Mwanjela’s article concerns the Mnazi Bay Marine Park, established in 2000 on the southeastern coast of Tanzania. Like many protected areas created over the past couple of decades, this project sought to marry environmental conservation and local socio-economic development. The park was developed around existing communities of ethnic Makonde and Makua, who had traditionally depended primarily on fishing for their livelihoods. In order to better conserve the marine environment, the park management sought to redirect the local communities’ livelihood focus away from fishing. A decade later, the results of this initiative are mixed.
Adeyeye’s research focuses on community-based sanitation initiatives to address health hazards in the Ekiti State of southwest Nigeria. The initiatives here consisted of establishing water and sanitation committees to promote the digging of boreholes (for hand-washing) and construction of latrines. The participation of women was deemed essential to the program, but equal representation did not ensure equal participation.
Vallejo’s research focuses on the water-resource systems of the Caribbean region of Colombia. Flooding and droughts have taken a toll on the region over the past two decades, and climate change and the loss of 95 percent of this region’s native forests are causing economic, social and ecological vulnerability.
Little’s research deals with urbanization and the spread of dengue fever in the municipality of Patillas in southeastern Puerto Rico. She examines the distributions and habitats of two dengue vectors in Patillas: the mosquito
Aedes aegypti and
Aedes mediovittatus, a native, tree-dwelling mosquito that is seen as a potential vector. Her analysis will enable dengue interventions to be focused on the highest-risk urban environments.
Song and his collaborators’ work in a Hawaiian tea plantation examined how shade levels and age affect the concentrations of chemicals, such as caffeine in tea plants. It is an analysis of the correlation between health-benefiting chemicals in tea and two much-discussed variables of the tea plant: the age of the leaf and whether or not the plant is shade-grown.
Blázquez examines existing mechanisms for adapting to climatic perturbation, especially drought, among peasant households in Mexico. She frames her study as an effort to inform planning for climate-change impacts and responses. She notes, however, that the impacts of globalization on Mexico’s agrarian economy make it difficult to ascertain whether these mechanisms represent adaptations to climatic, rather than economic, stress or more likely a combination of the two.
Wood did a comparative study of climatic variation on agro-biodiversity and peasant household economies, again framed as a way to assess the future impact of climate change. It is based on a study of the Fouta Djallon region of northern Guinea and southern Senegal. He found that as temperature—if not precipitation—increases, so, too, does crop diversity, and as the latter variable increases, so, too, does household income.
DePaula concerns the impact of increasing global temperatures on residential energy use in less-developed countries. Brazil’s economy is booming and its middle class is growing and so, too, is consumption of electricity. He investigated how projected increases in temperature will affect growth in consumption and concluded that future increases in energy consumption in Brazil will vary according to income levels and local climatic conditions. Overall, though, the growth in Brazil’s middle class will substantially increase climate change’s impact on its energy sector.
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Tropical Resource Institute's website or contact
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