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This study/paper aims to evaluate the floral richness of the central part of Chattogram city, Bangladesh. Chattogram is recognized as the largest port city and the commercial capital of Bangladesh, which confronts faster urbanization and swift infrastructure development. Green spaces in and around Chattogram city are shrinking sharply, which resulted in rapid loss of floral and faunal resources in this area. The present study was carried out from February 2018 to January 2019 to enumerate the vascular plant species of the Sulakbahar ward located in the central part of Chattogram City, Bangladesh.

The study area was categorized into 10 habitats to assess the variation of floral composition. The extensive whole area survey method was applied to record the flora from all sorts of plant habitats of the research area.

The study enumerated 418 vascular plant species under 315 genera and 120 families including natural, planted and cultivated from the study area. The habit form of the recorded plant composition indicated that herbs (35%) constitute the major plant category followed by trees (34%), shrubs (17%), climbers (12%), ferns (1%) and orchids (1%). The study also indicated that exotic species (50.3%) became dominant than native species (49.7%) in Chattogram city because of their scenic beauty, easy propagation and ornamental value to the city planners and inhabitants.

It appeared that floral resources of the Chattogram city area are in great threat due to aggressive and unplanned infrastructure development for housing, offices and institutions by replacing the green spaces. The study recommended that urgent protection measures should be taken to conserve and protect the existing floral resources for the well-being of the urban people.

This paper aims to examine the challenges of volunteer‐driven college campus sustainability projects through a case study of the development of an urban native plant species garden on the College of Charleston campus in Charleston, South Carolina, USA.

The research used participant observation as the primary data‐gathering technique. The primary author coordinated this volunteer‐driven sustainability project, and recorded observations throughout the process. The authors used content analysis to examine garden volunteer interview data and campus/community documents. These methods allow the reader to view this case first‐hand, providing a unique look at undertaking projects of this nature.

The paper provides specific guidance for creating sustainable sustainability projects in similar communities and college campuses, identifies challenges specific to this case study that are easily generalized to other volunteer‐driven sustainability projects, and provides solution strategies to avoid or address these challenges.

The findings have relevance for projects with similar campus and community characteristics as displayed in the case study, whilst the study provides important guidance for campuses seeking to initiate and sustain volunteer‐driven sustainability projects. Further, it offers a step‐by‐step account of the process of creating a native species garden in an urban environment.

The paper provides a “handbook” for undertaking similar volunteer‐driven sustainability projects.

This paper fulfills a need to provide first‐hand information for the ever‐growing effort to create more sustainable sustainability projects on college campuses world‐wide. It is the first paper of its kind to document the process of campus native species garden creation and the challenges inherent with this type of volunteer‐driven project. Solution strategies are offered that can be followed for those seeking to implement similar sustainability efforts on their campuses.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the state of extinction accounting, and the motivations for its use in the UK public sector. Prior studies are mostly concerned with corporate attempts to account for species, despite studies in related areas calling for examinations of the public sector context.

The paper analyses the use of extinction accounting in three separate case organisations, conducting a total of 21 interviews across the three cases. Interviews were conducted with a range of organisational participants each having experience with extinction accounting.

Interviews reveal a number of common uses and applications of extinction accounting across the three councils. Practices are used to generate reports on species loss and recovery within each region, and to facilitate planning for species protection and recovery. However, in attempting to use this information, key trade-offs emerge between satisfying economic and ecological criteria, and even trade-offs are created regarding development of protection schemes. This leads to a subversion of extinction accounting.

Commensurate with prior studies in the corporate context, the study finds the presence of an economic logic impinging upon ecological decision making, suggesting that practices of extinction accounting may be affected by the same acknowledged economic motivations that reside in corporate attempts to account for nature.

The paper makes an important contribution by evaluating the public sector context of extinction accounting, which is lacking in existing research. The findings relating to the public sector use of species and extinction information also provide a useful context to understand how relatively new social and environmental accounting practices are deployed in organisations, as well as some indication of their effectiveness and limitations.

Following enactment of the federal Endangered Species Act in 1973, a variety of organizations proceeded to establish lists of endangered, threatened, or rare species of wildlife that they believed fell within their purview. State lists, as opposed to regional or national lists, are of particular importance because they form a rigorous record of the status of species in small, well‐defined geographic areas. State lists also indicate the development status of legal management efforts in the various states and are, therefore, predictors of how rigorously species variety will be maintained. Online searches of environment, legal, and government indexes (Enviroline, NTIS, Agricola, and others) demonstrated that there is no organized way to identify official state lists and that, in fact, few official lists are cited within the voluminous environment literature.

This paper aims to explore similarities and differences between robots, invasive biological species, and genetically modified organisms. These comparisons are designed to better understand the potential effects of robots on human society.

This paper applies established ideas in one discipline – biology – to issues that are less well understood, but actively being studied in another discipline – science and technology studies.

Robots entering human society in large numbers share many of the characteristics of an invasive species entering a new ecosystem. The authors also find that robots have several characteristics that are similar to a genetically modified organism. Taken together, these similarities suggest that society should be cautious about the introduction of large numbers of robots in a short period of time.

The approach taken here to assess robots in society by these analogies to ecological processes is, to the authors' knowledge, novel. Applying ideas from a better-known area to a less well-known area is routine in philosophy, but these particular analogies have not yet been carefully articulated in the literature.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the emergence of a biological invasion and to explain the potential economic and social consequences on food chains. Straddling between ecology, social sciences, resource management and economics, invasion science is aimed at detecting, understanding and mitigating the impact of biological invasions on receiving ecosystems, including food ecosystems.

After a theoretical investigation about the main notions relevant for the invasion science, the authors practically review the kind of impacts deriving from biological invasions, mainly under economic, human health, ecosystem and biodiversity criteria.

The authors apply the DPSIR (Driving forces–pressure-state-impact-response) framework, originally developed in the context of European Environment Agency in this different context in order to assess the social, economic and environmental impacts of Invasive Alien Species (IAS). Responding to this emerging phenomenon, the European Union issues the EU regulation 1143/2014 which is the first strong act on invasive alien species.

Implications – Food chains are complex systems that have multiple interdependencies both endogenously and exogenously, such as food production, food transportation, food logistics, food distribution, and so forth. However, it is rarely conceived the impact of invasion systems on the dynamics of food chains, although food sustainability is in turn impacted by how effectively and efficiently the various interdependencies have been designed or are working.

This paper aims to explore the feasibility of implementing the natural inventory model (NIM) developed by Jones (1996, 2003) in biodiverse wildlife corridor plantations, from a non-government organisations’ (NGO) perspective.

Undertaking the first cycle of an action research approach, the project involves collaboration with Greening Australia Tasmania (GAT). GAT is endeavouring to establish native wildlife corridors throughout the Tasmanian midlands, using science-based biodiverse plantations. The majority of the areas identified by GAT as essential for the establishment of these wildlife corridors are on privately owned land, primarily used for agricultural purposes. This paper explores whether stewardship of the land “sacrificed” by landowners may be demonstrated via the quantification and communication of improvements in biodiversity using the NIM.

Results suggest that the existing NIM is impractical for use by an NGO with limited resources. However, with some adaptations incorporating science-based measurements, the NIM can be used to account for biodiverse wildlife corridor plantations.

The findings have implications for not-for-profit, corporate and government sectors in terms of how accounting may facilitate the quantification and communication of conservation and restoration efforts.

Biodiversity loss is now considered to be a greater threat to the planet than climate change. Efforts to account for biodiversity are consistent with the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda and the Australian Government’s “Biodiversity Conservation Strategy” (2010).

While prior studies have successfully implemented the NIM using secondary data, this is the first known to test the feasibility of the model using primary data in collaboration with an NGO.

This paper aims to respond to recent calls by Jones (2014) and Jones and Solomon (Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 2013) for more studies on biodiversity accounting and reporting. In particular, this paper explores biodiversity reporting of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA), an Australian public sector enterprise.

The paper uses content analysis of MDBA’s published annual reports over the period of 15 years (1998-2012). Archival data (from different government departments) are also used to prepare natural inventory model.

The paper finds that although specific species, such as flora and fauna, and habitats-related disclosures have increased over the time, such information still allows only a partial construction of an inventory of natural assets, using Jones’ (1996, 2003) model. However, unlike prior studies that find lack of data availability to be the main impediment for operationalising biodiversity accounting, the abundance of biodiversity data in Australia makes it comparatively easier to produce such a statement.

Informed by the environmental stewardship framework, the results of this paper suggest that the disclosures made by MDBA are constrained potentially due to its use of traditional accounting mechanisms of reporting that only allow tradable items to be reported to stakeholders. An alternative reporting format would be more relevant to stakeholder groups who are more interested in information regarding quality and availability of water, and loss of biodiversity in the basin area rather than the financial performance of the MDBA.

Although there are a growing number of studies exploring biodiversity reporting in Australia, this paper is one of the earlier attempts to operationalise biodiversity (particularly habitats, flora and fauna) within the context of an Australian public sector enterprise.

Managing the inevitable conflicts that occur as humans and wildlife increasingly cross paths is a pressing concern for conservation in the Anthropocene. The focus of this chapter is on a high-profile case of wildlife persecution in rural Australia, which saw a farmhand successfully prosecuted for deliberately poisoning 420 wedge-tailed eagles he believed to be a threat to the newborn lambs on the property where he worked. The chapter illustrates how this crime emerged at the intersection of three trajectories: the legacy of environmental change and colonial oppression in Australia; the sustained resistance to rural exclusion exhibited by some species of Australia native wildlife as they have adapted their livelihoods to the altered agricultural landscapes; and conservation doctrine that seeks to reverse the historical treatment of Australian wildlife by issuing it blanket protection from human interference. The complexities and interdependencies that have been created as wildlife have forged a future in rural space cannot be easily unravelled. The chapter argues that, alongside protection, more active forms of reconciliation between the trajectories of Australian agriculture and the trajectories of rural wildlife are required. It is only through experimenting with ways that pastoralists and wildlife might resolve disputes fairly and openly that more inclusive rural places become possible.

Increased emphasis on environment, increased faith in private sector forests rather than government‐owned plantations, and improved techniques for tree growing have led to changes in reforestation policies, particularly in timber‐importing countries. Farm and community forestry has become more important, and often involves mixed broadleaved species and selective logging rather than clearfell. Private profitability is often low, but social returns may be considerably greater, warranting government support. While governments have experimented with a variety of instruments to encourage reforestation, policies have not necessarily addressed the main impediments. Measures to increase the share of resource rent gained by tree growers relative to other stakeholders in the timber production pipeline could accelerate plantings.