Perception and Attitudes of Local Communities Towards Wild Elephant-related Problems and Conservation in Xishuangbanna,Southwestern China

The problem of wild elephants, or human-elephant conflict (HEC), influences the daily life of local communities and hinders the conservation of wild elephants.The perception and attitudes of local communities who inhabited the frontiers between human activities and wild elephant movement are important to the mitigation of the HEC and conservation of wild elephants. To analyze the perception and attitudes of local communities, the Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) was used in the investigation of 423 interviewees from 22 villages in Xishuangbanna from July 2009 to February 2010. The results indicated that local communities had their views on the elephant-related problems. In field survey, we found that 66.5% of interviewees were willing to support, participate in, and assist in the conservation of wild elephants;33.5% of interviewees were opposed or indifferent to such conservation, because their livelihoods and even their lives were endangered by wild elephants. These views and attitudes were influenced by local communities′perception of HEC, education level, gender and self-interest. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the diverse views among local communities and balance profits and costs in addressing HEC.

Factors Influencing the Grazing Management Styles of Settled Herders: a Case Study of Nagqu County, Tibetan Plateau, China

The implementation of pasture contracting policies in the Tibetan Plateau has been of widespread concern in the scientific community and related government departments. Studying the effects of the implementation of pasture contracting policies will help us understand herders' attitudes toward those policies and to amend existing policies effectively.This paper analyzes 135 herder families' grazing management behavior using participatory rural appraisal(PRA), quantitative analysis and a Logistic regression model in three townships of Nagqu County in remote areas of the Tibetan Plateau, China. The results show that the herders have become settled and are no longer nomadic, so the settlement project has basically been completed and the policy of contracting for grazing rights is being gradually implemented in Nagqu County. Since the grazing rights and pastures were under contract, group-based management has been widely accepted in this area, which helps the herders deal with constraints, such as limited pasture area, a small grazing radius, controlled family animal husbandry and an uneven distribution of water. The herders that have more family members available for labor, higher proportion of family members with good health, and higher income from animal husbandry tend to choose household-based management.Herders tend to choose group-based management when higher quality winter pastures are available.

Integrative Planning and Processes in the Mountain Areas of Mae Hong Son, Thailand

This paper outlines innovative integrative approaches for poverty alleviation based on integrating planning and processes; crossing disciplines and sectors; combining community perception with spatial technology; and creating alliances between community and government agencies. Several tools of development models from Participatory Rural Appraisal （PRA） and 3D Mapping Model programs were applied in the planning model to demonstrate a diversity of integrated development and conservation activities, The planning model was launched with a PRA process evolved a simple community map. The map allowed for the community＇s constraints and potential and related issues to be identified and analyzed by different groups. This initiative was followed by a 3D Mapping Model program, which involved the building of a topographic map. Community＇s resources and landmarks and other meaningful landmarks and data were added. These processes allowed an opportunity for creating a historical timeline, assessing the present and mapping the future of community resources. The planning model serves as a meeting point to support and enhance decentralized governance by providing centrality to the needs and decisions of local communities to improve their quality of life. This has been seen through the adoption of natural resources conservation campaigns by local communities, which include the participation of women, displaced people, ~rassroots organizations, and ~overnment a^encies.

Survey Study of Moso Bamboo Management Techniques Dissemination in Zhejiang

By PRA survey to 1 245 farmer households of 10 key Moso bamboo (Phyllostachys pubescens) production counties, the source and demand of the management techniques in Zhejiang were studied. The conducted principal factor analysis revealed that experience and traditional knowledge are currently major technical sources of farmer households' Moso bamboo forest management techniques and that the demonstrative household is a highly expected technical source, in which the prime factor is interpersonal dissemination with the variable information making up 21.5% of the total. The paper thus suggests that following the nationwide collective forest tenure reform and forest land allocation to the households, the technical sources available to the households should be diversified, that technical training with site expert instruction be taken as priority in establishing demonstrative households for extension and that the current technical extension mode await improvement.