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1 – 10 of over 1000Sara Ursić, Jelena Zlatar Gamberožić and Andrija Mišetić
By merging good countryside and rural capitals frameworks, a model for reimagining the island's development is formulated, which is then applied to the female perspective to…
Abstract
Purpose
By merging good countryside and rural capitals frameworks, a model for reimagining the island's development is formulated, which is then applied to the female perspective to provide valuable insights from a group that is often marginalized in rural areas. As Croatian islands are highly tourism-oriented, this study finds it important to explore possibilities for future island development that can provide balanced and vibrant settlements on the islands.
Design/methodology/approach
The present paper synthesizes Shucksmith's (2018) model of a good countryside, which serves as a goal, with Gkartzios et al.'s (2022) capitals framework, which is viewed as a means of attaining a good countryside, specifically a good island. The research is delimited to the island of Brac, Croatia. By conducting interviews with female respondents, this study aims to capture the female perspective on envisioning potential futures of “good” island living, a perspective that is frequently underestimated despite its significant contributions to the creation of an ideal locale.
Findings
The results demonstrate that there is a substantial amount of socio-cultural rural capital that is leveraged to strengthen relatedness and rights as development objectives. However, low levels of economic, built and land-based rural capital pose challenges to achieving repair and re-enchantment, which are crucial for settlements that rely on tourism.
Originality/value
These findings bear immense implications for policymakers and planners, underscoring the imperative to account for the perspectives and needs of diverse social groups, including women, in the design and implementation of development strategies for islands. By doing so, a sustainable and equitable future, rich in tourism potential, can be cultivated on the island.
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Paulina Ines Rytkönen, Pejvak Oghazi and Rana Mostaghel
The aim is to advance the conceptualisation of island entrepreneurship by investigating how the island context, for example, industry characteristics, social context and formal…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim is to advance the conceptualisation of island entrepreneurship by investigating how the island context, for example, industry characteristics, social context and formal and informal institutions, influences the development of artisan food businesses in that context.
Design/methodology/approach
An applied, qualitative and participatory research approach was implemented. Data were collected during a business development process focusing on food artisans in the Åland Islands. In total, 19 business owners participated in the process. Key informants and public officers were interviewed, and the literature was reviewed. Interviews were analysed using phenomenography to identify representative categories, and the literature was analysed using content analysis.
Findings
Island characteristics and context, local institutions, the quality of social capital and gendered institutions influence business activities positively and negatively. Island entrepreneurship entails mobilising agencies to find innovative solutions that enable businesses to overcome obstacles. Most previous research treats business activities as entrepreneurship; however, as self-employment is essential in the island context, it should be highlighted in future studies.
Research limitations/implications
This study illustrates how the island context influences the business development of small firms. Results indicate that local policies (1) benefitting female entrepreneurs, (2) supporting local businesses and (3) promoting locally produced artisan food could generate benefits for the entire artisan food businesses.
Practical implications
Local policies that (1) benefit female entrepreneurs, (2) support local businesses and (3) promote locally produced artisan food have the potential to generate benefits for the entire trade. Policies can benefit from an understanding of the role played by different ecosystem actors. Promoting self-employment can generate benefits for the local entrepreneurial ecosystem by providing agglomeration and helping to solve some challenges caused by the characteristics of islands.
Originality/value
Empirically, this research enhances the knowledge of post-productive responses in the island context. Theoretically, the study advances the conceptualisation of research on the island entrepreneurship context and the local food debate.
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Climate data, including historical climate observations and climate model outputs, are often used in climate impact assessments, to explore potential climate futures. However…
Abstract
Purpose
Climate data, including historical climate observations and climate model outputs, are often used in climate impact assessments, to explore potential climate futures. However, characteristics often associated with “islandness”, such as smallness, land boundedness and isolation, may mean that climate impact assessment methods applied at broader scales cannot simply be downscaled to island settings. This paper aims to discuss information needs and the limitations of climate models and datasets in the context of small islands and explores how such challenges might be addressed.
Design/methodology/approach
Reviewing existing literature, this paper explores challenges of islandness in top-down, model-led climate impact assessment and bottom-up, vulnerability-led approaches. It examines how alternative forms of knowledge production can play a role in validating models and in guiding adaptation actions at the local level and highlights decision-making techniques that can support adaptation even when data is uncertain.
Findings
Small island topography is often too detailed for global or even regional climate models to resolve, but equally, local meteorological station data may be absent or uncertain, particularly in island peripheries. However, rather than viewing the issue as decision-making with big data at the regional/global scale versus with little or no data at the small island scale, a more productive discourse can emerge by conceptualising strategies of decision-making with unconventional types of data.
Originality/value
This paper provides a critical overview and synthesis of issues relating to climate models, data sets and impact assessment methods as they pertain to islands, which can benefit decision makers and other end-users of climate data in island communities.
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Patrick Nunn and Roselyn Kumar
Climate change poses diverse, often fundamental, challenges to livelihoods of island peoples. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that these challenges must be better…
Abstract
Purpose
Climate change poses diverse, often fundamental, challenges to livelihoods of island peoples. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that these challenges must be better understood before effective and sustainable adaptation is possible.
Design/methodology/approach
Understanding past livelihood impacts from climate change can help design and operationalize future interventions. In addition, globalization has had uneven effects on island countries/jurisdictions, producing situations especially in archipelagoes where there are significant differences between core and peripheral communities. This approach overcomes the problems that have characterized many recent interventions for climate-change adaptation in island contexts which have resulted in uneven and at best only marginal livelihood improvements in preparedness for future climate change.
Findings
Island contexts have a range of unique vulnerability and resilience characteristics that help explain recent and proposed responses to climate change. These include the sensitivity of coastal fringes to climate-environmental changes: and in island societies, the comparatively high degrees of social coherence, closeness to nature and spirituality that are uncommon in western contexts.
Research limitations/implications
Enhanced understanding of island environmental and social contexts, as well as insights from past climate impacts and peripherality, all contribute to more effective and sustainable future interventions for adaptation.
Originality/value
The need for more effective and sustainable adaptation in island contexts is becoming ever more exigent as the pace of twenty-first-century climate change increases.
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Kun-cheng Zhang, Xin-chang Guo, Shi-zheng Tian, Qi Cui, Mao-chong Shi and Pei-fang Guo
Many experts suggest that the human being explore marine resources and marine new energy sources to alleviate the shortage of land resources and the ecological degradation…
Abstract
Purpose
Many experts suggest that the human being explore marine resources and marine new energy sources to alleviate the shortage of land resources and the ecological degradation. However, island coastal zones are considered to be fragile ecosystems; their geographical location and natural characteristics, their biodiversity and associated ecosystems, and their exposure to diverse land and sea conditions all make them highly vulnerable to environmental changes and human activities. Therefore, it is necessary to achieve the goals of environmental protection and sustainable development on the basis of a comprehensive evaluation and understanding of islands.
Design/methodology/approach
Due to the importance of island groups, this paper conducts evaluation studies on them. Using the Delphi, AHP and TOPSIS methods, this study evaluated quantitatively the comprehensive development level and comprehensive development potential of island groups in terms of resources, natural environment, economy and society. Innovatively using them as two subsystems, the present study combined the coupling coordination model and the obstacle factor calculation method.
Findings
The prospective index of comprehensive development was applied to the Changdao Island Group in Yantai, Shandong Province as an example, and the final evaluation revealed that the comprehensive development prospect of this island group had an upward trend from 2010 to 2017. Future efforts should be made to improve its economic and social conditions and economic development status, apart from promoting its comprehensive development by improving human resources management, increasing the GDP growth rate, and improving fresh water and electricity supply.
Originality/value
This study takes the integrated development level of the island and the integrated development potential of the island as two subsystems, and the innovative application of the coupling coordination degree model is used to calculate the integrated development index of the island to understand the development status of the island area. On the basis of this model, the obstacle factor identification method is designed to identify the main obstacle factors, and on the basis of evaluation and identification, specific measures to ensure the sustainable development of the island area are effectively proposed.
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The extraction of natural resources has long been part of economic development in small islands. The damage to environment and health is extensive, even rendering once productive…
Abstract
Purpose
The extraction of natural resources has long been part of economic development in small islands. The damage to environment and health is extensive, even rendering once productive islands virtually uninhabitable. Rather than providing long-term benefits to the population or to the environment, the culture of “extractivism” – a nonreciprocal approach where resources are removed and used with little care or regard to consequences – has instead left many in far more fragile circumstances, increasingly dependent on external income. The purpose of this paper is to show how continued extractivism in small islands is contributing to global climate change and increasing climate risks to the local communities.
Design/methodology/approach
Through a series of case studies, this paper examines the history of extractivism in small islands in Oceania, its contribution to environmental degradation locally and its impacts on health.
Findings
It examines how extractivism continues today, with local impacts on environment, health and wellbeing and its much more far-reaching consequences for global climate change and human health. At the same time, these island countries have heightened sensitivity to climate change due to their isolation, poverty and already variable climate, whereas the damage to natural resources, the disruption, economic dependence and adverse health impacts caused by extractivism impart reduced resilience to the new climate hazards in those communities.
Practical implications
This paper proposes alternatives to resource extractivism with options for climate compatible development in small islands that are health-promoting and build community resilience in the face of increasing threats from climate change.
Originality/value
Extractivism is a new concept that has not previously been applied to understanding health implications of resource exploitation thorough the conduit of climate change. Small-island countries are simultaneously exposed to widespread extractivism, including of materials contributing to global climate change, and are among the most vulnerable to the hazards that climate change brings.
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Kuncheng Zhang, Shi-Zheng Tian, Benshuo Yang, Xin-Chang Guo and Yi-Fang Zhang
The island areas, in particular, are characterized by a more fragile ecological carrying capacity and higher value of resources and environment, which requires us to take Xi…
Abstract
Purpose
The island areas, in particular, are characterized by a more fragile ecological carrying capacity and higher value of resources and environment, which requires us to take Xi Jinping's green ecological development view as the theoretical basis and adhere to the high-quality development path of gradual development and ecological environment priority. Taking Shengsi and Daishan counties as examples, on the basis of their high-quality development evaluation and identification of the main influencing factors, this study explores the specific path of Xi Jinping's ecological development view in the high-quality development of typical island counties in China.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper applies the interpretative structural model to construct an evaluation index system for the high-quality development of the island. In determining the factor weights of the index layer, the AHP hierarchical analysis method was combined with the Delphi method to increase the objectivity of the assignment process as much as possible. This study used the technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution to calculate island high quality development index. To measure the main obstacle factors, the index factor contribution rate, the index factor deviation, and the index factor obstacle degree were applied in this research.
Findings
As China intensifies its maritime strategy, the sustainability of coastal and island regions is critical, particularly given their fragile ecosystems and high resource value. Our study reveals a declining trend in the high-quality development index for Shengsi, peaking at 0.4262 in 2010 and dropping to 0.3261 in 2012. To reverse this, it's essential to align with President Xi Jinping's green ecological development framework and commit to a high-quality development pathway.
Originality/value
The connotation and extension of Xi Jinping's view of ecological development should be continuously studied in depth and enriched, with green development as the core idea to guide the correct direction of the high-quality development of the island. In this paper, it is suggested that researchers are supposed to focus on these problems, such as the changes of sea water quality, the reduction of urban greening, the continuous negative growth of population in island areas, the decline of forestry added value and air quality protection, so as to ensure the sustainable high-quality development of example islands.
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Amin Pujiati, Triani Nurbaeti and Nadia Damayanti
This paper aims to identify variables that determine the differing levels of environmental quality on Java and other islands in Indonesia.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to identify variables that determine the differing levels of environmental quality on Java and other islands in Indonesia.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a quantitative approach, secondary data were sourced from the Central Statistics Agency and the Ministry of Environment and Forestry. The data were obtained through the collection of documentation from 33 provinces in Indonesia. The analytical approach used was discriminant analysis. The research variables are Trade Openness, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), industry, HDI and population growth.
Findings
The variables that distinguish between the levels of environmental quality in Indonesian provinces on the island of Java and on other islands are Industry, HDI, FDI and population growth. The openness variable is not a differentiating variable for environmental quality. The most powerful variable as a differentiator of environmental quality on Java Island and on other islands is the Industry variable.
Research limitations/implications
This study has not classified the quality of the environment based on the Ministry of Environment and Forestry's categories, namely, the very good, good, quite good, poor, very poor and dangerous. For this reason, further research is needed using multiple discriminant analysis (MDA).
Practical implications
Industry is the variable that most strongly distinguishes between levels of environmental quality on Java and other island, while the industrial sector is the largest contributor to gross regional domestic product (GDRP). Government policy to develop green technology is mandatory so that there is no trade-off between industry and environmental quality.
Originality/value
This study is able to identify the differentiating variables of environmental quality in two different groups, on Java and on the other islands of the Indonesian archipelago.
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This paper offers a critical review of climate change related initiatives in small island states, including Small Island Developing States (SIDS), which can end up as ontological…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper offers a critical review of climate change related initiatives in small island states, including Small Island Developing States (SIDS), which can end up as ontological traps: fuelled and supported by external donor agencies, thwarting out-migration and shifting scarce and finite resources away from other, shorter-term and locally spawned development trajectories and objectives.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is based on a selective literature review. It clusters important themes found in published research and policy documents.
Findings
The results identify a burgeoning critical voice in regards to resilience and its legitimation of climate change driven projects in SIDS. This paper recommends a more nuanced approach which also privileges migration.
Originality/value
This paper provided a critical overview and synthesis of the immobility implicit in much climate change related work, through the critical lens of island studies and post-colonial studies.
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Nidia Hernández Sánchez and Jeroen Oskam
This paper discusses plausible future scenarios for small and medium tourism enterprises (SMTEs) in the “sun, sea and sand” destination of the Canary Islands (Spain) and assesses…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper discusses plausible future scenarios for small and medium tourism enterprises (SMTEs) in the “sun, sea and sand” destination of the Canary Islands (Spain) and assesses to what extent they are prepared to adjust to market changes and technological developments in the light of both sudden disruptions and long-term shocks.
Design/methodology/approach
A scenario analysis was made based upon expert interviews, leading to a 2 × 2 scenario matrix.
Findings
Although regional, national and European strategies advocate digital transformation as a step towards building resilience and towards a more sustainable future, this study identifies two major uncertainties that can put that transformation at risk: a change of the traditional “sun, sand and sea” visitor to a more conscious, individual and inquisitive traveller or “Promad”, and the business culture of SMTEs.
Research limitations/implications
Resilience for sudden and for slow-paced disruptions poses different challenges for SMTEs. Their next step in the digital transformation must take them form marketing and sales-oriented e-business to growing interconnectivity and innovation across supply chains.
Practical implications
A market change towards the “Promad” type of traveller causes at least a temporary mismatch of demand and supply. As many SMTEs miss either the knowledge or the resources to invest in digital transformation, the process will depend on support and coordination at destination level.
Originality/value
The study identifies, with the example of the Canary Islands, the difficulties for destinations and individual businesses in making the envisioned transition of mass tourism to more competitive forms of tourism with a smaller ecological footprint.
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