Over half of the European landscape is under agricultural management and has been for millennia. Many species and ecosystems of conservation concern in Europe depend on agricultural management and ...are showing ongoing declines. Agri‐environment schemes (AES) are designed partly to address this. They are a major source of nature conservation funding within the European Union (EU) and the highest conservation expenditure in Europe. We reviewed the structure of current AES across Europe. Since a 2003 review questioned the overall effectiveness of AES for biodiversity, there has been a plethora of case studies and meta‐analyses examining their effectiveness. Most syntheses demonstrate general increases in farmland biodiversity in response to AES, with the size of the effect depending on the structure and management of the surrounding landscape. This is important in the light of successive EU enlargement and ongoing reforms of AES. We examined the change in effect size over time by merging the data sets of 3 recent meta‐analyses and found that schemes implemented after revision of the EU's agri‐environmental programs in 2007 were not more effective than schemes implemented before revision. Furthermore, schemes aimed at areas out of production (such as field margins and hedgerows) are more effective at enhancing species richness than those aimed at productive areas (such as arable crops or grasslands). Outstanding research questions include whether AES enhance ecosystem services, whether they are more effective in agriculturally marginal areas than in intensively farmed areas, whether they are more or less cost‐effective for farmland biodiversity than protected areas, and how much their effectiveness is influenced by farmer training and advice? The general lesson from the European experience is that AES can be effective for conserving wildlife on farmland, but they are expensive and need to be carefully designed and targeted.
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.
With the advent of modernity, the sharing of resources and infrastructures rapidly expanded beyond local communities into regional, national, and even transnational space -- nowhere as visibly as in ...Europe, with its small-scale political divisions. This volume views these shared resource spaces as the seedbeds of a new generation of technology-rich bureaucratic and transnational commons. Drawing on the theory of cosmopolitanism, which seeks to model the dynamics of an increasingly interdependent world, and on the tradition of commons scholarship inspired by the late Elinor Ostrom, the book develops a new theory of "cosmopolitan commons" that provides a framework for merging the study of technology with such issues as risk, moral order, and sustainability at levels beyond the nation-state. After laying out the theoretical framework, the book presents case studies that explore the empirical nuances: airspace as transport commons, radio broadcasting, hydropower, weather forecasting and genetic diversity as information commons, transboundary air pollution, and two "capstone" studies of interlinked, temporally layered commons: one on overlapping commons within the North Sea for freight, fishing, and fossil fuels; and one on commons for transport, salmon fishing, and clean water in the Rhine. Contributors: Håkon With Andersen, Nil Disco, Paul N. Edwards, Arne Kaijser, Eda Kranakis, Kristiina Korjonen-Kuusipuro, Tiago Saraiva, Nina Wormbs The hardcover edition does not include a dust jacket.
The existing literature lacks empirical nexus of natural resources tax (TNRT) volatility and economic performance. Also, the digital economy is currently a hot issue among researchers and ...policy-makers. Therefore, the current study investigates TNRT volatility and economic performance – while adopting the role of digital economy (DEE), financial development (FD), technological innovation (TI), research and development expenditures (RDE). This study examines 30 Chinese provinces covering the period from 2006 to 2017. Using the panel quantile regression, this study explores that TNRT volatility, DEE, FD, and TI significantly increase economic performance in all the quantiles (Q0.25, Q0.50, Q0.75). However, RDE is found positive and significant only in Q0.25, Q0.50, while insignificant in Q0.75. The findings of quantile regression are robust, as confirmed by the panel dynamic ordinary least square (DOLS). Besides, the Dumitrescu and Hurlin (2012) Granger panel causality test unveil a bidirectional causal nexus between TNRT, FD, TI, RDE and economic performance, while no causal nexus is detected between DEE and economic performance. This study recommends adopting and enhancing the digital economy, financial development, technological innovation, and research and development.
•Natural Resources Tax Volatility and Economic Performance are investigated.•Considers the role of digital economy, financial development and innovation.•Panel quantile regression and causality tests are utilized.•Total natural resources and all other variables promote economic performance.•Bidirectional causality exists between economic performance and variables.
The empirical investigation of tourism and natural resources in energy-growth-CO2 emission nexus is carried out in simultaneous equations framework for 51 “Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) countries” ...over 1990–2016. The dependent variables in four systems of equations are income, CO2 emission, energy use, and tourism development index. Empirics from difference and system GMM diagnosed the feedback effect between energy use and income; also validated energy push CO2 emission in conjunction with EKC for BRI countries. The results supported bidirectional causality between tourism and income; moreover, tourism push emission hypothesis validated for BRI countries. On the other hand, natural resources are contributing to tourism development, energy use, and CO2 emission in BRI countries. Additionally, natural resources are contributing negatively and significantly to income, thus obeying the natural resource curse phenomenon. So, the allocation of funds on green infrastructure are required to improve the environmental quality and benefit through green tourism. Moreover, the implementation of conservation policies on “natural resources” can help the GDP growth, environmental quality, and tourism sector on a single platform.
•This study employed system of four equations under dynamic framework of GMM.•Tourism development index is developed based on different indicators of tourism.•Feedback hypothesis exists between income and energy use.•Tourism led emission, and two-way causality between tourism and growth is validated.•The natural resource curse theory is also supported.
Natural resources and economic growth nexus have been extensively investigated since the last three decades and still the debate is in progress. However, in the current times, natural resources ...prices volatility got importance as natural resources prices are playing crucial role in economic growth by regulating economic activities, which is relatively less studied. Natural resources price volatility and economic performance nexus have set new trends for scholars and policy-makers. Volatility in natural resources could have a detrimental impact on the economic performance of a country or region. In this regard, the current study aims to identify the relationship between them while considering the role of green innovation in the BRICS economies between 1990 and 2021. Employing the cross-sectionally augmented autoregressive distributive lags (CS-ARDL) approach, the results revealed that natural resource volatility, oil rents, natural gas rents, and green innovation positively influence the economic performance in both short-run and long-run. These results are found robust as verified by the long-run estimator augmented mean group (AMG). Besides, the Dumitrescu and Hurlin (2012) Granger panel causality heterogeneous test unveil a bidirectional causal association between the under discussion variables and economic performance. Based on the empirical findings, this study recommends that natural resources hedging, price freezing or ceiling, and promoting green innovation could be remedial measures to improve economic performance further and reduce natural resources price volatility in the region.
•Natural resource price volatility and BRICS′ economic performance is tested.•The role of green innovation has been empirically investigated.•The study employed CS-ARDL and AMG estimators.•Bidirectional causal association relation is found between the variables.•All the variables significantly promote economic performance in the region.
Recently, energy transition is an essential element for global development and needs the attention of recent researchers and policymakers. Thus, the present research investigates the impact of ...natural resources (total natural resources rent and natural gas rent) and economic factors (energy import, economic growth, and population growth) on the energy transition in China. Secondary data were collected from world development indicators (WDI) from 1971 to 2019. The Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test, Phillips–Perron (PP) test, Kwiatkowski–Phillips–Schmidt–Shin (KPSS) and “zivot-andrews structural break unit root” test was also utilized to check for stationarity among the autoregressive distributed lag model (ARDL) along with the error correction model (ECM) were used to examine the relationships between constructs. The results found that natural resources (total natural resources rent and natural gas rent) and economic factors (energy import, economic growth, and population growth) have a positive association with energy transition in China. The study concluded that energy transition is the essential requirement due to high usage of natural resources and high economic development. These results are helpful for energy sector regulators when formulating the rules and regulations related to energy transition in the country.
•Energy transition is the necessary element for high global development and control over environmental degradation globally.•The usage of natural resources leads towards the energy transition.•The economic factors such as economic growth, population growth and energy import also force the energy transition due to high carbon emission.•The regulators must provide the effective policies regarding implementation of energy transition worldwide.
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