•Large farms are more likely to adopt improved crop varieties.•Land tenure security encourages the adoption of sustainable land management practices.•For improved varieties, extension substitutes for ...formal education.•For natural resource management, extension and formal education are complementary.•Effects are heterogeneous and no variables are universal predictors of adoption.
Agricultural technologies have long been promoted by governments and development organizations as effective ways to increase farm productivity and reduce poverty. However, adoption of many seemingly beneficial technologies remains low. Empirical adoption studies attempt to identify the motivation for adoption based on differences in characteristics between adopters and non-adopters. This study investigates variables that regularly explain adoption across technologies and contexts using a meta-analysis of 367 regression models from the published literature. We find that, on average, farmer education, household size, land size, access to credit, land tenure, access to extension services, and organization membership positively correlate with the adoption of many agricultural technologies. Technologies in the categories of improved varieties and chemical inputs are adopted more readily on larger farms, which casts doubt on the scale-neutrality of these technologies. Agricultural credit can positively influence adoption, but researchers should measure whether farmers are credit constrained, rather than simply whether or not they have access to credit. While extension services may substitute for education in the case of improved varieties, the two variables appear to be complementary for natural resource management technologies. Land tenure can encourage adoption of natural resource management techniques, and we find it to be most influential in the adoption of technologies with long planning horizons, such as erosion control methods. Unsurprisingly, although some patterns are identified when results are averaged, most adoption determinants vary widely by technology, cultural context, and geography. Based on these observations, we provide some recommendations for adoption researchers and policy makers, but, given the variability of the results, conclude that efforts to promote agricultural technologies in the developing world must be adapted to suit local agricultural and cultural contexts.
There are studies on renewable energy, natural resources abundance, and their impact on the environment especially in BRICS countries. However, none of the studies has considered human capital in the ...nexus, knowing fully well that ecological distortions mainly emanates from human activities. Therefore, this study explores the linkage between natural resource, renewable energy, human capital, and ecological footprint (EF) in BRICS using a battery of advance econometric techniques. The findings from the study, across all models, affirm that economic growth and natural resource increase the EF, renewable energy decreases it, while human capital is not yet at a desirable level as to mitigate environmental deterioration. The country-specific results are in harmony in terms of the deteriorating impact of economic growth, and the abating role of renewable energy on the environment. Further findings suggest a feedback causality between human capital, urbanization, and EF. Policies that can enhance renewable energy consumption, human capital development, natural resource sustainability, and curb urban anomaly are discussed.
•The study explores the linkage between natural resource, renewable energy, human capital, and ecological footprint in BRICS.•Economic growth and natural resource increase the ecological footprint.•Human capital is not yet at a desirable level as to mitigate environmental deterioration.•A feedback causality between human capital, urbanization, and ecological footprint.•Renewable energy decreases the ecological footprint.
At the foot of the snow-capped Cascade Mountains on the forested shores of Puget Sound, Seattle is set in a location of spectacular natural beauty. Boosters of the city have long capitalized on this ...splendor, recently likening it to the fairytale capital of L. Frank Baum'sThe Wizard of Oz, the Emerald City. But just as Dorothy, Toto, and their traveling companions discover a darker reality upon entering the green gates of the imaginary Emerald City, those who look more closely at Seattle's landscape will find that it reveals a history marked by environmental degradation and urban inequality.
This book explores the role of nature in the development of the city of Seattle from the earliest days of its settlement to the present. Combining environmental history, urban history, and human geography, Matthew Klingle shows how attempts to reshape nature in and around Seattle have often ended not only in ecological disaster but also social inequality. The price of Seattle's centuries of growth and progress has been paid by its wildlife, including the famous Pacific salmon, and its poorest residents. Klingle proposes a bold new way of understanding the interdependence between nature and culture, and he argues for what he calls an "ethic of place." Using Seattle as a compelling case study, he offers important insights for every city seeking to live in harmony with its natural landscape.
The core idea of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment is that the human condition is tightly linked to environmental condition. This assertion suggests that conservation and development projects ...should be able to achieve both ecological and social progress without detracting from their primary objectives. Whereas "win-win" projects that achieve both conservation and economic gains are a commendable goal, they are not easy to attain. An analysis of World Bank projects with objectives of alleviating poverty and protecting biodiversity revealed that only 16% made major progress on both objectives. Here, we provide a framework for anticipating win-win, lose-lose, and win-lose outcomes as a result of how people manage their ecosystem services. This framework emerges from detailed explorations of several case studies in which biodiversity conservation and economic development coincide and cases in which there is joint failure. We emphasize that scientific advances around ecosystem service production functions, tradeoffs among multiple ecosystem services, and the design of appropriate monitoring programs are necessary for the implementation of conservation and development projects that will successfully advance both environmental and social goals. The potentially bright future of jointly advancing ecosystem services, conservation, and human well-being will be jeopardized unless a global monitoring effort is launched that uses the many ongoing projects as a grand experiment.
Improving economic growth performance is largely dependent on financial development. Natural resource revenues are among the main sources that can be used in the development of financial systems. The ...aim of this study is to analyze the effects of each natural resource revenue on financial development in 16 developing countries (Albania, Argentina, Brazil, Bulgaria, China, Colombia, Georgia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Romania, South Africa, Thailand, and Turkey) which gain different natural resources revenue using the data of 1994–2017 period. Panel cointegration analysis was used to investigate long-term relationships between series. Long-term relationships between the series were determined and then PMG and DFE methods were preferred to obtain long-term and short-term coefficients. Empirical results showed that an increase in oil revenues has a positive effect on financial development in the long term. However, in the short-term natural resources rents do not have an impact on financial development.
•The effects of natural resource revenues on financial development are investigated for 16 developing countries.•Oil rents, natural gas rents, coal rents, mineral rents and forest rents are preferred as natural resources revenues.•Panel cointegration analysis used to investigate long-term relationships, PMG and DFE methods used to obtain long-term and short-term coefficients.•While oil revenues have positive and significant effects on financial development in the long term, such an impact was not found in the short-term.
The aim of this work is to analyse the conditional effects of natural resource dependence on human capital and the quality of institutions on economic growth. Unlike most previous work, which only ...considers each of these interactive effects separately, this article combines the interactive effects between natural resources and institutions on the one hand and natural resources and human capital on the other in the same model. To do this, we estimated an Autoregressive Distributed Lag model on a sample of 29 countries, in which there was an average level of dependency of 19.53% from 2000 to 2015.
Considering the interaction between natural resources and institutional capital on the one hand and natural resources and human capital on the other shows that the coupe human capital-corruption is an appropriate lever to take advantage of natural resources in Africa countries. These results suggest that African countries must simultaneously strengthen investments in human capital and fight against corruption to turn the curse of natural resources into a blessing.
•Simultaneous introduction into the analysis of the curse of natural resources, institutions and human capital as channels through which natural resources affect growth.•The coupe human capital-corruption is an appropriate lever to take advantage of natural resources in Africa countries.
Urban expansion often occurs on croplands. However, there is little scientific understanding of how global patterns of future urban expansion will affect the world’s cultivated areas. Here, we ...combine spatially explicit projections of urban expansion with datasets on global croplands and crop yields. Our results show that urban expansion will result in a 1.8–2.4% loss of global croplands by 2030, with substantial regional disparities. About 80% of global cropland loss from urban expansion will take place in Asia and Africa. In both Asia and Africa, much of the cropland that will be lost is more than twice as productive as national averages. Asia will experience the highest absolute loss in cropland, whereas African countries will experience the highest percentage loss of cropland. Globally, the croplands that are likely to be lost were responsible for 3–4% of worldwide crop production in 2000. Urban expansion is expected to take place on cropland that is 1.77 times more productive than the global average. The loss of cropland is likely to be accompanied by other sustainability risks and threatens livelihoods, with diverging characteristics for different megaurban regions. Governance of urban area expansion thus emerges as a key area for securing livelihoods in the agrarian economies of the Global South.
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