Thesis (M. Inst. Agrar))--University of Pretoria, 2000.

Natural resources are in abundance but have not benefited resourcebased communities. The mining industry, especially in developing countries, has fallen short of working towards sustainable community practices. Different governance initiatives adopted by governments to make the communities beneficiaries of these resources are yet to bring sustainable results. Government is seen as the sole actor on policymaking and its implementation, and the production and delivery of goods and services. Acknowledgement is not given to the roles and responsibilities of the resource-based communities to work as co-partners towards sustainable community development. Hence, this thesis argues that government policies should move away from seeing resource communities as recipients and representatives in policymaking towards co-partnership. As such, this thesis aims to explore the dynamics between resource use and achieving sustainable community development by exploring the barriers and potential for sustainable community development in diamond mining communities in Kono, Eastern Sierra Leone. To do this, the thesis uses data from a wide rage of indebt semi-structured interviews, documents and focus group discussions from four case studies representing four chiefdoms to point out a shift from the governance approach of institutionalisation to adaptive governance approach that will make the resource communities self-determined and sustainable. The thesis deals with three objectives. First, a focus is put on the relationship between resource exploitation and community governance in mining communities through an analysis of key actors and their roles at a range of scales. Second, in an attempt to find out the scope of sustainability in resource-based communities, attention is given to the ways mining communities utilise their assets and undertake practices that contribute towards sustainable community development. Third, in finding answers from issues arising in these communities and the prospect for effective mining policies, the thesis attempts to identify both the structural and community-based barriers to promoting sustainable community development in mining communities and then make policy recommendations for community development in such communities. Key Words: Resource Exploitation; Community Development, Community Governance, Sustainable Development, Sustainable Community Development

Thèse (M.E.I.R.) -- Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, 2003. / Bibliogr.: f. 183-188. Document électronique également accessible en format PDF. CaQCU

Thesis (Ph.D.)--York University, 2004. Graduate Programme in Environmental Studies. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 329-347). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pNQ99217

Thesis (M.Phil.)--Murdoch University, 2006. / Thesis submitted to the Division of Arts. Bibliography: p. 334-359.

Thesis (MPhil)--University of Stellenbosch, 2008. / Bibliography. Also available via the Internet.

The topic of the thesis is sustainable development, specifically sustainable development of urban systems. It is a very topical theme, the cities are currently home to more than half of the population of the entire planet and mostly cities contribute to the environmental pollution deterioration, the distortion of the ecological balance of our planet and cause serious global problems. The work consists of four chapters. The first three chapters constitute the theoretical basis for the last practical part. The first chapter introduces the concept of sustainable development in general, its history, definitions, issues and indicators of sustainable development principles. In the second and third chapter I analyze the sustainable urban development. On the basis of theoretical knowledges, chapters create the hypothesis according to which should be set up two different concepts of sustainable urban development considering differences between the cities of developed and developing countries. The final chapter analyzes the strategies of selected cities, Mexico and Freiburg, how to achieve sustainable urban development with respect to different methods of developing and developed country.

Tropical rainforests contain exceptionally high biodiversity and account for >30% of the world's carbon fixed by photosynthesis. Consequently, there are compelling reasons to deepen our understanding of the mechanisms that maintain these highly diverse forests and of the potential long-term threats to their preservation. An important process shaping tropical plant communities is negative density dependence (NDD). NDD occurs when plant performance is negatively impacted by increased neighbourhood density. Reduced performance at high neighbourhood density is thought to arise through ecological interactions between plants and their natural enemies. Thus in a healthy ecosystem, trophic interactions play vital roles as mechanisms driving NDD and are important as dispersers facilitating escape from NDD mortality. However, interruption to ecological processes caused by human activities, such as hunting, can perturb NDD interactions and cause cascading effects throughout an ecosystem. In my thesis I investigate the role of dispersal and mortality in NDD dynamics of tropical tree communities, as well as investigating local and global impacts of removing ecological interactions in tropical rainforests. In my thesis, I begin by addressing the presence and variation in strength of NDD among tree species and ontogenetic stages, the mechanisms driving NDD, and the role of trophic interactions in this process. The Janzen-Connell hypothesis predicts that host-specific natural enemies drive NDD by selectively reducing conspecific density, and increase diversity by suppressing competitive exclusion, thus allowing heterospecifics to persist. In chapters 2 and 3 of this thesis, I show that mortality driven by conspecific NDD is prevalent at the early life stages, and this effect is considerably stronger during the year after germination. Furthermore, this process is driven exclusively by host-specific fungal pathogens, which cause mortality selectively among conspecifics and drive diversity. As seedlings age beyond their first year, NDD interactions become less impacted by conspecifics but are impacted by closely related neighbours or by general neighbourhood density, representing changes in the mechanism driving NDD as seedlings age, and a decline in host-specificity of natural enemies. Equally, relative growth rates (RGR) are reduced under high neighbourhood density irrespective of species identity. Results suggest insect herbivores are the strongest driver of reduced RGR but not mortality under increased neighbourhood density. As a consequence of stronger inter than intra-specific NDD effects on RGR, insects had no impact on seedling diversity in the short term. This study supports assertions that regionally rare species experience stronger NDD than common species, accounting for the high variability in species relative abundance in the tropics. In the second part of my thesis, I address the role of large vertebrate dispersers in shaping tropical tree communities and the consequences of defaunation for tree assemblage and carbon storage. Dispersal allows seeds to escape NDD and persist to reproductive maturity and is therefore vital for the maintenance of diversity. Vertebrates disperse the seeds of more than 70% of neo-tropical tree species. However, many large vertebrates are becoming scarce due to widespread hunting. The decline of large vertebrates and their role as dispersers is predicted to alter tree community composition. Additionally, large vertebrates are responsible for the dispersal of large-seeded species, which are linked to species with high wood density. With wood density positively associated with carbon storage, there is a potential cascading influence of defaunation on global carbon storage. We investigate the consequences of declining large vertebrate mortality agents in chapter 3, and the consequences of declining large vertebrate dispersers in chapters 4 and 5. Although community composition is altered in a defaunated forest, species dispersed by extirpated fauna do not appear to drive this. In fact we find that many species thought to be heavily reliant on extirpated fauna manage to persist. Although it is thought that the simultaneous loss of seed predation from large terrestrial vertebrates may create compensatory effects, we found little support for this, with an absence of large terrestrial vertebrates driving only temporary changes to species diversity. Neither a loss of large frugivores or large-seeded species lead to declines in species with high wood density, but we detect a worrying decline in large stemmed species, which has negative implications for carbon storage. Overall, my thesis highlights the importance of NDD and trophic interactions, particularly fungal pathogens, at the early life stages in shaping tropical tree communities and in maintaining diversity. I provide evidence that the removal of trophic interactions among larger natural enemies and dispersers does not impact community assemblage in the directional manner found in previous studies. I provide evidence for the variability in response to trophic interactions among species and ontogenetic stages. I show disproportionate relative importance among natural enemies and dispersers in the maintenance of tropical tree assemblage, with implications for conservation and for assessing the consequences for tree diversity under the influence of degradation.