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1 – 10 of over 1000
Article
Publication date: 12 July 2021

Mastura Jaafar, Andrew Ebekozien and Diana Mohamad

Globally, several studies have shown that biosphere reserves faced severe threats related to climate and human changes. Community participation in environmental sustainability may…

Abstract

Purpose

Globally, several studies have shown that biosphere reserves faced severe threats related to climate and human changes. Community participation in environmental sustainability may mitigate these threats in biosphere reserve destinations. Therefore, this paper aims to examine the community perceptions regarding the proposed Penang Hill Biosphere Reserve with the support of Community Readiness Theory to the framework via qualitative research.

Design/methodology/approach

To achieve this, 13 face-to-face interviews were conducted that covered major communities within the hill and validated via secondary sources. Phenomenological type of qualitative research and a combination of purposeful and snowball type of non-probability sampling techniques were used.

Findings

This paper found that Penang Hill Corporation does collaborate with communities around the hill in matters connected with hill conservation.

Research limitations/implications

This paper is limited to investigating community perceptions regarding the proposed Penang Hill Biosphere Reserve. Future research is needed to further investigate the framework and the supporting theory (Community Readiness Theory).

Practical implications

This paper recommended that Penang Hill Corporation should build more effective communication capacity for the communities around the hill via coordinated synergy within the various agencies and communities. Also, the act that established the corporation should be reviewed to capture the provision of liaison offices for agencies controlling various sections of the hill.

Originality/value

This paper demonstrates that positive community engagement will enhance environmental sustainability and possibly facilitate recognition by UNESCO’s Man and Biosphere Reserve Programme.

Details

Journal of Facilities Management , vol. 19 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1472-5967

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 10 June 2021

Mastura Jaafar, Andrew Ebekozien, Daina Mohamad and Ahmad Salman

Managing biosphere reserves (BR) have become more challenging regarding the socio-cultural conflict between communities and BR administrators. For the past two decades, community…

1542

Abstract

Purpose

Managing biosphere reserves (BR) have become more challenging regarding the socio-cultural conflict between communities and BR administrators. For the past two decades, community participation (CP) has become the central narrative for BR management practices in Asia. This paper aims to set out to analyse the current literature because of the paucity of systematic reviews on CP in Asian BR. Also, it proffers possible solutions to enhance biosphere performance.

Design/methodology/approach

In total, 31 related studies were identified from the Scopus, Web of Science databases and materials from organisations in the field of practice of territorial conservation. Three themes emerged from the review – willingness to participate, encumbrances and possible solutions.

Findings

Factors that influence community willingness to participate in a BR, encumbrances facing the community and possible policy solutions to enhance CP in a BR in Asia were the three themes that emerged from the review. The factors that influence community willingness were categorised into the level of participants in education, perceived waste of time, no confidence of the outcome, okay with current management, land owned, household size and gender factors.

Research limitations/implications

This paper’s recommendations were based on empirical literature reviewed systematically but do not compromise the robustness concerning BR management practices in Asia. It was established that to enrich the findings of this research, regional studies of CP in BR should be conducted, including primary source data using the mixed methods paradigm.

Practical implications

As part of the practical implications, recommendations were highlighted to enhance CP in BR. Also, the paper suggested that BR administrators should have two-way communication mechanisms, cross-sectoral participation and collaboration, implement locally-based solutions through full engagement of community members in decision-making.

Originality/value

This is probably the first systematic review paper on BR management practices in Asia. Filling the theoretical gap via systematic review was part of the significant contribution to CP in Asian BR.

Details

PSU Research Review, vol. 7 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2399-1747

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 5 August 2014

Glen Barry

The purpose of this paper is to propose a measurable terrestrial ecosystem boundary to answer the question: what extent of landscapes, bioregions, continents, and the global Earth…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to propose a measurable terrestrial ecosystem boundary to answer the question: what extent of landscapes, bioregions, continents, and the global Earth System must remain as connected and intact core ecological areas and agro-ecological buffers to sustain local and regional ecosystem services as well as the biosphere commons?

Design/methodology/approach

This observational study reviews planetary boundary, biosphere, climate, ecosystems, and ecological tipping point science. It presents a refinement to planetary boundary science to include a measurable terrestrial ecosystem boundary based on landscape ecology and percolation theory. The paper concludes with discussion of the urgency posed by ecosystem collapse.

Findings

A new planetary boundary threshold is proposed based on ecology's percolation theory: that across scales 60 percent of terrestrial ecosystems must remain, setting the boundary at 66 percent as a precaution, to maintain key biogeochemical processes that sustain the biosphere and for ecosystems to remain the context for human endeavors. Strict protection is proposed for 44 percent of global land, 22 percent as agro-ecological buffers, and 33 percent as zones of sustainable human use.

Research limitations/implications

It is not possible to carry out controlled experiments on Earth's one biosphere, removing landscape connectivity to see long-term effects results upon ecological well-being.

Practical implications

Spatially explicit goals for the amount and connectivity of natural and agro-ecological ecosystems to maintain ecological connectivity across scales may help in planning land use, including protection and placement of ecological restoration activities.

Originality/value

This paper proposes the first measureable and spatially explicit terrestrial ecosystem loss threshold as part of planetary boundary science.

Details

Management of Environmental Quality: An International Journal, vol. 25 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1477-7835

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 28 April 2023

Mahlagha Darvishmotevali, S. Mostafa Rasoolimanesh and Mazdak Dorbeiki

This study aims to introduce and evaluate a model of host community support for sustainable tourism development (SSTD) based on the influential factors contributing to community…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to introduce and evaluate a model of host community support for sustainable tourism development (SSTD) based on the influential factors contributing to community support in a biosphere reserve.

Design/methodology/approach

Partial least squares structural equation modeling using SmartPLS 3 software is applied to analyze data collected from 473 residents of the Miankaleh Biosphere Reserve, Iran.

Findings

The findings reveal that the locals’ community support is affected by their level of environmental awareness, opportunity and attitudes toward SSTD. However, the results do not reveal an influence of environmental knowledge and community attachment on SSTD. The findings enrich the existing literature on community attitude predictors by showing that locals’ SSTD level is not consistently based on common predictors. Such support strongly depends on host communities’ attitudes toward supporting tourism, which is definitely not the same among residents. It is imperative to know whether people’s attitudes arise from a desire to protect the area or for reasons of self-interest.

Originality/value

The findings provide further support for the tenets of the segmentation approach and challenge existing knowledge on host communities’ attitudes about factors influencing residents toward SSTD. The findings have several practical implications regarding community participation for regional and national authorities and destination policymakers.

设计/方法论/方法

采用SmartPLS3软件建立偏最小二乘结构方程模型, 对从伊朗米安卡莱生物圈保护区的473名居民获得的数据进行分析。

目的

本研究旨在介绍和评估基于影响促进生物圈保护内社区支持的可持续旅游发展(SSTD)的东道社区支持模型。

调查结果

结果表明, 本地社区的环境意识水平、机会和对SSTD的态度影响着社区支持。然而, 研究结果并没有揭示环境知识和社区依恋对SSTD的影响。

创意/价值

这一发现丰富了现有的关于社区态度预测因子的文献, 表明当地人的SSTD并不一致基于共同的预测因子。这种支持很大程度上取决于东道社区对支持旅游的态度, 这在居民中肯定是不一样的。有必要了解人们的态度是出于保护该地区的愿望还是出于自身利益的原因。此外, 研究结果为细分方法的原则提供了进一步的支持, 并挑战了关于东道社区对影响居民SSTD态度的现有认知。

Diseño/metodología/enfoque

Se aplica un modelo de ecuaciones estructurales por mínimos cuadrados parciales con el programa SmartPLS 3 para analizar los datos recogidos de 473 residentes de la reserva de la biosfera de Miankaleh (Irán).

Objetivo

Esta investigación pretende introducir y evaluar un modelo de apoyo de la comunidad anfitriona al desarrollo del turismo sostenible (SSTD) basado en los factores que contribuyen al apoyo de la comunidad en una reserva de la biosfera.

Conclusiones

Los resultados revelan que el apoyo de la comunidad local se ve afectado por su nivel de concienciación medioambiental, sus oportunidades y sus actitudes hacia el desarrollo del turismo sostenible. Sin embargo, los resultados no muestran una influencia del conocimiento medioambiental y el apego de la comunidad sobre el desarrollo turístico sostenible.

Originalidad/valor

Los resultados enriquecen la literatura existente sobre predictores de la actitud de la comunidad al mostrar que el nivel de desarrollo turístico sostenible de los autóctonos no se basa únicamente en factores tradicionales. Dicho apoyo depende en gran medida de las actitudes de las comunidades anfitrionas hacia el apoyo al turismo y éste no es el mismo entre los residentes. Es necesario conocer si la actitud de los individuos surge de un deseo de proteger la zona o por razones de interés propio. Además, los resultados corroboran los principios del enfoque de segmentación y retan los conocimientos existentes sobre las actitudes de las comunidades anfitrionas acerca de los factores de los residentes sobre el desarrollo turístico sostenible.

Book part
Publication date: 31 October 2022

Roland Brandtjen

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) frame the urgent call for actions by all global stakeholders to provide economic, social, and ecological prosperity (United Nations, 2021)…

Abstract

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) frame the urgent call for actions by all global stakeholders to provide economic, social, and ecological prosperity (United Nations, 2021). The goal is to create a better world for the greatest number of people. The stakeholders of SDGs are primarily UN member states, regardless of the size of their resources or population (United Nations, 2019). However, autonomous communities are included as well as companies. The Isle of Man (IoM) is located in the Irish Sea and is an autonomous crown dependency (cd) of the British monarchy with almost eight times fewer inhabitants than one of Europe's largest employer, Volkswagen, has employees (Brandtjen, 2019; Volkswagen AG, 2020). In 2016, the whole Isle was designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve (BR) and is the only entire nation to be a member of this worldwide network. The Biosphere programme focuses on sustainable development, conservation, and education within the framework of the UN's 17 SDGs (Isle of Man Government, 2021; UNESCO, 2019). But how does this programme help the IoM to develop? Did this programme help the IoM to get through the COVID-19 pandemic? Is the IoM a model for other nations to become UNESCO BRs and to create an environment for corporate SDGs to be fulfilled?

Abstract

Theoretical basis

Research methodology.

Teaching note

Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

Learning outcomes

At the end of the case discussion, the students should be able to: demonstrate an understanding of the similarities and differences between profit and non-profit organisations; discuss social entrepreneurship as a process-driven set of activities; assess the organisation-environment-opportunity fit of the dilemma facing them; analyse and resolve practical issues in developing structure and systems; diagnose organisational issues facing enterprises wishing to formalise and grow; evaluate how an organisation may achieve both social and profit objectives; and appreciate the trade-offs of adopting a profit-driven approach for social enterprises.

Case overview/synopsis:

From her office on her farm in the Eden District of South Africa’s Western Cape province, Wendy Crane, who had for many years been involved in the conservation efforts of the Gouritz Cluster Biosphere Reserve (GCBR), drank in the view of the Langeberg Mountains. Her pleasure was a bit diminished by the knowledge that, like so many parts of the GCBR, this area’s environment was under threat. She was preparing for a meeting in March 2017 of the board of the non-profit company (NPC) that sought to initiate and coordinate activities that would achieve the goals of the GCBR. The NPC board members wanted the organisation to be self-sustaining when it came to core costs. To this end, the board had established Gouritz Enterprises as a social enterprise that would be responsible for profit-driven activities which would fund the NPC’s core costs. The enterprise had not yet started work in any formal way, and Crane was not sure if establishing a separate profit-driven entity was the best way of achieving the self-financing goal.

Complexity academic level

Post-graduate management diploma MBAC.

Subject code:

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

Details

Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies, vol. 8 no. 4
Type: Case Study
ISSN: 2045-0621

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 July 1998

Nicholas Polunin

Briefly discusses eight major threats to the biosphere and highlights environmental education efforts. Concludes that increased public enlightenment and conservation measures…

222

Abstract

Briefly discusses eight major threats to the biosphere and highlights environmental education efforts. Concludes that increased public enlightenment and conservation measures already being taken give a fair prospect that the worst possible outcomes will be avoided.

Details

International Journal of Social Economics, vol. 25 no. 6/7/8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0306-8293

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 July 2006

Ruida Stanvliet and Susan Parnell

The purpose of this paper is to assess the contribution of the UNESCO biosphere reserve concept to urban resilience.

923

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to assess the contribution of the UNESCO biosphere reserve concept to urban resilience.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper examines the challenges underpinning the problem of environmental degradation in cities. It then briefly considers available initiatives that can be implemented toward the realization of more sustainable cities. A case is made for the possible contribution of the UNESCO biosphere reserve concept as a useful urban management tool.

Findings

Urban administrators have a range of tools to select from to support the design and management of sustainable cities. It is argued that the UNESCO biosphere reserve concept is potentially a very valuable tool, although, apart from academic studies, not truly tested in an urban context.

Originality/value

Biological diversity is the very essence that sustains life on earth and forms the basis of quality living conditions, even within built‐up areas. Today, cities are facing the pressures of increasing populations and the effects thereof on the environment. The challenge facing cities is how to improve the quality of life of all city dwellers amidst the environmental challenge of dwindling natural resources. The paper looks at a number of initiatives available to city administrators in their quest to create liveable cities. It is perhaps timeous to research the potential applicability of the biosphere reserve framework as an urban tool toward more resilient, environmentally acceptable urban landscapes.

Details

Management of Environmental Quality: An International Journal, vol. 17 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1477-7835

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 17 October 2014

Stuart Kauffman

Contemporary Anglo-American economics, which I admire, faces two major obstacles. First, in its drive at least since Milton Freedman to be a positive science free of normative…

Abstract

Contemporary Anglo-American economics, which I admire, faces two major obstacles. First, in its drive at least since Milton Freedman to be a positive science free of normative issues, it ignores its own current intellectual foundations buried at the heart of its analysis of the “advantages of trade”: Fairness. Second, the major driver of economic growth in the past 50,000 years has been the explosion of goods and production capacities from perhaps 1,000 to 10,000 long ago, to perhaps 10 billion goods and production capacities today. Economics, lacking a theory for this explosion, deals with this explosion by ignoring it and treating it as “exogenous” to its theory.

The “Edgeworth Box” carries the heart of advantages of trade, demonstrating for properly curved isoutility curves a region where you and I are better-off trading some of my apples for some of your pears. The ratio of these in trade constitutes price. But spanning the region of advantages of trade is the famous CONTRACT CURVE, where we have exhausted all the advantages of trade. Different points on the curve correspond to different prices. But the Contract Curve is Pareto Optimal, motion on the curve can only make one of us better-off at the expense of the other. Critically, economics has NO THEORY for where we end up on the Contract Curve. Nor, since different points on the curve correspond to different prices, can PRICE settle the issue.

Using the Ultimatum Game I will show that FAIRNESS typically drives where we settle on the Contract Curve, as long as we do not have to trade with one another. Thus ethics enters economics at its foundation, yet cannot be mathematized, so is ignored in Freedman’s name of a positive science.

Perhaps more important, unlike physics, no laws entail the evolution of either the biosphere or the “econosphere.” There are no laws of motion whose integration would entail that evolution. Lacking an entailing theory of the growth of the economy in diversity, often of new goods and production capacities, economists ignore the most important feature of economic growth, wrongly treating it as “exogenous.”

The failures above are likely to play major roles in the lapse to mere greed in our major financial institutions, and in our inadequate capacities to help drive growth in much of the poverty-struck world.

Book part
Publication date: 12 September 2018

Friederike Vinzenz, Werner Wirth, Julianna Priskin, Sindhuri Ponnapureddy and Timo Ohnmacht

This study examines the perceived benefit of sustainable consumption from a consumer perspective. Communicating corporate social and environmental responsibility is beneficial…

Abstract

This study examines the perceived benefit of sustainable consumption from a consumer perspective. Communicating corporate social and environmental responsibility is beneficial from a company perspective; however, the advantages for consumers have not yet been sufficiently clarified. We investigated two well-being dimensions as the identified benefit of sustainability. Therefore, an experiment (n = 815) was conducted to identify the influence of different advertisements on social–environmental and emotional well-being while considering the moderating role of consumers’ value orientation. The results revealed that information about sustainability attributes had a significant effect on social–environmental well-being, while the emotionality of the communication had a significant effect on emotional well-being. These effects were partly moderated by consumers’ value orientation: the effect on social–environmental well-being increased with biosphere–altruistic value orientation, whereas the effect on emotional well-being slightly increased with self-enhancement value orientation.

Details

Contemporary Challenges of Climate Change, Sustainable Tourism Consumption, and Destination Competitiveness
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78756-343-8

Keywords

1 – 10 of over 1000