• Energy Research
• 2021-2025close
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Climate change has been widely recognised as one of the most urgent and growing threats to natural and cultural heritage in the twenty-first century, and the indelible impact of humanity has led to the definition of a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene. Indigenous peoples are disproportionately affected by natural and human-induced changes to the environment. Their vulnerability is exacerbated by centuries of cultural and territorial disenfranchisement within settler-colonial nations. This dissertation aims at understanding Indigenous perceptions of heritage in the face of climate change and its intersection with the impacts of settler- colonialism. It analyses how these on-the-ground perceptions can, in turn, inform heritage organisations and contribute to safeguarding the many facets of tangible and intangible Indigenous heritage for future generations in the Anthropocene. This is accomplished through a comparative, transnational case study of two communities each from the Dehcho First Nations in the Northwest Territories, Canada, and the Aymara and Quechua peoples in northern Chile. I use a multi-method approach consisting of semi-structured interviews, oral histories and participant observation. The data is complemented by environmental and heritage legislation and grey literature at multiple organisational scales for both case studies. Three lines of enquiry are explored through an applied comparative thematic analysis: i) the perceptions of climate change and associated land loss/change among Indigenous groups and how this impacts each group’s notions of challenges to its cultural identity; ii) the intersection of the effects of post- colonialism, ongoing industrial activities and climate change on the intergenerational transmission of ancestral knowledge and notions of place attachment; and iii) how international, national and regional political and sociocultural rhetoric on environmental and heritage conservation affect local, grassroots considerations for safeguarding heritage. The similarities and contrasts of the Dehcho First Nations, Aymara and Quechua experiences of climate change across the North-South divide are related from the grassroots to arrive at redefining heritage practices in the Anthropocene. The results demonstrate that decolonising heritage is not only necessary, but that this decolonisation depends on building and actively engaging in intercultural empathy through the global threat of climate change. In order to understand how Indigenous practices, places, and items are valorised—attributed value—as heritage in the face of climate change, one must empathise with the cultural loss that exists in the temporal and cognitive spaces between Indigenous individuals’ moments of nostalgic reference and today.

ABSTRACTIntraguild interactions among carnivores have long held the fascination of ecologists. Ranging from competition to facilitation and coexistence, these interactions and their complex interplay influence everything from species persistence to ecosystem functioning. Yet, the patterns and pathways of such interactions are far from understood in tropical forest systems, particularly across countries in the Global South. Here, we examined the determinants and consequences of competitive interactions between dholes Cuon alpinus and the two large felids (leopards Panthera pardus and tigers Panthera tigris) with which they most commonly co‐occur across Asia. Using a combination of traditional and novel data sources (N = 118), we integrate information from spatial, temporal, and dietary niche dimensions. These three species have faced catastrophic declines in their extent of co‐occurrence over the past century; most of their source populations are now confined to Protected Areas. Analysis of dyadic interactions between species pairs showed a clear social hierarchy. Tigers were dominant over dholes, although pack strength in dholes helped ameliorate some of these effects; leopards were subordinate to dholes. Population‐level spatio‐temporal interactions assessed at 25 locations across Asia did not show a clear pattern of overlap or avoidance between species pairs. Diet‐profile assessments indicated that wild ungulate biomass consumption by tigers was highest, while leopards consumed more primate and livestock prey as compared to their co‐predators. In terms of prey offtake (ratio of wild prey biomass consumed to biomass available), the three species together harvested 0.4–30.2% of available prey, with the highest offtake recorded from the location where the carnivores reach very high densities. When re‐examined in the context of prey availability and offtake, locations with low wild prey availability showed spatial avoidance and temporal overlap among the carnivore pairs, and locations with high wild prey availability showed spatial overlap and temporal segregation. Based on these observations, we make predictions for 40 Protected Areas in India where temporally synchronous estimates of predator and prey densities are available. We expect that low prey availability will lead to higher competition, and in extreme cases, to the complete exclusion of one or more species. In Protected Areas with high prey availability, we expect intraguild coexistence and conspecific competition among carnivores, with spill‐over to forest‐edge habitats and subsequent prey‐switching to livestock. We stress that dhole–leopard–tiger co‐occurrence across their range is facilitated through an intricate yet fragile balance between prey availability, and intraguild and conspecific competition. Data gaps and limitations notwithstanding, our study shows how insights from fundamental ecology can be of immense utility for applied aspects like large predator conservation and management of human–carnivore interactions. Our findings also highlight potential avenues for future research on tropical carnivores that can broaden current understanding of intraguild competition in forest systems of Asia and beyond.

Responses of soil water content, soil inorganic nitrogen, aboveground and belowground biomass, soil respiration, ecosystem respiration, net ecosystem production, and gross ecosystem production to precipitation variability from a 3-y manipulative experiment (2004-2016) and a 12-y model simulation (2000-2011).

AbstractMountain treelines are thought to be sensitive to climate change. However, how climate impacts mountain treelines is not yet fully understood as treelines may also be affected by other human activities. Here, we focus on “closed‐loop” mountain treelines (CLMT) that completely encircle a mountain and are less likely to have been influenced by human land‐use change. We detect a total length of ~916,425 km of CLMT across 243 mountain ranges globally and reveal a bimodal latitudinal distribution of treeline elevations with higher treeline elevations occurring at greater distances from the coast. Spatially, we find that temperature is the main climatic driver of treeline elevation in boreal and tropical regions, whereas precipitation drives CLMT position in temperate zones. Temporally, we show that 70% of CLMT have moved upward, with a mean shift rate of 1.2 m/year over the first decade of the 21st century. CLMT are shifting fastest in the tropics (mean of 3.1 m/year), but with greater variability. Our work provides a new mountain treeline database that isolates climate impacts from other anthropogenic pressures, and has important implications for biodiversity, natural resources, and ecosystem adaptation in a changing climate.

This dataset is a result of research conducted by a multidisciplinary team of researchers from Haramaya University, Ethiopia. It contains economic, environmental, and social indicators of sustainability. The data were generated using the Tool for Agroecological Performance Evaluation (TAPE) developed by the FAO (FAO, 2019). Primary data on basic socio-demographic, economic, institutional, social and ecological dimensions of agroecological performance were generated using a survey questionnaire uploaded on Kobo Toolbox (on a smart device). The data collection and overall field work were supported by the FAO, and supervised by the researchers and local research translation partners. The data contained herein refers to 619 smallholder farms located in four districts of Oromia and Southern Nations, Nationalities and People's (SNNP) regions.

Boreal forests hold 32% of the world’s terrestrial organic matter and are continually disturbed by biotic and abiotic events. These disturbances are especially important since they facilitate the redistribution of nutrients within and between ecosystems, which can alter resource use and productivity. Yet how various types of disturbances, both individually and in combination, impact the overall resource balance of northern forests remains poorly understood. This thesis aims to advance our understanding of forest disturbances as drivers of forest resource balances, primarily through shifts in carbon, to better facilitate management of forests under climate change. Chapter 1 reviews current knowledge on forest disturbances and cross- ecosystem linkages. It also provides a summary of current gaps in our understanding of disturbances as drivers of forest function and possible downstream effects. Chapter 2 explores how disturbance history influences long-term carbon balance in boreal forests. Theory predicts that disturbances will increase with climate change but how the order and timing of multiple disturbance events will impact ecosystem function remains unresolved. Chapter 3 extends our understanding of forest carbon balance by asking how different disturbance types change the phenology and surface reflectance of boreal forests. Understanding how single disturbance events change growing season length and radiative forcing of forests can help predict potential feedbacks of forest health on climate warming. Chapter 4 tests how outbreaks of defoliating insects alter biogeochemical cycling from land to receiving waters through the consumption of foliage and subsequent release of nutrient-rich waste. Forests typically provide a pulse of nutrients to nearby waters in autumn when leaves are shed but insects disrupt this pattern by changing the timing, quantity, and quality of resource transfers. Chapter 5 traces terrestrial nutrients within lakes and asks if they can promote productivity in zooplankton communities. Finally, Chapter 6 discusses the main findings of the thesis and ends with possible directions for future research.