The economics of forest land use in temperate and tropical areas Parks, P.J. (Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, NJ (USA). Dept. of Agricultural Economics and Marketing); Barbier, E.B; Burgess, J.C
Environmental & Resource Economics,
04/1998, Letnik:
11, Številka:
3-4
Journal Article, Conference Proceeding
Recenzirano
This paper presents economic rules for harvest timing when timber and nontimber goods, services, and ecological functions are produced from forest stands. Forests include stands that are ...heterogeneous in age, land quality, and distance to market. Rules for allocating land between forest and nonforest use are developed. Key land use margins are identified that are important to land use allocation in temperate and tropical regions (e.g., between unmanaged forest, forest management, and forest conversion). Processes that can change key land use margins are discussed and used to organize recent empirical and theoretical studies of regions where forest land use is in transition, such as where forest land is being converted to alternative nonforest land uses. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 1998
Concern about the state of tropical forests has led to increased interest in the role of timber production and the international timber trade in promoting forest depletion and degradation in the ...tropics. Although the direct and indirect environmental impacts of commercial logging may be significant, particularly for a few specific regions and countries, this is generally not thought to be the predominant cause of tropical deforestation. Other factors, in particular conversion of forest land for agricultural use and harvesting of trees for fuelwood, are considered to be much more important in the process of tropical deforestation. A review of statistical analyses of the causes of deforestation provides only limited evidence of the linkages between tropical timber production, trade and deforestation. However, the timber trade can lead to greater net returns for forestry investments and sustainable management of production forests, making this option more attractive than converting forest land to alternative uses. Therefore, an important factor in reducing timber-related tropical deforestation is ensuring proper economic incentives for efficient and sustainable management of tropical production forests. Appropriate forest management policies and regulations within producer countries ought to provide these incentives so that the long run income-generating potential of harvesting timber is maximized, and any significant external environmental costs associated with timber harvesting are internalized.
A partial equilibrium timber trade model of Indonesia is developed in order to analyze the effects of various policy interventions on the trade and tropical deforestation. The basic timber trade ...model is developed as a simultaneous equation system determining supply and demand in the logging, sawnwood, and plywood sectors of Indonesia. The system is linked to a recursive relationship determining tropical deforestation, which is estimated separately. The model is then used to simulate several policy options, including the impacts of sawnwood export taxes/effective bans, import bans imposed by consumer countries, revenue-raising import taxes, and increased harvesting costs associated with sustainable management. The results of the policy analysis are summarized, and the policy options open to the government of Indonesia and importing countries are discussed.
The economics of tropical deforestation Barbier, E.B. (London Environmental Economics Centre (UK)); Burgess, J.C; Markandya, A
Ambio,
04/1991, Letnik:
20, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Approximately 7.1 million hectares of tropical closed forests are cleared annually. A major reason for this high rate of exploitation is that many functions of tropical forests are currently ...undervalued by those responsible for their management and use. Governments often reinforce and even exacerbate these tendencies by employing misguided policies and sanctioning inappropriate resource rights to forests. The economic factors contributing to deforestation in three key tropical forest countries, Brazil, Indonesia and Zaire, are examined. The potential role of preserving tropical forests to control the greenhouse effect is also discussed. With the currect policies, and careful valuation of the 'unpriced' services of forests, excessive tropical deforestation can be substantially reduced.
Analyzes economic aspects of clearcutting for agricultural, forestry, and other land uses, in developing countries such as Thailand, Panama, Brazil, Uganda, the Philippines, and Malaysia; 10 articles.
Mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) are multipotent progenitor cells that are of considerable clinical potential in transplantation and anti-inflammatory therapies due to their capacity for tissue ...repair and immunomodulation. However, MSCs rapidly differentiate once in culture, making their large-scale expansion for use in immunomodulatory therapies challenging. Although the differentiation mechanisms of MSCs have been extensively investigated using materials, little is known about how materials can influence paracrine activities of MSCs. Here, we show that nanotopography can control the immunomodulatory capacity of MSCs through decreased intracellular tension and increasing oxidative glycolysis. We use nanotopography to identify bioactive metabolites that modulate intracellular tension, growth and immunomodulatory phenotype of MSCs in standard culture and during larger scale cell manufacture. Our findings demonstrate an effective route to support large-scale expansion of functional MSCs for therapeutic purposes.
In June, 2022, 25 scientists from eight countries met at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in Lyon, France, to finalise their evaluation of the carcinogenicity of occupational ...exposure as a firefighter. Firefighters can be exposed to combustion products from fires (eg, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons PAHs and particulates), building materials (eg, asbestos), chemicals in firefighting foams (eg, perfluorinated and polyfluorinated substances PFAS), flame retardants, diesel exhaust, and other hazards (eg, night shift work and ultraviolet or other radiation). Dermal absorption of chemicals can occur even in firefighters wearing PPE due to limitations of its design, fit, maintenance, or decontamination. Since the previous classification of firefighting (as “possibly carcinogenic to humans,” Group 2B) by the IARC Monographs in 2007,2 many new studies have investigated the association between occupational exposure as a firefighter and cancer risk in humans. Airway and systemic inflammatory markers, such as IL-6 and IL-8, were associated with firefighting-related exposures. ...declines in lung function associated with changes in inflammatory markers and exposure-associated bronchial hyperreactivity were reported in firefighters.
Efforts to reduce unnecessary antibiotic prescribing have coincided with increasing awareness of sepsis. We aimed to estimate the probability of sepsis following infection consultations in primary ...care when antibiotics were or were not prescribed.
We conducted a cohort study including all registered patients at 706 general practices in the United Kingdom Clinical Practice Research Datalink, with 66.2 million person-years of follow-up from 2002 to 2017. There were 35,244 first episodes of sepsis (17,886, 51%, female; median age 71 years, interquartile range 57-82 years). Consultations for respiratory tract infection (RTI), skin or urinary tract infection (UTI), and antibiotic prescriptions were exposures. A Bayesian decision tree was used to estimate the probability (95% uncertainty intervals UIs) of sepsis following an infection consultation. Age, gender, and frailty were evaluated as association modifiers. The probability of sepsis was lower if an antibiotic was prescribed, but the number of antibiotic prescriptions required to prevent one episode of sepsis (number needed to treat NNT) decreased with age. At 0-4 years old, the NNT was 29,773 (95% UI 18,458-71,091) in boys and 27,014 (16,739-65,709) in girls; over 85 years old, NNT was 262 (236-293) in men and 385 (352-421) in women. Frailty was associated with greater risk of sepsis and lower NNT. For severely frail patients aged 55-64 years, the NNT was 247 (156-459) in men and 343 (234-556) in women. At all ages, the probability of sepsis was greatest for UTI, followed by skin infection, followed by RTI. At 65-74 years, the NNT following RTI was 1,257 (1,112-1,434) in men and 2,278 (1,966-2,686) in women; the NNT following skin infection was 503 (398-646) in men and 784 (602-1,051) in women; following UTI, the NNT was 121 (102-145) in men and 284 (241-342) in women. NNT values were generally smaller for the period from 2014 to 2017, when sepsis was diagnosed more frequently. Lack of random allocation to antibiotic therapy might have biased estimates; patients may sometimes experience sepsis or receive antibiotic prescriptions without these being recorded in primary care; recording of sepsis has increased over the study period.
These stratified estimates of risk help to identify groups in which antibiotic prescribing may be more safely reduced. Risks of sepsis and benefits of antibiotics are more substantial among older adults, persons with more advanced frailty, or following UTIs.
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