再论中医药立法的几个问题

《中华人民共和国中医药法》正在有条不紊的制定中,但中医药基本法立法中出现的问题也折射出了中医药发展过程中的不足。通过对中医药法立法过程中几个问题的再思考,进一步理顺中医药发展的脉络,为中医药基本法立法工作提供参考。     

Restoring degraded landscapes: Assessing the utility of biodiversity offsets for the business sector in Africa

Abstract

Increasing pressure for the conversion of tropical and sub-tropical wetlands and forests to alternative land usage raises the possibility that biodiversity offsets will increasingly take centre stage in biodiversity conservation planning and ecosystem restoration discourses. This article explores the major discourses on and utility of biodiversity offsets in the African context with a view to identifying and articulating some of the challenges and opportunities evident in attempts to operationalise the concept in practice. The discussion establishes that as intuitively pleasing as they have become in recent years, with potentially large benefits expected to be derived from offset initiatives, several significant hurdles need to be overcome for them to become well established practice in Africa. For instance, some observers have argued strongly that, in practice, land use and wetland mitigation in most countries have come nowhere near achieving the goal of ‘no-net-loss’. There are also enduring questions about the credibility of the formulae used to calculate net-losses and net-gains in biodiversity offset schemes. In the light of these and other outstanding questions, the article concludes that biodiversity offsets may seem simple but are much more complex to design and implement to the extent that they become really convincing as a conservation tool for businesses in Africa.     

Trophy Hunting of Black Rhino Diceros bicornis: Proposals to Ensure Its Future Sustainability

Proposing the use of charismatic species of large mammals as a conservation tool is often controversial, even though the Conservation of Biological Diversity promotes sustainable use as one of its three pillars. Indeed, sustainable use has been important in helping to recover southern white rhinos, the South African population of which was downlisted in 1994 to Appendix II of CITES for trophy hunting and live sales only. The Appendix I listed black rhino is now also beginning to recover, particularly in South Africa and Namibia, where how best to deal with surplus males arising from successful biological management is an increasing problem. Furthermore, black rhinos are now being increasingly moved to private land, where incentives from use may help help promote metapopulation management goals. As a result, the African Rhino Specialist Group anticipated proposals to trophy hunt black rhinos, and were concerned to recommend criteria that proponent countries would need to meet for such proposals to succeed. These recommendations address four guiding principles:

• ensuring that any offtakes are biologically sustainable and based on good monitoring;

• ensuring that incentives from any hunting opportunities are maximized, without discriminating between state agencies and the private sector;

• rewarding good biological management and long-term commitment to black rhino conservation; and

• ensuring that appropriate internal and external controls are in place.

     

Reliable and Robust Molecular Sexing of the Hen Harrier (Circus cyaneus) Using PCR‐RFLP Analysis of the CHD 1 Gene

The hen harrier (Circus cyaneus) is a bird of prey that is persecuted in the United Kingdom, and there is a need for a DNA‐based individual identification and sexing system for the use in forensic investigations. This study reports a new set of PCR primers for the chromo‐helicase‐DNA‐binding protein 1 gene, which allows sexing using PCR‐RFLP. Instead of exonic primers that amplify across a large intron, this set consists of a primer within the intron, enabling reduction in amplicon sizes from 356 to 212 bp and 565 to 219 bp in W and Z chromosomes. DNA degradation and dilution experiments demonstrate that this set is significantly more robust than one that amplifies across the intron, and sequencing of the intronic primer‐binding region across several individuals shows that it is highly conserved. While our objective is to incorporate this primer set into an STR‐based individualization kit, it may in the meantime prove useful in forensic or conservation studies.     

日本城市能源利用与节能减排

日本是世界第三大经济实体,同时也是资源消费大国。作为一个本身自然资源匮乏的国度,日本是如何在发展经济的同时,克服了能源短缺的问题?又是如何在提高能源利用效率的同时将对环境的污染控制到最低限度的?围绕上述问题,探讨日本在城市能源利用方面的节能措施以及对新能源在环保领域中所起的重要作用的同时,梳理了在京都会议后,日本的节能环保技术、理念,以及未来的发展趋势,以期为中国解决在新常态下,在推动城镇化经济发展的同时所面临的能源以及环境问题提供思路。     

我国生物质能源发展路径探析——基于合同能源管理模式的视角

发展生物质能源是当今世界各国改变能源消耗、控制环境污染的主要途径。传统发展模式的单一性使得各国迫切需要寻求发展生物质能源的新路径。合同能源管理作为一种先进的能源管理模式和市场化运作的节能新机制,其独特的市场主体结构、多元的融资渠道和规范的监管体制都将为解决生物质能源发展中出现的相关问题提供契机。本文通过分析合同能源管理的发展机制,结合生物质能源发展的实际情况,提出促进我国生物质能源发展的措施和建议。     

我国野生动物资源所有权体系多元化的构建

针对我国野生动物资源所有权结构单一的问题,从野生动物的合理利用、驯养繁殖、狩猎权行使和引进外来物种的产权归属等方面,阐述了多元化野生动物资源所有权的客观必要性和可行性,进而提出符合我国国情的野生动物资源多元化所有权体系的构建框架:坚持以国家所有为主的多元化所有权制度;建立私人所有权制度,即经过驯养繁殖成功的野生动物和通过猎捕权得到的野生动物可由私人或单位所有并经营的多元化所有权体系,并对单位和个人的所有权行使限制。     

Diversifying Nature Protection: Evaluating the Changing Tools for Forest Protection in Canada and Norway

Governments increasingly struggle to protect representative nature types and ecological diversity within their territories only via the instrument of publicly designated protected areas. This article examines the rise of voluntary conservation and certification (i.e., private conservation) as tools for forest protection in Norway and Canada. We contrast the differing potential of these private conservation tools with protection through government legislation and regulation using four evaluative criteria: the representativeness of protected areas, the strength of protection, the longevity of protection, and the information generated through protection. We find that private conservation tools can match the strength of legal protection and help to dispel conflict, but that private tools create protection that is more likely to be reversed in the future. However, we also show that voluntary private conservation can become public protection, which highlights the importance of examining different paths toward secure and long‐lasting protection.     

Selling the Public on Sustainable Watershed Conservation

Abstract:  The city of Quito, Ecuador, began working in 2000 to protect the ecologically fragile watershed area for its drinking water. In order to protect the Papallacta watershed, the independent Fund for the Conservation of Watersheds (FONAG) was launched to finance and manage economically sound sustainability projects in the area. FONAG is funded in part through start up grants from several organisations and a 1 per cent fee on all Quito water bills, but it has been unable to build an endowment sizeable enough to begin implementing conservation projects. We measure perceptions of the fund among Quito's university–based residents in two settings and evaluate the quality of the fund's proposed communication campaign based on existing communication theory. Further, we propose an adapted environmental education model based on a synthesis of existing theory and the empirical findings from our examination of the FONAG example. The Papallacta case study illuminates the potential strengths and weaknesses of the cultural ecology and political will of this type of collaborative sustainability project for addressing water problems in a developing country in a mountainous setting, centred around the themes of water conservation and sustainable development.     

The Commission for Environmental Cooperation and North American Migratory Bird Conservation: The Potential of the NAAEC Citizen Submission Procedure

This article examines the citizen submission process laid out in Articles 14--15 of the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC), the 1993 environmental NAFTA “side agreement.” These articles set out a process by which nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) or individuals may file a submission alleging that one of the Parties to the agreement “is failing to effectively enforce its environmental law.” The paper traces developments set in motion by two submissions alleging failure to enforce migratory bird legislation. The first targets the United States, the second, Canada. Developments in these and other Article 14--15 cases have enfeebled an instrument that, from the outset, many regarded as having quite limited potential. These cases indicate, nonetheless, that the procedure still has some limited usefulness as a way of highlighting implementation failures. NGOs that do choose to invest in pursuing a citizen submission process would be advised to combine these efforts with other approaches to mobilizing public pressure.