The Seringveld Conservancy is situated near Cullinan in an area is that is characterised by deep sandy soils. Sand mining for the building industry has become a major threat to the biodiversity of the area. The flora of the Conservancy is best described as a gradual ecotone between the grassland and savanna biomes. The fist objective of the study is to describe the vegetation of the Seringveld Conservancy, in terms of plant communities, plant species composition, habitat as well as composing a vegetation map of the area. The second objective of the study is more theoretical and is aimed at providing a definition for savannas as well as shedding light on the complexity of South African savannas and there underlying driving forces. The Braun-Blanquet approach was used for sampling and 125 relevés were compiled. The data was captured using TURBOVEG and data analysis followed in JUICE 7.0. A total of 376 species was recorded in the area. Analysis from JUICE resulted in a TWINSPAN dendogram, synoptic table and two phytosociological tables. The phytosociological tables obtained from JUICE were refined using Braun-Blanquet procedures. Ten main plant communities and two sub-communities were identified. Each plant community was described in terms of species composition, dominant species and diagnostic species, and ecologically interpreted in terms of habitat characteristics. The plant communities were also compared to communities found in other studies in close proximity of the Seringveld i.e. Ezemvelo Nature Reserve. ArcGIS was used to create various maps further highlighting the uniqueness of the area. A vegetation map indicating the distribution of the plant communities was compiled. The combined results of the phytosociological tables as well as the GIS maps indicate that the Seringveld Conservancy is a complex area containing high biodiversity. Trying to define savanna is related to scale. The study area is considered to be savanna at local scale, this study will refer to savanna as a vegetation type with a well developed grassy layer and an upper layer of woody plants, which can vary from widely spaced to 75 percent tree cover. There is a gradient present between equilibrium and non-equilibrium dynamics in savanna ecosystems of southern Africa. / Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Plant Science / unrestricted

Information on Water Conservancy Districts in Utah was collected by mail and personal visits to district offices. There are a total of 12 districts in Utah, but only five were selling water in 1965. The water development projects of the remaining seven were not finished. Some of the districts are small and consolidation would bring them many advantages of large scale operation. The success of the Weber Basin Water Conservancy District was evaluated from the point of view of economic efficiency . Insistence on long term contract, adherence to water duty requirements set by the Bureau of Reclamation, inability to sell water on land acreages larger than 160 acres, pricing based on costs of producing and distributing water, and disallowing resale or transfer of water rights were hindrances to the efficient allocation of water. High projections of demand, high prices, and salt content in the water were impediments to the District in sel ling all water available.

Conservation is increasingly understood to require collective action, particularly in the context of community based conservation. This thesis is premised on the proposition that understanding the dynamic nature of the relationship between collective identity and collective action is fundamental to management of common pool resources such as are created through establishment of community conservancies in Namibia. I used collective identity and resilience theories to develop a framework for exploring change in collective action in the Doro !Nawas conservancy in Namibia. The framework is based on the assumption that change in collective action is dependent upon the temporal changes in two attributes of collective identity; identification and affective commitment. It is suggested that the framework also yields insight into how these may be applied in adaptive management. The research is informed by an interpretive paradigm accepting that collective identity and collective action are social constructs and that personal meanings could be revealed through in-depth interviews and documentary analysis. Computer aided software (Nvivo), manual analysis and a mix of inductive and deductive analysis yielded excerpts, codes and themes that were used to interpret change in the two attributes. The framework I proposed to understand how identification and affective commitment influence collective action was helpful as a general model but it tends to convey a degree of cohesion and homogeneity that does not reflect the real situation, particularly during the ‘collapse’ phase when members of the collective respond to disturbances. My results show that collectives, including organisations, should be understood as collectives of individuals and groups of individuals who express differing levels of identification and affective commitment. Narratives can be used to track change in identification and affective commitment in collectives. Thus, the identification and affective commitment of members is reflected in the language they use to express feelings, thoughts and experiences toward the collective and behaviours that are supportive or destructive to collective identity. A need for incorporating collective identity into adaptive management is identified. I suggest that incorporating collective identity in strategic adaptive management would make those who engage with the process mindful of the collective identity, and therefore more inclined to manage collective identity in order to achieve the collective action required for successful common pool resources management. I use the findings of my research to identify four issues for further research in community based collectives: firstly, research that focuses on the how to design institutional arrangements for conservancies and similar organisations that are more accessible and responsive to the collective; secondly, research on understanding the role and influence benefit sharing can have in sustaining a collective identity that is supportive of conservancies and how it would contribute to making these systems more resilient; thirdly, research to determine how strategic adaptive management can be restructured and implemented in conservancies and protected areas so that it helps to sustain a collective identity and the collective actions that are required to secure them for future generations; finally, whether the long term intentions of community based conservation might be better served if the instruments of governance and the procedures for their application were engineered to make these social ecological systems more robust and if so, how this might be achieved. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2012.

M.Sc. / The Mining of sand in South Africa is rapidly growing to sustain an increasing demand of sand for building purposes. Although mining of sand is regulated by environmental legislation, such as the National Environmental Management Act 107 of 1998, previous poor mining practices have left areas of land degraded and vulnerable to erosion. These areas need to be rehabilitated by restoring the vegetation and habitats to a natural state. This study was conducted in the Seringveld Conservancy, where the mining of sand has left the landscape with a degraded and unsightly appearance, and where little rehabilitation of the original vegetation has taken place. The aim of the study was to develop rehabilitation techniques for the degraded mined soils and to develop an overall strategy of revegetation by regenerating key plant species. Techniques for regenerating indigenous tree species cover, using modified mined sludge if topsoil is not available, were used to develop a practical and cost effective strategy to be used in revegetation. A comparative trial was used to cultivate indigenous tree species in different soil mixtures. Monitoring was done weekly to determine the growth performance and to ascertain which plant species would be most suitable and easy to cultivate. The study is important as it provides new information on the rehabilitation and revegetation of sand mined areas in the Seringveld Conservancy. This study will determine if alternatives could be used to replace topsoil on mined areas where none is available. The study is needed to determine whether revegetation of the mined areas would be possible using indigenous plant species that are often difficult to grow. The overall results indicate that replacing topsoil was successful for various modified soil mixtures that could sustain the growth of indigenous vegetation on the sand mines. Different indigenous tree species require different modified soil mixtures for successful propagation. A revegetation strategy was developed to complement and enable the rehabilitation of the mined in the Seringveld Conservancy. The revegetation initiative will benefit the restructuring of the degraded mined areas in the Seringveld Conservancy and will provide a benchmark for revegetation efforts in future in similar sand mining areas.

Food forestry has grown in its popularity in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, which it has not been traditionally practiced before, for its potential to produce healthy food, to create habitat for wildlife species, to reconnect people with nature and to provide various ecosystem services such as carbon storage. Diverse food forest projects are conceived from urban food initiatives to integrated conservation and restoration planning. Currently, the Galiano Conservancy Association is creating two food forests in the heart of a mature Coastal Douglas-fir landscape on Galiano Island, British Columbia, which is protected under a conservation covenant, in pursuit of sustainable food production, education and contribution to ecological restoration and conservation efforts. To investigate the relationships between emerging food forestry and ecological restoration and to identify key indicators to measure best practices of food forestry in the context of ecological restoration, I conducted 16 semi-structured interviews with food forestry and ecological restoration experts. In addition, I conducted a workshop with the Conservancy stakeholders to develop a comprehensive and systematic monitoring framework for their food forest projects. My studies suggest that restoration principles and resilience thinking can provide guidelines for restorative food forestry. Food forestry may serve as an innovative restoration tool to restore urban landscapes where lack significant opportunities for conventional restoration. A generic monitoring framework for food forestry could be adapted by other projects, yet this will require the process of defining goals and objectives of a given project and assessing landscape contexts and the organization’s capacity to monitor. / Graduate / soph.park@yahoo.ca

Der Bericht gibt durch eine Vielzahl von Auswertungskarten auf Basis der aktuellen Biotoptypen- und Landnutzungskartierung (BTLNK 2005) einen Überblick über die im Luftbild erkennbare Naturausstattung und Landnutzung in Sachsen. Daneben enthält er wesentliche Hinweise zu einem fachlich sinnvollen Einsatz der BTLNK 2005 und ist damit zusammen mit der Kartieranleitung eine wichtige Informationsquelle für alle Nutzer dieses Kartenwerkes. Die BTLNK 2005 ist eine flächendeckende, digitale Karte der im Luftbild erkennbaren Biotoptypen und Landnutzung. Sie wurde durch die Auswertung von Luftbildern (hochgenaue digitale Colorinfrarot-Orthophotos) aus dem Jahre 2005 erzeugt und wird durch das LfULG zur Verfügung gestellt.

James A. Mackay was a decorated World War II veteran, who returned to Georgia in 1945, determined to make a difference in the segregated world of Georgia politics. He was a staunch opponent of Georgia’s county unit system that entrenched political power in rural counties. From 1950 through 1964 he was a state house member who fought to keep Georgia public schools open in the face of political opposition to desegregation. Elected to Congress in 1964, he was one of two deep-South congressmen who voted in favor of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. In 1967 he co-founded the Georgia Conservancy. For the next 25 years he was Georgia’s leading environmentalist. This thesis explores Mackay’s life from 1919-1950 and the significance of his parents, his experiences at Emory University, World War II, his legal challenge to the county unit system, and his role in writing Who Runs Georgia?

ABSTRACT James A. Mackay was a decorated World War II veteran, who returned to Georgia in 1945, determined to make a difference in the segregated world of Georgia politics. He was a staunch opponent of Georgia’s county unit system that entrenched political power in rural counties. From 1950 through 1964 he was a state house member who fought to keep Georgia public schools open in the face of political opposition to desegregation. Elected to Congress in 1964, he was one of two deep-South congressmen who voted in favor of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. In 1967 he co-founded the Georgia Conservancy. For the next 25 years he was Georgia’s leading environmentalist. This thesis explores Mackay’s life from 1919-1950 and the significance of his parents, his experiences at Emory University, World War II, his legal challenge to the county unit system, and his role in writing Who Runs Georgia?

¡§Kaohsiung Farm Irrigation Association¡¨ is taken as the researching topic. By means of ways of interviewing and documents reviewing, to observe how does the farmers from farm society make communicating relation through this farmer, unit by the nation¡H And how is the reaction of farmers from farm society to the sovereign of the nation¡H In the relation of mutual action between nation and society, the Water Conservancy Association is sometime the agent of idea and the executive of policy of the nation, also sometimes the unifier of farmers, opinions in farm society. This dual status makes the Water Conservancy Association the governmental and private function. So the Water Conservancy Association is the unit of half-official and half-civil. From the mutual action of association working station and farmers, we could find out why the nation to dominate this association. The farmers are controlled under the Water Conservancy Association and this Association will be the bridge between the nation and farmers. As to the function why the nation try to dominate the Water Conservancy Association, we could see the function of economical politics to be reached from the mutual action between the Association and farmers and the role the nation acted in the irrigation system. In the function of economical aspect, the Association meaning of existing is to promote the crop production and the quality of crop to improve the living level of farmers to reach the purpose of service. In the function of political aspect, the Association will be acted the important role during the election event. For example of ¡§Kaohsiung Farm Irrigation Association¡¨, it has been classified as the Red Party since Taiwan Restoration. The organization system of the Association is very tight and the member are numerous. The organization of this Association has the structure of Administration Dept., Working Station, Water Conservancy Team, Water Conservancy Section and basic members. Under the complete organization system, the chairman of this Association will control the huge power of the farmers, hence, the Water Conservancy Association is acted as the influential role of politics in the current society system. Anyway, the Association is still to be acted as the important role of ¡§election¡¨ in the function of politics. The Whole sovereign will be performed and realized by the particular tool or means. The nation is also not excepted. Because the nation controls the ¡§power of allocating the social resource¡¨ and ¡§personnel power of appointing ¡® removing to the chairman¡¨, the social qroup of this association could be under controllng. In other woeds, the Water Conservancy Association is under governing of the nation. and the nation policy could be performed even the farmers are dominated by the Association just because the above mentioned two powers and owned by the nation. Finally, the future developing direction of the Association will be discussed in this article. The Water Conservancy Association will face the transferring industrial society from agricultural society. The agricultural production will be largely reduced and the farming area will also be gradually decreased. In another aspect, after entering the WTO and under the liberalized demanding, the agriculture will be suffered from the serious impact. Under these situations, the farm service of this Association will also face the terrible strike. Plus the current financial trouble of the government, the Water Conservancy Association has to find out its own bright way -- Diversifying Investments.

A região costeira do sul do Brasil está inserida no bioma Pampa e sua vegetação natural apresenta um mosaico de formações, incluindo áreas de campos utilizadas para pastejo bovino. Os campos do litoral representam uma das fisionomias do bioma Pampa mais convertida para outros usos. Nessa região poucos estudos florísticos isolados foram realizados recentemente, enquanto estudos ecológicos sobre a interação da vegetação campestre com variáveis ambientais e espaciais são ainda mais escassos. Buscamos realizar um amplo estudo descritivo e ecológico da vegetação dos campos arenosos costeiros ao longo de 536 km no sul do Brasil. Amostramos 16 áreas distribuídas ao longo da planície costeira, com 15 parcelas de 1 m² por área. As espécies foram classificadas segundo suas formas de crescimento, origem e grau de ameaça. Também variáveis climáticas, edáficas e as coordenadas geográficas para cada área foram observadas. Através de análises multivariadas (ordenações e partição de variância) verificamos a contribuição relativa do ambiente e do espaço para variação na composição de espécies entre áreas. Foram encontradas 221 espécies, 14 eram exóticas e duas ameaçadas. Axonopus aff. affinis, Paspalum notatum e Paspalum pumilum foram algumas das espécies mais importantes caracterizando as áreas. A maior parte da cobertura vegetal é por espécies de gramíneas prostradas, que está relacionado com a presença de pastejo em todas as áreas. A mudança na composição das comunidades entre áreas está relacionada, em sua maior parte, à mudança de variáveis climáticas, como também ao espaço, já que ambos variam juntamente. Observamos que apesar da homogeneidade nas condições edáficas, em escala refinada pudemos observar a influência do solo na variação da comunidade. Os campos da planície costeira possuem uma fisionomia ímpar, porém as áreas remanescentes estão vulneráveis, principalmente pela fragmentação da paisagem. Práticas de manejo, principalmente pecuária, deveriam considerar a fragilidade do solo dessa região, adotando níveis mais baixos de carga animal para contribuir com a preservação dos últimos fragmentos desta formação. / The coastal region of southern Brazil is inserted into the Pampa biome and its natural vegetation presents a mosaic of formations, including areas of grasslands used for cattle grazing. The coastal grasslands represent one of the Pampa biome physiognomies most converted to other uses. In this region a few floristic isolated studies were recently conducted, while ecological studies about the interaction of vegetation with environmental and spatial variables are even rarer. We aimed to realize a broad descriptive and ecological study of the vegetation of the coastal sandy grasslands along 536 km in southern Brazil. We sampled 16 areas distributed along the coastal plain, with 15 plots of 1 m² per area. The species were classified according to their growth forms, origin and degree of threat. Also climate, soil characteristics and geographic coordinates for each area were observed. By using multivariate analyzes (ordination and variation partitioning) we verified the relative contribution of environment and space for variation in species composition between areas. We found 221 species, from which 14 were exotic and two threatened. Axonopus aff. affinis, Paspalum notatum and Paspalum pumilum were some of the most important species characterizing the areas. Most of the vegetation cover is by prostrate species of grasses, which is related to the presence of grazing in all areas. The change in community composition between areas is mostly related, to changing in climatic variables, as well as to space, since both vary together. We observed that despite the homogeneity in the soil conditions, in fine scale we could observe the influence of the soil in community variation. The coastal grasslands have a unique physiognomy, but the remnant areas are vulnerable, mainly by landscape fragmentation. Management practices, especially livestock, should consider the fragility of the soil of this region, adopting lower stocking levels to contribute to the preservation of the last fragments of this formation.