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After the 19th CPC national congress, Chinese Communist Party and the government put forward higher requirements for the development of coastal zones, and it is urgent to establish an integrated coastal zone management system, so as to better guarantee the construction of maritime powers and regional coordinated development. The purpose of this paper is to aim at re-examining and positioning China’s integrated coastal zone management.

This paper sorts out the current situation of coastal zone resources and environment, summarizes prominent problems and clarifies the path of comprehensive management of coastal zone based on the typicality and comprehensiveness of coastal ecosystem.

Coastal zone is a typical area of “life community shared among mountains, rivers, forests, fields, lakes and grass.” However, there are three prominent problems at present, namely, separation between land and sea, separation among industry sectors and separation among administrative jurisdictions. Coastal zone planning and legislation are important measures to realize the comprehensive management of coastal zone.

This paper puts forward some suggestions on the reform of coastal zone management from the perspective of planning and legislation.

Agricultural and food systems in the Mekong Region are undergoing transformations because of increasing engagement in international trade, alongside economic growth, dietary change and urbanisation. Food systems approaches are often used to understand these kinds of transformation processes, with particular strengths in linking social, economic and environmental dimensions of food at multiple scales. We argue that while the food systems approach strives to provide a comprehensive understanding of food production, consumption and environmental drivers, it is less well equipped to shed light on the role of actors, knowledge and power in transformation processes and on the divergent impacts and outcomes of these processes for different actors. We suggest that an approach that uses food systems as heuristics but complements it with attention to actors, knowledge and power improves our understanding of transformations such as those underway in the Mekong Region. The key transformations in the region include the emergence of regional food markets and vertically integrated supply chains that control increasing share of the market, increase in contract farming particularly in the peripheries of the region, replacement of crops cultivated for human consumption with corn grown for animal feed. These transformations are increasingly marginalising small-scale farmers, while at the same time, many other farmers increasingly pursue non-agricultural livelihoods. Food consumption is also changing, with integrated supply chains controlling substantial part of the mass market. Our analysis highlights that theoretical innovations grounded in political economy, agrarian change, development studies and rural livelihoods can help to increase theoretical depth of inquiries to accommodate the increasingly global dimensions of food. As a result, we map out a future research agenda to unpack the dynamic food system interactions and to unveil the social, economic and environmental impacts of these rapid transformations. We identify policy and managerial implications coupled with sustainable pathways for change.

The study aims to shed light on the historical and contemporary trends of biodiversity accounting literature, while simultaneously offering insights into the future of research in this sector. The paper also aims to raise awareness among accounting researchers about their role in preserving biodiversity and informing improvements in policy and practice in this area.

The Bibliometrix R-package is used to carry out an algorithmic historiography. The reference publication year spectroscopy (RPYS) methodology is implemented. It is a unique approach to bibliometric analysis that allows researchers to identify and examine historical patterns in scientific literature.

The work provides a distinct and comprehensive discussion of the four distinct periods demarcating the progression of scientific discourse regarding biodiversity accounting. These periods are identified as Origins (1767–1864), Awareness (1865–1961), Consolidation (1962–1995) and Acceleration (1996–2021). The study offers an insightful analysis of the main thematic advancements, interpretative paradigm shifts and theoretical developments that occurred during these periods.

The paper offers a significant contribution to the existing academic debate on the prospects for accounting scholars to concentrate their research efforts on biodiversity and thereby promote advancements in policy and practice in this sector.

The article represents the first example of using an algorithmic historiography approach to examine the corpus of literature dealing with biodiversity accounting. The value of this study comes from the fusion of historical methodology and perspective. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is also the first scientific investigation applying RPYS in the accounting sector.

The purpose of this study was to examine the latent part of geographic information systems in inclusive sustainable rural tourism, community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) and community development and empowerment in Southern Africa, Africa generally and many rural areas elsewhere worldwide.

The viewpoint utilizes literature and document reviews to assess African and worldwide agricultural, environmental and tourism resources management scenarios. It thus liaises with CBNRM and geographic information systems in sustainable tourism and local community development applications.

This review viewpoint uncovers a better potential synergetic relationship between tourism and rural (agricultural) activities that geographic information systems along a concept of CBNRM can amplify. Hence, it has poised a need for a decent and integrated tourism strategy to develop and empower the pertinent communities in many rural and marginalized areas within the continent.

Many rural communities in Southern Africa and Africa broadly dwell in low-income areas. Such milieus are rich in natural biodiversity, including tourism destination areas. Geographic information systems, sustainable tourism and CBNRM can form a gestalt of local community development projects within their environs.

Timber export is an important economic development pillar in Ghana, which has a direct effect on Ghana’s domestic forestry industry development, local communities’ income and sustainable forest management and deforestation. China, as the Ghana’s largest timber export destination, brought significant impacts on Ghana’s timber export. However, there is a lack of quantitative analyses on impact factors of timber trade between the two countries in the past, which this paper sought to do.

The authors first collected Ghana’s timber exports to China from 1997 to 2017, and then based on the literature review and trade theories, the authors set up a least squares estimate (LSE)-based multiple linear regression (MLR) model to analyse the specific impact factors. In addition, multi-collinearity, autocorrelation and heteroscedasticity issues of the impact factors were checked to guarantee the accuracy of the results.

The results showed China timber import volume, Ghana cedi (GHC)/US$ exchange rate, Ghana’s gross domestic product (GDP) and China timber consumption volume in construction sector had positive impacts; Ghana timber production volume and Ghana average timber export price had negative impacts. The results confirmed that China’s timber consumption had a positive linkage with Ghana’s timber export. The article also reviewed possible impacts caused by change in timber trade policies, which proved important but was hardly directly quantified. The authors pointed out the importance of optimizing these impact factors to make sure Ghana’s timber export to China went on the sustainable track.

There is no literature about timber trade and its impact factors between Ghana and China, which used econometric models. This paper provided new perspectives on the impact factors in timber trade between the two countries.

This study aims to reveal the potential for ecotourism of a locality with high marginalisation index in the municipality of Tlalpujahua, a Magic Town in the State of Michoacán, Mexico.

This case study was based on several methodologies. First, socioeconomic, environmental, sustainability, geographic and institutional variables were used in the evaluation of 62 localities of the municipality. Geographic information systems identified study areas and determined their potential for ecotourism. Second, participatory diagnosis was used to collect specific information about the locality regarding their organisational aspects, development strategies, current socioeconomic problems, land use and resources availability and interest in developing projects related to ecotourism. Finally, the authors adapted the FAS Model (factors, attractors and support systems) to include environmental and organisational variables contributing to a theoretical approach to ecotourism. To identify attractors, they applied a questionnaire to determine the profile of tourists visiting Magic Towns and their potential interest in ecotourism.

The authors conclude that ecotourism is a possible alternative to highly marginalised localities within Magic Town municipalities and would be able to expand the benefits engendered by the program. Ecotourism can therefore represent a new option for tourists visiting marginalised communities in Mexico.

A diverse methodology applied key elements to identify localities suitable for ecotourism, characteristics of marginalisation and endowment of natural heritage. The authors conclude that the benefits to localities included in the Magic Towns Program can be expanded to surrounding spaces through strategies such as ecotourism.

By combining geopolitical and economic factors and from a geoeconomic perspective, the importance of Gwadar to China and Pakistan is discussed in detail. By applying geoeconomic approach and based on the historical approach, geographical and geopolitical conditions and international development trends of Gwadar port, the authors develop the analytical framework to analyze the Gwadar port and studied its importance in the development of China and Pakistan, as well as the positive influence on the economic growth of both countries.

A geoeconomic study is done to run a more profound and more comprehensive analysis of China–Pakistan economic relationship, as geoeconomic includes interrelations of geographical, geopolitical and economic factors in international relations.

The results show that Gwadar Port's development could enhance the economic security of both China and Pakistan. With the opening of Gwadar Port, oil and energy in the Middle East will be imported directly to China through Pakistan's oil pipeline. This is not only oil but also goods from Central Asia, and even Europe and the USA will land from Gwadar Port and enter China through the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). The development of Gwadar port under the CPEC program could also dramatically increase the capacity of Pakistan's maritime trade while reducing its dependence on the current largest port, Karachi, near the India border.

Geo-economics theory is used to run a more profound and more comprehensive analysis of China–Pakistan economic relationship as geoeconomic includes interrelations of geographical, location, geopolitical and economic factors in international relations. By combining geopolitical and economic factors and from a geoeconomic perspective, this study seeks to analyze the Gwadar port development and its implications for both China and Pakistan.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the effects of socio-economic factors of land redistribution for agricultural development project beneficiaries on savings in the North West Province, South Africa.

A binary logistic regression model was employed to determine the effects of socio-economic factors of project beneficiaries on their savings.

The results show that the average number of trainings attended by the beneficiaries, the proportion of youth per project and the average net farm income of the project positively and significantly influence the level of savings by the beneficiaries. About 62 percent of the beneficiaries did not have savings; thus, only 38 percent of beneficiaries had savings. Of the 38 percent who had savings, the majority (77 percent) had an annual net farm income of less than R1,000. Only 2 percent of the projects had an annual net farm income of more than R10,000.

The findings of this study are valuable to policymakers dealing with the issue of land reform and could shed some light on how land redistribution can achieve its intended purposes. These findings should be granted serious consideration when formulating policies aimed at improving savings within collective groups.

The findings of this study have revealed the importance of training and participation of youth in influencing savings. As well, the findings imply that an organization or household with a health income have a higher propensity of saving.

The research findings point out to the importance of saving. With savings, a household is in a better position to deal with situations that arises in case of emergency.

This paper is among the few studies to analyze the determinants of savings at a group or project level. Most studies are done at household or individual level.