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Oil palm plantations have expanded rapidly in recent decades, and are causing substantial impacts on tropical habitats and biodiversity. However, owing to its long lifespan (25-30 years), oil palm forms a much more varied and structurally-complex habitat than many other crops. This can include abundant understory vegetation and also epiphytes on palm trunks. However, the diversity of this plantation vegetation has been poorly studied, and there has been little consideration of the impacts of common plantation vegetation management practices on plant communities. We conducted a long-term vegetation management experiment that forms part of the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Function in Tropical Agriculture (BEFTA) Programme in Riau, Indonesia. We manipulated herbicide and manual cutting regimes within mature oil palm plantations to create three different understory complexity treatments (Reduced, Normal, and Enhanced vegetation) across replicated sets of plots. Plant communities were surveyed before and after experimental understory vegetation treatments began in three different microhabitats: within the middle of the plantation block (core), on the road edge (edge) and on oil palm trunks (trunk). Part of the sampling was also conducted during a drought event. We recorded 120 plant species, which comprised a mixture of native, non-native, ‘beneficial’, and ‘problem’ species. We found substantial variation in plant communities between edge, core, and trunk microhabitats, indicating high levels of heterogeneity within the plantation. There were significant effects of varying understory treatment within both core and edge microhabitats, but no spillover of impacts into the trunk microhabitat. We also observed substantial impacts of drought on plant communities, with declines in either biomass, percentage cover, or richness seen across core, edge, and trunk microhabitats during low-rainfall periods. Our findings highlight the diversity of plant communities that can be supported within oil palm plantations, and the substantial impacts that management decisions, and also drought, can have on them. Given the role that diverse plant communities can have in supporting species in other groups, this is likely to have a significant impact on the wider plantation biodiversity. We suggest that plantation management strategies give greater consideration to within-plantation understory plant communities and choose more wildlife-friendly options where possible.

The Human Mobility Transition model describes shifts in mobility dynamics and transport systems. The aspirational stage, ‘human urbanism’, is characterised by high active travel, universal public transport, low private vehicle use and equitable access to transport. We explored factors associated with travel behaviour in Africa and the Caribbean, investigating the potential to realise ‘human urbanism’ in this context. We conducted a mixed-methods systematic review of ten databases and grey literature for articles published between January 2008 and February 2019. We appraised study quality using Critical Appraisal Skills Programme checklists. We narratively synthesized qualitative and quantitative data, using meta-study principles to integrate the findings. We identified 39,404 studies through database searching, mining reviews, reference screening, and topic experts’ consultation. We included 129 studies (78 quantitative, 28 mixed-methods, 23 qualitative) and 33 grey literature documents. In marginalised groups, including the poor, people living rurally or peripheral to cities, women and girls, and the elderly, transport was poorly accessible, travel was characterised by high levels of walking and paratransit (informal public transport) use, and low private vehicle use. Poorly controlled urban growth (density) and sprawl (expansion), with associated informality, was a salient aspect of this context, resulting in long travel distances and the necessity of motorised transportation. There were existing population-level assets in relation to ‘human urbanism’ (high levels of active travel, good paratransit coverage, low private vehicle use) as well as core challenges (urban sprawl and informality, socioeconomic and gendered barriers to travel, poor transport accessibility). Ineffective mobility systems were a product of uncoordinated urban planning, unregulated land use and subsequent land use conflict. To realise ‘human urbanism’, integrated planning policies recognising the linkages between health, transport and equity are needed. A shift in priority from economic growth to a focus on broader population needs and the rights and wellbeing of ordinary people is required. Policymakers should focus attention on transport accessibility for the most vulnerable.

Successful cap and trade programs for SO2 and NOx in the US allocate allowances to large emitters based on a historic base line for a period of up to thirty years. National Allocation Plans in Europe allocate CO2 allowances in an iterative approach first for a three then for a five-year period. The potential updating of the base line creates perverse incentives for operation and investment. Some allowances are also reserved for new entrants further distorting the scheme. We use analytic models and numeric simulations for the UK power sector to illustrate and quantify how these effects contribute to an inflation of the allowance price while reducing utilisation and investment in efficient technologies. The inflated allowance prices are likely to increase the European allowance budget and emissions, e.g. through the Linking Directive. As a result opportunity costs of emitting CO2 are reduced relative to an efficient cap and trade program.

Ecotourism, a sustainable form of tourism, is increasingly being viewed as a tool that can promote global biodiversity and forest conservation. This study explored the scope of ecotourism in forest conservation practices in the developing context by taking the Sitakunda Botanical Garden and Ecopark (SBGE), Bangladesh’s first ecopark established in 2000, as a case study. Using GIS and remote sensing technology, NDVI analysis revealed that, unlike the anticipated outcomes of the SBGE project, after a brief increase in vegetation coverage of 84.6% from 1995 to 2000, the vegetation coverage fell drastically from 2000 to 2015, wherein 33.4% of vegetation had been completely removed, and much of the dense and medium vegetation had been converted to sparse vegetation or other land uses. Anthropogenic activities, namely, unplanned urbanization, are suggested as the major contributors to this decline. From the period of 2015 to 2020, however, vegetation was seen to regenerate, potentially due to the decelerating urbanization or the possible manifestation of the ‘U’ shape relationship between the changes in vegetation and rates of urbanization. Sustainable land-use policies may help attain the targets of the project and lead the SBGE to emerge as a success story of the Bangladeshi ecotourism industry.

In a world that increasingly invites private actors to address social needs, there has been a rise of social enterprises in a variety of sectors, including new and renewable energy. As of yet, little research has focused on how these enterprises interact with government policy in low- and middle-income countries. This research specifically explores how social enterprises operating in rural India with decentralized renewable energy solutions seek to access government support, and what strategies they adopt to engage with the government. An inductive theory-building approach was adopted to explore this and advance current knowledge in the boundaries of social entrepreneurship and policy. We propose ‘Engagement’ and ‘Disengagement’ as the two strategies used by social enterprises in this context in accessing government support and policy. ‘Engagement’ is a strategy comprising of the tactics: (a) Leveraging Policy, (b) Building and Leveraging Relationships, (c) Lobbying, and (d) Monitoring. ‘Disengagement’ is a strategy comprising of the tactics: (a) Avoiding Government Presence, and (b) Disengagement from Policy.

High crude oil prices and the eventual decline of conventional oil production raise the issue of alternative fuels such as non-conventional oil. The paper describes a simple probabilistic model of the costs of synthetic crude oil (SCO) produced from Canadian oil sands. Synthetic crude oil is obtained by upgrading bitumen that is first produced through mining or in-situ recovery techniques. This forward-looking analysis quantifies the effects of learning and production constraints on the costs of supplying synthetic crude oil from Canadian bitumen deposits. The results show the uncertainties associated with the future costs of synthetic crude oil. Carbon costs have a large impact of the total costs of synthetic crude oil, in particular in the case of synthetic crude oil from in-situ bitumen, due to the carbon-intensity of the recovery techniques. The influence of each parameter on the supply costs is examined. In the case of mined SCO, the maximum production rate, the ultimate recovery rate and the depletion parameters show the largest influence on the results, while learning parameters dominate in the case of in-situ SCO.

OBJECTIVE: Genetic studies in obese rodents and humans can provide novel insights into the mechanisms involved in energy homeostasis. METHODS: In this study, we genetically mapped the chromosomal region underlying the development of severe obesity in a mouse line identified as part of a dominant N-ethyl-N-nitrosourea (ENU) mutagenesis screen. We characterized the metabolic and behavioral phenotype of obese mutant mice and examined changes in hypothalamic gene expression. In humans, we examined genetic data from people with severe early onset obesity. RESULTS: We identified an obese mouse heterozygous for a missense mutation (pR108W) in orthopedia homeobox (Otp), a homeodomain containing transcription factor required for the development of neuroendocrine cell lineages in the hypothalamus, a region of the brain important in the regulation of energy homeostasis. OtpR108W/+ mice exhibit increased food intake, weight gain, and anxiety when in novel environments or singly housed, phenotypes that may be partially explained by reduced hypothalamic expression of oxytocin and arginine vasopressin. R108W affects the highly conserved homeodomain, impairs DNA binding, and alters transcriptional activity in cells. We sequenced OTP in 2548 people with severe early-onset obesity and found a rare heterozygous loss of function variant in the homeodomain (Q153R) in a patient who also had features of attention deficit disorder. CONCLUSIONS: OTP is involved in mammalian energy homeostasis and behavior and appears to be necessary for the development of hypothalamic neural circuits. Further studies will be needed to investigate the contribution of rare variants in OTP to human energy homeostasis.