This dissertation of limited scope, part of a Course-work Master’s in Ancient Languages and Cultures, consists of five chapters which deal with issues relating to the perception and literary treatment of non-human animals in African and Classical traditional stories involving animal characters. The focus of the research was placed upon arguing that: human characteristics were attributed to animal creatures in the myths/traditional stories from both cultures; both cultures made attempts to explain how certain animals became domesticated and how others remained wild; mythical thinking is not a preserve of one culture, it is rather part of human nature; mythical monsters are present in both cultures and that they have always to be destroyed by man, though not easily; myths served several functions for both cultures, ranging from educational entertainment to socializing purposes, to making attempts to explain ancient man’s environment and its happenings. The study was undertaken in the hope of enabling certain recommendations to be formulated, on the basis of the findings, to effect a better and more informed strategy for teaching Classical Mythology and Classics, in general, in the Mawian/African context. / Classics and World Languages / M. A. (Specialisation in Ancient languages and culture)

Text in English / Climate change has become part of daily conversations for scholars and activists. Everyone feels entitled to an opinion on either the causes or the prescriptions of mitigation measures. Very few question the ontological existence of climate change or wonder whether their perceptions are pre-empted by over-arching metanarratives or discourses articulated elsewhere. The impact of media and other sources of information on people’s perceptions of climate change are often taken for granted. By using discourse theory, this study aims to uncover taken-for-granted metanarratives within environmentally oriented university Honours student’s perceptions of climate change. These students are majoring in the key areas of Environmental Management studies. It aims at assessing whether their perceptions are, consciously or inadvertently, mis (aligned) to any climate change discourses. In discourse theory, Laclau and Mouffe (1985) argued that within a particular knowledge domain, there are several meaning-conferring articulations (discourses) in a struggle of fixing meaning for particular social events and activities. As such, each discourse aims at negating alternative meanings from alternative discourses and naturalising its own interpretations. Within a particular discourse, actors (individuals or groups) are interpellated i.e. defined within specific confines of action and articulations. This study uses this discourse theory to test these hypotheses. As such, the study came up with three conclusions. First, there is a metanarrative of climate change realism, in which the ontological reality of climate change is taken as a given, with no attempt at individual reflection on its ontology. Secondly, the respondents held a mediated concept of climate change, in which their views largely mirror the conceptualisations of the media and other information sources. Lastly, there is an overarching climate-change aversion metanarrative, in which climate change is regarded as negative, without any distinction between its causes and effects. / Development Studies / M.A. (Development Studies)

Mussels play an important supplementary role in the diet of local communities on the Transkei coast in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. The exploitation of mussels date back to about 1350 years ago, but in the last 3 decades, exploitation of the brown mussel Perna perna has become unsustainable with mussels collected as small as 30-40mm when they are only just sexually mature. Dye and Dyantyi (2002) developed a technique to rehabilitate areas denuded of adult mussels. The government sponsored Mussel Rehabilitation Project (MRP) to use this technique but only some sites have been successfully rehabilitated, reaching c. 80 % cover within a year whilst others only reach about 5%. At an unexploited site (Riet River), I tested the effects of mussel size and wave strength on the effectiveness of the rehabilitation technique, hypothesizing that different size classes may respond differently due to differences in their energy allocation (growth vs reproduction), while wave action determines food supply. Small (1-2cm) and large mussels (3-4cm) were deployed for rehabilitation at 2 exposed and 2 sheltered sites, separated by 100s m. A similar study was repeated in Coffee Bay where shores are exploited. Six sites were selected, 3 sites that had been successfully rehabilitated and 3 that were unsuccessful according to the MRP. Again, two size classes were used but these differed from the first experiment. Mussels of 3-4cm size were now rated as small and 5-6cm as large. Two methods were used to re-attach mussels, the original and the same method with the addition of mesh bags during mussel deployment. Treatments were examined on three occasions at approximately one month intervals. At Riet River, the sites chosen did not show differences in wave strength (measured using dynamometers) or water flux (measured using erosion of cement balls) so that water motion was excluded from the analyses. Small mussels grew faster and had weaker attachment than large mussels. There was no difference in condition index between small and large mussels, or in the numbers of recruits settling among the byssus threads of deployed mussels of the two size classes. In Coffee Bay, there was no relationship between rehabilitation success and maximum wave force, and no difference in bulk water flux among sites. Small mussels deployed using mesh bags survived better than non-meshed or large mussels of either treatment. There was no difference in condition index (CI) between mesh and no-mesh, or between small and large mussels. As in the case of Riet River, small mussels grew faster than large mussels, but large mussels attached stronger than small mussels, with no effect of mesh. Although the factors that improve reseeding of mussels can be identified (use of mesh, use of small mussels, choice of sites with high recruitment rates), successful long-term rehabilitation requires appropriate subsequent management of re-seeded sites.

This is not the first time we hear about aggression to the environment and to man himself. It is, although, from the rising of globalization and a society of risks that such trouble begins to look like reality, specially in developing countries, such as the ones from Latin America. The human being nowadays is going through an uncomfortable feeling caused by his own behavior and it is reflected in the biomedical research area, which has more and more specialized techniques and professionals, who many times ignore the natural vulnerability of the Latin American research and put aside the ethics which should guide their research. Based on this crises of conscience or perception, there is the objective of studying transdisciplinarity in the Ethics in Research Committees as a new possible paradigm for the solution of bioethics controversies in biomedical research with human beings in Latin America. The study focus on Brazil and Argentina Committees. The research is based not only on theoretical considerations on bioethics, human dignity and transdiciplinarity but also on the systemic interpretation of Latin American reality. Therefore, the methodological approach has three perspectives: on its nature the research is basic; on its objectives it is exploitative; and from the object point of view, it is qualitative. Bibliographic and documental research is used considering the theoretical character of the study, having as theoretical reference, the ideas of Edgar Morin, Fridjof Capra and Volnei Garrafa. The question does not lie in being against or in favor of development, but to establish What is the kind of science we want. That is, through the transdisciplinar dialogue of the Ethics Committees from Latin American institutions, to make the scientific community aware that the bioethics principiology specially the human dignity principle is essential in the biomedical research field, or we shall harm not only the individual rights of the researched but also the right to health, which is inherent to society. Even if the practical solution is still far away, it is essential to (re)think the relationship man-science transdisciplinarly, so that a new human conscience is introduced, preoccupied in respecting human dignity and nature as a whole. / Não é de hoje que se houve falar em agressão ao meio ambiente e ao próprio homem, parte deste. É, contudo, a partir do advento da globalização e da sociedade de risco que tal problemática começa a tomar contornos de realidade, especialmente nos países em desenvolvimento, como os da América Latina. O humano, atualmente, passa por uma sensação de mal-estar ocasionada por seus próprios atos e isso se reflete na área das pesquisas biomédicas, que, contando cada vez mais com a técnica e profissionais especializados, os quais, muitas vezes, ignoram a vulnerabilidade natural do pesquisado latino-americano e deixam de lado a ética que deveria nortear as pesquisas. Com base nesta crise de consciência ou percepção, objetiva-se estudar a transdisciplinariedade nos Comitês de Ética em Pesquisa como um novo paradigma possível para a solução de controvérsias bioéticas nas pesquisas biomédicas com seres humanos na América Latina. O estudo tem como foco os comitês do Brasil e Argentina. A pesquisa baseia-se tanto em considerações teóricas sobre bioética, dignidade humana e transdisciplinaridade quanto na interpretação sistêmica da realidade latino-americana. Para tanto, a abordagem metodológica se dá sob três ângulos: quanto à natureza a pesquisa é básica; relativamente aos objetivos, é exploratória; e do ponto de vista do objeto, qualitativa. Utiliza-se pesquisa bibliográfica e documental considerando o caráter teórico do estudo, tendo-se como referencial teórico, principalmente, as idéias de Edgar Morin e Fridjof Capra. A questão não repousa em estar contra ou a favor do desenvolvimento, mas sim, estabelecer qual é o tipo de ciência que se pretende. Ou seja, através do diálogo transdisciplinar dos Comitês de Ética das instituições latino-americanas, conscientizar a comunidade científica de que a principiologia bioética em especial o princípio da dignidade humana é fundamental no campo das pesquisas biomédicas, sob pena de ferir-se não só o direito individual do pesquisado, como também, o direito à saúde, inerente a toda coletividade. Mesmo que a solução prática ainda esteja distante, é indispensável (re)pensar a relação homem-ciência transdisciplinarmente, a fim de que seja introduzida uma nova consciência no humano, preocupada em respeitar a dignidade humana e a natureza como um todo.

M.A. (Geography) / In the last century, the establishment of protected areas has become an important part of managing South Africa’s wilderness and wildlife. The notion of untouched protected areas is becoming contested in a time when developing nations are seeking to improve quality of life for their citizens. With the promulgation of the NEM: PAA of 2003, resource sharing with local rural communities has become an important policy guideline for protected area management authorities. An example of a protected area where management has sought to facilitate resource access in neighbouring rural communities is Mkuze Game Reserve (MGR), now part of the greater Isimangaliso Wetland Park. This study uses a mixed methods approach to combine local rainfall records, census archives, and remotely sensed data with qualitative interview data in order to investigate spatial, social and quantitative aspects of anthropogenic land-cover change between 1979 and 2008. If the proposed balance between development and conservation is to be achieved in this ecologically diverse locale, a deeper understanding of contextual relationships between human activity and environmental change will be vital. Results showed that while rainfall was cyclic, natural land-cover decreased consistently in densely populated rural areas. In contrast, protected areas such as MGR showed little change in land-cover indicating that human activity and cattle have a significant impact on the land surface in the Mkuze Region. While many local residents in the rural communities living adjacent to MGR recognise their role in the achievement of development-conservation objectives, a history of exclusion from MGR has left a legacy of negative perceptions towards MGR in these communities. In order to mitigate natural land-cover loss, local communities must have positive perceptions about MGR and become involved in its management. Useful inferences have been made from the results regarding the management of human population and activities around the borders of protected areas in South Africa.

[Partial abstract]: Human-wildlife conflict is a widely observed phenomenon and encompasses a range of negative interactions between humans and wildlife. Depredation upon livestock and game species proves to be the prevalent form of this conflict and often results in the killing of carnivores. Within the South African context, despite intense lethal control, two sympatric mesopredators, the blackbacked jackal (Canis mesomelas) and the caracal (Caracal caracal), remain common enough to be considered a major threat to human livelihoods through depredation. Wildlife ranches and livestock farms dominate the landscape in the Eastern Cape Province. Moreover, human-predator conflict within the region is extensive as both the black-backed jackal and caracal are seen to be inimical by landowners. Understanding this conflict is essential for mitigating any potential adverse environmental reactions (i.e. range collapses or extinctions) and requires knowledge of anthropogenic, ecological and environmental factors. I interviewed 73 land owners across five municipal boundaries in the Eastern Cape to quantify perceptions of predator control methods.

Please read the abstract in the section 00front of this document / Thesis (DPhil (Zoology))--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Zoology and Entomology / unrestricted

[pt] A figura da migrante trabalhadora do sexo pode ser interpretada de múltiplas formas de acordo com interesses, visões morais e objetivos políticos dos atores em jogo. Este trabalho analisa as perspectivas de segurança, gênero e resistência promovidas, respectivamente, por atores governamentais, associações e pelas próprias migrantes brasileiras na França. Investiga como as interações sociopolíticas das brasileiras trabalhadoras do sexo cisgêneros e transgêneros configuram, em conjunto, uma economia moral da mobilidade de trabalhadores sexuais. Mais especificamente, esta tese tem como intuito elucidar de que forma o rótulo de vítima vulnerável, por um lado, e os de criminosa, cafetina, clandestina e transgressora, por outro, são produzidos e mobilizados pelos diferentes atores envolvidos na regulação da migração laboral sexual. A análise realizada neste trabalho baseia-se em pesquisa de inspiração etnográfica, descrevendo o campo da prostituição brasileira nas cidades francesas de Paris, Lyon e Toulouse. A partir dessa imersão, a tese demonstra como as articulações existentes entre a categoria de vitima - de tráfico, de exploração laboral sexual, do patriarcado, do capitalismo desigual - e a categoria de criminosa - por cafetinar as amigas, por ser clandestina, por alimentar o mercado negro, por exercer uma atividade imoral - são mobilizadas nesse contexto. Revela uma realidade altamente nuançada e ambivalente, uma vez que as brasileiras prostitutas são muitas vezes, ao mesmo tempo vítimas e autônomas, manipuladas e oportunistas, cafetinas e exploradas. / [en] The migrant sex worker character can be interpreted in multiple ways according to the interests, moral views and political goals of relevant stakeholders within this context. This work analyzes how the perspectives of security, gender and resistance, respectively promoted by government actors, associative agents and the subjects themselves reverberate in the empirical practice, that is, through the interactions of Brazilian cisgender and transgender sex workers with the other actors surrounding them and with whom they together configure the moral economy of the mobility of sex workers. More specifically, this thesis aims to investigate how the label of vulnerable and naive victim on the one hand, and the labels of criminal, pimp, illegal and transgressive on the other are produced and mobilized by the different actors involved in the regulation of sexual labor migration. The analysis carried out in this work is based on ethnographic-inspired research, describing the field of Brazilian prostitution in the French cities of Paris, Lyon and Toulouse. From this immersion, the thesis demonstrates how the articulations between the category of victim - of trafficking, of sexual labor exploitation, of patriarchy, of unequal capitalism - and the category of criminal - for pimping friends, for being clandestine, for feeding the black market, for exercising an immoral activity - are mobilized in this context. It reveals a highly nuanced and ambivalent reality, since Brazilian prostitutes are often simultaneously victims and autonomous, manipulated and opportunists, pimps and exploited.

Människans relation till natur är problematisk och leder till en alltmer separerad tillvaro från natur och mekanisk syn på andra-än-människor. Studien befinner sig i fältet Design för framtiden i den antropocena tidsåldern och använder sig av design för att uppmärksamma människans relation till natur och sten genom Spekulativ och Posthumanist Design. Resultatet är en Provotype och utställning som belyser problematiken i människans relation till natur och sten genom att spekulera i ett framtidsscenario som tagits fram av forskare inom biologisk mångfald och relaterande forskningsområden. Genom explorativa metoder utforskas ämnet människa och natur. Teori som behandlar Posthumanist Design, Natureculture och Ontologi och människans relation till de mer-än-mänskliga leder studien i en utforskning om hur Spekulativ Design kan besvara frågeställningen om att uppmärksamma människans problematiska relation till natur. / The human relationship with nature is problematic and leads to an increasingly separated existence from nature and a mechanistic view of non-humans. The study is situated in the field of Design for the Future in the Anthropocene and utilizes design to raise awareness on the human relationship with nature and stone through Speculative and Posthumanist Design. The result is a Provtotype and exhibition highlighting the issues in the human relationship with nature and stone by speculating on a future scenario developed by researchers in biodiversity and related research areas. Through exploratory methods, the subject of human and nature is explored. Theory addressing Posthumanist Design, Natureculture, and Ontology, and the human relationship with the more-than-humans, guide the study in an exploration of how Speculative Design can address the question of raising awareness of the problematic human relationship with nature.

The terrestrial water, energy and carbon cycles are tightly coupled through land-atmosphere (L-A) interactions, not only regulating local plant physiological activities and also modulating regional and global climate. With ongoing anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, many of these interactions can be modified and complicated. To better anticipate and adapt to future climate, it is of great importance and necessity to deepen and refine our understanding of the complex L-A interactions. In this dissertation, three topics are investigated across the ecosystem, regional and global scales respectively, throughout which, the critical role of dryness or drying in the context of global warming is highlighted. 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏: Evapotranspiration (ET) is a key component that connects the continental water, carbon and energy cycles and a proxy that measures the coupling strength between the biosphere and atmosphere. A wide range of biophysical factors, which usually exhibit nonlinearity and strong covariation, collectively modulate ET and complicate the overall understanding of ET dynamics. In the first study, the causal discovery frameworks PCMCI+ and Latent PCMCI are utilized with integrated priori physical knowledge to identify the dominant drivers and constraints of ET in the growing seasons across sites, with a particular focus on the role of site dryness degree. The Dryness Index (DI), defined as the ratio of annual mean net radiation to precipitation, has been introduced to assess the water availability relative to energy supply at different locations. By analyzing the daily observations from 115 flux tower sites and satellite remote sensing, it has been discovered that the feedbacks around ET are mediated by the degree of dryness: at sites with adequate water supply (using PCMCI+, the DI value averaged from such sites is 1.33), the atmospheric conditions, including incoming solar radiation and atmospheric demand for water (indicated by vapor pressure deficit, VPD), prevail in driving ET; in contrast, in semi-arid and arid areas where the water stress is high (using PCMCI+, the DI value averaged from such sites is 3.32), soil water content is the primary factor to constrain ET due to the plant regulation of stomatal conductance as part of the water conservation strategy. Additionally, as DI increases across sites, the sign of the contemporaneous causal relationship between VPD and ET can reverse from positive—indicating that atmospheric demand for water drives ET—to negative—reflecting that plant stomatal closure limits ET in response to the dryer atmosphere. 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟐: As summer heatwaves and droughts are becoming more frequent and intense, such as in Western Europe, there is a growing interest in unraveling the physical mechanisms behind their occurrences and their changes. Soil desiccation is critical for the intensification and propagation of heatwaves, but its relative importance compared to other well-known large-scale atmospheric mechanisms, such as persistent atmospheric blocking systems and horizontal warm advection, remains elusive, especially in the context of a changing climate. In the second study, we utilize machine learning along with intervention experiments to estimate the respective contributions of soil water content 𝐶_𝑠𝑤𝑐 and atmospheric circulation 𝐶_𝑎𝑡𝑚 to daily maximum temperature in Western Europe, with a particular focus on the 2022 summer events. Our results reveal that during the two unparalleled heatwave events that occurred in June and July of 2022, the impact 𝐶_𝑠𝑤𝑐 on the heatwave intensity was on average approximately 40% of 𝐶_𝑎𝑡𝑚, and was comparable to 𝐶_𝑎𝑡𝑚 in continental dry-to-wet transition regions. Reviewing heatwaves in recent three decades, the percentage of heatwave areas that are significantly influenced by soil moisture-air temperature coupling has increased by 11.4% per decade. Additionally, for regions that have experienced heatwaves in at least 5 out of the past 33 years, about 21.7% areas, mostly in the transition zones, witness a significant increase in 𝐶_𝑠𝑤𝑐; while only 2.5% exhibit a substantial increase in 𝐶_𝑎𝑡𝑚. Furthermore, we find within the transitional climates, the intensification of heat extremes is mainly resulted from soil moisture depletion rather than atmospheric anomalies; while in (dry) Spain and the (wet) northern areas of central Europe, it is the variations in atmospheric circulation and soil desiccation that jointly fuel the persistent heatwaves. Our study emphasizes the observation-based large and increasing importance of soil moisture coupling in intensifying summer heatwaves and provides insights into future climates in extra-tropical regions like Western Europe, where a warmer and drier future is projected. 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟑: Earth system models (ESMs) and climate simulations are extensively employed to study the dynamics of climate and project long-term changes in the climate system. Despite their widespread use, large uncertainties persist among these models regarding the estimation of the continental gross primary productivity (GPP) and land carbon sink, which compromise the reliability of projections concerning future atmospheric carbon dioxide (𝐶𝑂₂) concentrations and the assessment of how terrestrial ecosystems respond to and might mitigate some of global warming. In ESMs, convection and clouds are one major source of such uncertainties—they are not only the most uncertain factors in the modeling of ``physical'' climate and also significantly affect the land carbon cycle through complex interactions involving radiation, moisture, and thermal pathways. In the third study, to isolate the role of clouds on the terrestrial carbon cycle, two models—the Community Earth System Model (CESM) and its super-parameterized counterpart (SPCESM, abbreviated as SP), which only differ in their representation of convection and clouds, are analyzed under present-day climatology to assess the impact of cloud representations on GPP. Compared with CESM, SP shows a 12.8% decrease in total cloud fraction within the 60°𝑆 ∼ 60°𝑁 range, which results in a notable GPP decline of 5.6 𝑃𝑔𝐶 𝑦𝑟⁻¹. This divergence, equivalent to 4.4% of terrestrial GPP in CESM, is comparable to the inter-annual variability in GPP and the uncertainty of GPP observed across climate models with diverse representations, extending beyond just cloud-related processes. Further analysis decomposes the GPP divergence between CESM and SP into two additive components and demonstrates that three-quarters of the difference is attributed to the negative impact from reduced cloud cover on light use efficiency (LUE) from CESM to SP, while the remaining one quarter is due to the positive impact from enhanced photosynthetically active radiation (PAR). An explainable machine learning model equipped with SHAP values further identifies two primary mechanisms underlying the lower LUE estimation in SP. Firstly, diminished clouds lead to higher air temperatures and reduced precipitation, creating a drier environment that prompts plants to regulate stomatal conductance to minimize water loss through transpiration, thereby suppressing the exchange rate of 𝐶𝑂₂ between biosphere and atmosphere. Secondly, the reduction in diffused radiation restricts the photosynthesis of shaded leaves. Combined, these two mechanisms reduce plant LUE, outweigh the beneficial impacts of increased PAR on photosynthesis, and ultimately lead to the declined terrestrial biosphere productivity in SP. Overall, we identify the representation of clouds as a key process for the terrestrial carbon cycle.