study of sea floor scour, nucleated by large artificial reef structures such as vessel hulks, barges, train cars, military vehicles, etc., called “scour nuclei”. It is a relic paleo-land surface of sapling-sized tree stumps, root systems, and fossil animal bone exhumed by scour processes active adjacent to the artificial reef structure. Over the span of five research cruises to the site in 2022–2024, soil samples were taken using hand excavation, PONAR grab samplers, split spoon, hollow tube auger, and a modified Shelby-style push box. High-definition (HD) video was taken using a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) and diver-held cameras. Radiocarbon dating of wood samples returned ages of 42,015–43,417 calibrated years before present (cal yrBP). Pollen studies, together with the recovered macrobotanical remains, support our interpretation of the site as a freshwater forested wetland whose keystone tree species was Taxodium distichum—bald cypress. The paleosol was identified as an Aquult, a sub-order of Ultisols where water tables are at or near the surface year-round. A deep (0.25 m+) argillic horizon comprised the bulk of the preserved soil. Comparable Ultisols found in Georgia wetlands include Typic Paleaquult (Grady and Bayboro series) soils. Full article

This paper critically examines the consequences of land grabs for livelihoods and agrarian change, based on a case study of rubber plantations in ethnic minorities in the uplands in Northwest Vietnam. Building upon Scoones’ agrarian political economy of livelihood framework, an integrated conceptual framework of a ‘livelihood pathway’ is developed to analyze the impact of rubber plantation land grabs on livelihoods and the agrarian political economy. Drawing on qualitative analysis and survey data from 205 households across six villages inhabited by Thai, Hmong, and Kho Mu communities, this study finds that rubber plantation land grabs have led to differentiated livelihood strategies—ranging from subsistence farming and wage labor to commercial agriculture—shaped by each group’s socioeconomic status, political connections, and access to resources. Consequently, the land grabbing undertaken by a domestic state-owned enterprise has caused the emergence of a set of distinctive livelihood pathways within a complex web of intersections across class and ethnicity in the upland area. This study concludes by arguing that an integrated conceptual framework of a ‘livelihood pathway’ offers a useful tool for analyzing the long-term socio-political consequences of land grabbing in similar contexts across developing countries and beyond. Full article

The article aims to analyze the contemporary forms of territorial dispossession that stem from the energy transition, especially those related to free trade corridors and green grabbing in the context of Latin America. To do this, we describe the reconfigurations of contemporary capitalism for territorializing capital in the geopolitical context of Latin America. At the same time, we argue how the territories of Latin America became strategically relevant for the expanded reproduction of capital in contemporary times. We also shed light on the centrality of free trade agreements and the corridors of extractivist dispossession as a turning point in the expansion—relating to the spectrum of hegemonic and imperialist domination of capital—of legal state frameworks for regulating and justifying full access to the neo-extractivist exploitation of Global South territories. Finally, we show that the “energy transition” supports green grabbing—that is, a new model not just of land grabbing, but rather of comprehensive territorial grabbing, since it means the expropriation of subterranean, maritime, wind, solar, and land territory. Full article

This study investigates the effects of urbanisation-induced displacement on economic capital security by comparing evicted and non-evicted peri-urban farming households in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The research employed a mixed-methods approach. The mixed research method combined a quantitative household survey of 446 households (223 displaced and 223 nondisplaced households) and qualitative Focus Group Discussions with 12 groups involving 96 key informants from Lemmi Kura sub-city of Addis Ababa and Kura Jidda Woreda of Sheger city. Data were analysed using logistic regression, indexes of household economic capital security, and qualitative information thematic content analysis to determine to what extent forced eviction influenced preurban farmers. The key findings of the study revealed that the odds of an evicted household being economically secure are about 27.3% of the odds for non-evicted households. In other words, evicted households are approximately 72.7% less likely to achieve economic security compared to those who have not been evicted. The study concluded that there are significant differences between evicted and non-evicted households regarding household economic capital security. These results underscore the urgent need for policies to end forced eviction, protect agricultural land, and provide sustainable support to displaced preurban farming communities. Full article

This study, as a contribution to the research on urban land grabbing (grabs) as a global phenomenon, seeks to evaluate the populist belief that developers swallow up urban land originally zoned for community purposes under Government, Institution and Community (GIC) zoning, thus depriving communities of space for their own benefit. The authors applied a systematic analysis of non-aggregate planning and development statistics to better interpret the features of the land market as regulated by zoning. Their research focuses on the salient features of redevelopment projects that enjoy successful planning applications and onsite development in GIC zones. They compared the planning and development statistics, obtained from the Planning Department’s website, of 425 approved GIC projects with those of the 261 Comprehensive Development Area (CDA) zone projects. Subject to the limitations of the data collected, the results qualify a negative view of land oligarchs (powerful land developers) who sought land under unitary ownership obtained in the past at nominal land premiums for quick windfalls. Particularly, GIC redevelopments were found to have proceeded much faster than CDA developments and, hence, were a natural attraction to developers, which were diverse, not exclusively private, and produced a few urban innovations during the redevelopment process. Full article

Southeast Asia is an essential region for companies carrying out large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs). Exploring the distribution patterns and influencing factors of LSLA projects in this region is of great practical significance for summarizing the characteristics of LSLA projects in Southeast Asia, for gaining a thorough understanding of LSLA project development rules, and for formulating reasonable policies to guide local LSLA projects. This study explores the spatial distribution and influencing factors of LSLA projects in Southeast Asia using the mean center method, the kernel density estimation method, and the grey correlation method. The findings indicate the following: Firstly, the majority of LSLA projects in Southeast Asia are located in the Indo-China Peninsula, Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, and other countries, which represent significant regions of interest for LSLA projects in this region. Secondly, the spatial distribution of LSLA intention projects and LSLA contract projects in Southeast Asia is similar, whereas LSLA production projects differ from the former two. Thirdly, the scale of LSLA projects in Southeast Asia is closely related to the host country’s natural resources, socio-economic conditions, governance, and market environment. The total GDP, per capita arable land area, net foreign direct investment inflow, and political stability have been identified as exerting a significant influence on investment corporations’ selection of LSLA host countries. Full article

The closure of religious communities throughout England, commonly known as the ‘dissolution of the monasteries’, was commenced in 1536 and completed to all intents and purposes by 1540, resulting in what one commentator has recently described as ‘the greatest dislocation of people, property and daily life since the Norman Conquest’. This was an important part of Henry VIII’s break with Rome and served as a means not only of further establishing his new authority as supreme head of the Church of England but also as a fundraising mechanism. Ireland’s religious communities, as part of the Tudor kingdoms, now also fell (in theory, at least) under the control of the Crown and were therefore due for closure from the mid-1530s onwards. But in reality, due to the limited power held by the Crown throughout much of Ireland, the only religious houses to be dissolved were those in the Pale, the most English part of Ireland (inter Anglicos, encompassing mainly Counties Dublin, Meath, Tipperary and Kildare, as well as some other areas). In the Gaelic part of Ireland (inter Hibernicos), the king’s writ, which in theory was law, did not actually run, so much so that in one case, the commissioners appointed to inspect a religious house in Granard, County Longford, merely noted that they did not do so, ‘for fear of the wild Irish’. The dissolution process in Ireland was drawn out and took place in two stages, with a second wave of monastic dissolutions in the 1570s and 1580s, long into Elizabeth’s reign. This was just one arm of the queen’s expansionist movement into parts of the island hitherto out of the reach of Tudor administration. Although the Reformation process in Ireland as a whole can ultimately be said to have been a failure, the dissolution process (in parts of the island, at least) was a success, one of the very few triumphs of Henry’s Irish Reformation programme. Vast tracts of property and land exchanged hands, a land grab that was facilitated by characters such as William Brabazon, the Irish vice-treasurer whose corruption was notorious. Despite this, a small number of communities managed to escape closure and continued on, protected by their local communities and gentry. Since the early 1970s, Brendan Bradshaw and others have written of the Henrician ‘first wave’ of dissolutions, but little consideration has been given to the later wave of closures that took place in parts of Gaelic Ireland that had previously been out of the Crown’s reach. This essay will survey the closures of the 1530s before discussing the dissolutions that took place in the later sixteenth century, and by doing so, it is hoped, will present a new consideration of these events that irrevocably altered Ireland’s landscape and society. Full article

Globally, the forced displacement of socially vulnerable communities causes significant contestation, irrespective of whether that occurs for mega-projects or smaller infrastructural, agricultural, urban renewal, or property developments. Despite multilateral guidelines for “socially inclusive” development, it is difficult to avoid the marginalization of evicted, local communities. Grounded on the credibility thesis, this article provides a new, theoretical basis for understanding the “social function of property” and how this may be used as a criterion to assess whether development-induced and resettlement projects should be given the go-ahead. Methodologically, this article employs the FAT (Formal, Actual, and Targeted) Institutional Framework to unpack the social function of property. To this end, it analyzes the acquisition and privatization of the common property of Indigenous Peoples to construct the Malaysian Bakun Hydroelectric Project, purportedly Asia’s second-largest dam. The FAT analysis ascertains the following three conditions on which basis projects should be halted: (1) the property of the evicted communities fulfills a critical role in providing social welfare; (2) the said function is disregarded by the expropriating agency; (3) the power divides between the expropriator and expropriated prevent meaningful participation by the latter. This study demonstrates that the social function of property can be effectively measured and validates the FAT Framework as a viable tool to analyze development-induced projects (and policies), with particular reference to expropriation, privatization, and formalization. Full article

Despite the government’s active promotion of rice production, a significant portion of the population still faces food insecurity. While existing literature often highlights the success of achieving rice surplus, few studies delve into the connections between rice surplus and food security, and critically analyze why food security is persistent. In addressing this issue, the study investigates the underlying causes of food insecurity amidst the government’s efforts to increase rice production. The study entails a comprehensive review of existing literature and an examination of food security in three provinces in the Cambodian Mekong Delta. It concludes that while rice intensification has led to increased rice production available for consumption, challenges persist in terms of access to and utilization of rice for food consumption. These challenges are attributed to increased production costs with minimal profit margins, indebtedness, migration, land grabs, water conflicts, and lack of institutional integration in food systems, compounded by the effects of climate change and environmental degradation. As a result, a farming household with one hectare of farmland cannot produce enough rice for food consumption. Consequently, young people opt to sell off their land to settle debts and seek employment opportunities in urban and overseas areas. Full article

Protected areas (PAs) in the Brazilian Amazon have proven to be critical in preserving the rainforest but face increasing threats. Since 2019, illegal activities and land conflicts involving PAs have escalated due to the weakening of environmental institutions. Therefore, up-to-date research is needed to evaluate agricultural pressures on PAs—including Sustainable Use Areas, Indigenous Territories, and Strictly Protected Areas—given its importance in driving deforestation in the Amazon, and to identify hotspots of concern. We analyzed property registration, deforestation, pasture expansion, and cattle transaction records within 158 PAs in the Brazilian state of Pará, which holds most of the remaining forest and the highest rates of deforestation. Our findings show that nearly a quarter of Pará’s 2019–2022 deforestation occurred within PAs, undermining their effectiveness as conservation tools. Despite prohibitions, we found illegally registered private properties in most PA categories including indigenous territories and over a 100% increase in deforestation within PAs from 2015–2018. Over 90% of PAs contained pasturelands in 2022, but only half of them had registered cattle transactions within their borders, which suggests the presence of clandestine cattle activities in these areas as well. Indirect sales to slaughterhouses coming from PAs increased during the study period, potentially due to efforts by ranchers to obscure such cattle origins from companies that are increasingly monitoring their direct suppliers. Finally, we identified 17 high-risk PAs concentrating most threats. Focusing monitoring efforts on property registries and cattle transactions in these areas could significantly reduce illegal deforestation and illegal cattle ranching. While PAs are considered to be cornerstones of forest conservation efforts, our findings show that current policies fail to prevent cycles of land grabbing, illegal ranching, and deforestation that can eventually lead to the downgrading, downsizing, and degazetting of PAs. Given this context, validating property claims, tracing cattle sales, and penalizing deforestation are urgently needed to halt these cycles that threaten PAs. Full article

We used social network analysis (SNA) to identify the types of water-related conflicts between the users and members of the institutional arena of the Rio Mayo Irrigation District (RMID) within the ancestral territory of the Yoreme Mayo indigenous group in Sonora, northeastern Mexico. We combined ethnography with an analysis and visualization of bimodal networks that consisted of 118 users and their connections to the institutional arena’s 30 identified social actors who influence water management. Using a clustering algorithm, we identified four types of conflicts: (1) disputes between small- and large-scale farmers over (i) irrigation water and (ii) payments for water rights and land rental; (2) the struggle by large-scale farmers against the upper level of the water hierarchy, to obtain more water; (3) struggles by rural indigenous women against water providers, to conserve indigenous vernacular systems of managing water for domestic use; and (4) a “conflict” that turned out to be merely a structural remnant of the algorithm. We conclude that land- and water-grabbing in the RMID mainly affect indigenous small-scale farmers and that the combination of SNA and a clustering algorithm can identify the types of natural resource-related conflicts that might go undetected by other methodologies. However, SNA should in some cases be accompanied by a qualitative methodology. Full article

The East Siberian Sea (ESS) is one of the least studied seas in terms of ostracod fauna. Ostracods are sensitive organisms to environmental changes, and detailed information on their ecology is still required. To fill this knowledge gap, we studied 33 meiobenthic dredge samples collected from the western part of the ESS and the Chaun Bay together with 17 grab samples taken from the eastern part of the sea. Quantitative analyses of the ostracod assemblages demonstrate that the river-influenced western part of the ESS is inhabited by low diverse and impoverished fauna consisting of the taxa which are able to adapt to different environmental conditions. In the isolated Chaun Bay sheltered from significant riverine influence, the ostracod assemblages contain species that prefer more stable conditions. The predominance of living specimens over dead ones and individual valves points to strong carbonate dissolution that is more pronounced in the western ESS than in the Chaun Bay. The formation of such conditions might be related to the high content of dissolved carbon dioxide resulting from bacterial remineralization of in situ produced and land-derived organic matter in the bottom sediments and low pH near the seabed. Numerous ferromanganese crusts were found on the ostracod valve surfaces and inside the shells from the Chaun Bay. Full article

The energy crisis and the exacerbation of climate change, along with the associated geopolitical tensions, including the war in Ukraine, are accelerating the energy transition in Europe. A transition from fossil energy sources to renewable energy sources that have a low Energy Return Rate, involves, among many other issues, the use of wide areas to locate the necessary infrastructure for production, transport and storage, altering territories with agricultural, cultural and ecological values. This process is based on the deployment of renewable energy megaprojects in peripheric areas of the continent, mostly in the southern states creating a wide range of social conflicts and resistances. We analyse this process in the case study of the province of Granada, a peripheric territory of south-east Spain considering the category of energy colonialism and the six dimensions that characterise it, arguing that this is a proper approach to address internal colonialism related to the corporate energy transition. We also want to demonstrate the importance of using participatory methodologies for this analysis, so we have developed an online survey, semi-structured interviews and participatory cartography workshops, always focusing on the citizens and stakeholders who are resisting the deployment of renewable energy megaprojects in the province of Granada. The obtained results allow us to confirm the necessity of using participatory methodologies and the colonial aspect of this deployment, including the characteristics of social resistance, the territorial impacts, the land-grabbing process and the inequalities in the production, distribution and use of energy. We conclude with the need to articulate a decolonial energy transition where participatory methods constitute a fundamental tool both to attend the resistances and to build the alternatives. Full article

One current global problem is the shrinkage of rural areas, which is expected to become an increasingly recurrent dynamic caused by the transformations in land uses and forms of habitation of the contemporary era. Patagonia is a suitable case study to understand the processes and challenges exposed by rural shrinkage, which not only addresses population loss but also the causes and consequences that transform rural territories. Its remote geographical location and climate conditions make it a complex place for human settlement. The objective is to describe the relationship between the agrarian structure and rural population decline in Chilean Patagonia. Taking a mixed methodological approach that combines the geohistorical review of settlement processes and the use of statistical procedures with census data, the presence of significant inequalities in the distribution of land and the accumulation of areas in large properties is discussed. The loss of rural population was identified, which may be driven by unequal access to land favoring concentration for extractive activities such as large-scale sheep farming, hydrocarbons and biofuels production. This prompts the exodus of young people to urban centers in search of work and education because land grabbing limits economic options, and rural depopulation reduces service coverage without timely responses from political institutions. This has caused the rural shrinkage in territories with demographic imbalances, with high aging and masculinization rates that hinder the repopulation of these areas, which have historically suffered from underpopulation. In conclusion, population strategies in these areas based on extractivism and a strict land ownership regime have not facilitated permanent human settlement but have instead complicated it more. Full article