Out of the wilderness? Achieving sustainable development within Scottish national parks

The introduction of national parks to Scotland represents a significant shift in the evolution of protected area management within the UK. Although the National Parks (Scotland) Act 2000 adopts the established national park aims of conservation and recreation, provisions are also made for advancing notions of sustainable development. This paper provides an assessment of the degree to which the Scottish national park model is likely to enable the realisation of multiple national park objectives. Five key areas are considered for analysis. These relate to management aims, institutional arrangements, implementation, democratic accountability and funding. The evaluation reveals that whilst management provisions have been established in accordance with international sustainable development guidelines, a number of concerns relating to operational processes remain.

The influence of aetiology and blame on prejudice towards survivors of brain injury.

The purpose of the present work was to investigate if a hierarchy of aetiology exists which would influence attitudes towards survivors of brain injury. An independent groups design utilised four independent variables; aetiology (measured at five levels: ‘Road Traffic Accident’ (RTA), ‘Alcohol’, ‘Drug Use’, ‘Aneurism’ and ‘Recreation’), blame (blame and no-blame), group (psychology students and members of the public) and gender to explore attitudes towards survivors of brain injury. The dependent variables were measured using the Prejudicial Evaluation Scale (PES) and Social Interaction Scale (SIS). Three hundred and twenty-five participants (173 students and 152 members of the public) were randomly allocated to one of ten possible conditions. Among individuals who contributed to receiving their injury greater prejudice was displayed towards those in the ‘Drugs’ condition followed by ‘Recreation’, ‘RTA’, ‘Alcohol’ and ‘Aneurism’. Findings suggest that a hierarchy of aetiology exists, which results in prejudicial attitudes, and is influenced by issues of blame. Key words: prejudice, blame, brain injury

Deep weathering of calcareous sedimentary rock and the redistribution of iron and manganese in soil and saprolite

Iron and Mn redistribute in soil and saprolite during weathering. The geological weathering fronts ofcalcareous sedimentary rock were investigated by examining the bulk density, porosity, and distribution ofCa, Fe, and Mn. Core samples were taken ofsoil, saprolite, and bedrock material from both summit (HHMS-4B) and sideslope (HHMS-5A) positions on an interbedded Nolichucky shale and Maryville limestone landform in Solid Waste Storage Area 6 (SWSA-6). This is a low-level radioactive solids waste disposal site on the Dept. ofEnergy (DOE) Oak Ridge Reservation in Roane County Tennessee. This work was initiated because data about the properties of highly weathered sedimentary rock on this site were limited. The core samples were analyzed for pH, calcium carbonate equivalence (CCE), hydroxylamine-extractable (HA) Mn, and dithionite-citrate (CBD)-extractable Fe and Mn. Low pH values occurred from the soil surface down to the depth of the oxidized and leached saprolite in both cores. The CCE and HA-extractable Mn results were also influenced by the weathering that has occurred in these zones. Extractable Mn oxide was higher at a lower depth in the oxidized and leached saprolite compared with the Fe oxide, which was higher in the overlying soil solum. Amounts of Mn oxides were higher in the sideslope core (HHMS-5A) than in the summit core (HHMS-4B). Iron was more abundant in the deeper weathered summit core, but the highest value, 39.4 g kg-1, was found at 1.8 to 2.4 m in the sideslope core. The zone encompassing the oxidized and partially leached saprolite down to the unoxidized and unleached bedrock had higher densities and larger quantities of CaCO3 than the soil solum and oxidized and leached saprolite. The overlying soil and oxidized and leached saprolite had lower pH and CCE values and were higher in Fe and Mn oxides than the oxidized and unleached saprolite. The distribution of Fe and Mn is important when evaluating soil and saprolite for hazardous waste disposal site assessment.

Levels of cadmium and zinc in soil and plants following the toxic spill from a pyrite mine, Aznalcollar, Spain

On 25 April 1998, a breach of the tailings dam of the Los Frailes pyrite mine in southwestern Spain resulted in the release of 6 million m(3) of acidic water and toxic sludge high in heavy metals. Contaminated material extended 40 km downstream, affecting agricultural land and parts of the wildlife-rich Donana Natural and National Parks, including the Entremuros, a very important area for birds. We report on the concentrations, distributions and bioavailability of zinc and cadmium in soil and vegetation from the Entremuros in November 1998 and October 1999, following 2 'cleanup' operations. Levels of Zn and Cd in soil increased significantly over this period, although this was not reflected consistently in metal concentrations in emergent macrophytes. We recommend monitoring of further cleanup attempts in order to develop means of minimizing potential impacts to wildlife in the area.

Evolving national park models: The emergence of an economic imperative and its effect on the contested nature of the 'national' park concept in Northern Ireland.

National park models have evolved in tandem with the emergence of a multifunctional countryside. Sustainable development has been added to the traditional twin aims of conservation and recreation. This is typified by recent national park designations, such as the Cairngorms National Park in Scotland. A proposed Mournes national park in Northern Ireland has evolved a stage further with a model of national park to deliver national economic goals envisaged by government. This seeks to commodify the natural landscape. This paper compares Cairngorm and Mourne stakeholders’ views on the principal features of both models: park aims, management structures and planning functions. While Cairngorm stakeholders were largely positive from the outset, the model of national park introduced is not without criticism. Conversely, Mourne stakeholders have adopted an anti-national park stance. Nevertheless, the model of national park proposed possessing a strong economic imperative, an absence of the Sandford Principle as a means to manage likely conflicts, and lacking any planning powers in its own right, may still be insufficient to bring about widespread support for a Mourne national park. Such a model is also likely to accelerate the degradation of the Mourne landscape. Competing national identities (British and Irish) provide an additional dimension to the national park debate in Northern Ireland. Deep ideological cleavages are capable of derailing the introduction of a national park irrespective of the model proposed. In Northern Ireland the national park debate is not only about reconciling environmental and economic interests but also political and ethno-national differences.

Off-Duty Resilience: Re-orienting Tourism, Leisure and Recreation in the US Army BOSS program

Understanding how US imperial strategy is sustained by tourism and militarism requires an account of how American soldiers learn to understand themselves in relation to a variety of marginalized others. This paper explores how the US Army’s ‘Ready and Resilient’ (R2) campaign constructs soldier / other relations by mobilizing off-duty time through the ‘Better Opportunities for Single Soldiers’ (BOSS) program. BOSS’s first two platforms of ‘Well-Being’ and ‘Community Service’ feed into the R2 agenda by producing highly-skilled leaders (who govern a disengaged rank and file) and benevolent humanitarians (who provide charity for abject civilians). When these dispositions are transposed into BOSS’s third platform of ‘Recreation and Leisure’, soldiers turn away from the goals of leadership and humanitarianism to reveal the privileged narcissism underscoring the R2 agenda. This self-focus is intensified by familiar power relations in the tourism industry as soldiers pursue self-improvement by commodifying, distancing and effacing local tourist workers. Using the BOSS program as a case study, this paper critically interrogates how the US Army is assimilating off-duty practices of tourism, leisure and recreation into the wider program of resilience training.