Change in suicide rates in Switzerland before and after firearm restriction resulting from the 2003 “Army XXI” reform

Objective: Firearms are the most common method of suicide among young men in Switzerland. From March 2003 through February 2004, the number of Swiss soldiers was halved as a result of an army reform (Army XXI), leading to a decrease in the availability of guns nationwide. The authors investigated the patterns of the overall suicide rate and the firearm suicide rate before and after the reform. Method: Using a naturalistic study design, the authors compared suicide rates before (1995–2003) and after the intervention (2004–2008) in the affected population (men ages 18–43) and in two comparison groups (women ages 18–44 and men ages 44–53). Data were received from the Swiss Federal Statistical Office. Interrupted time series analysis was used to control for preexisting temporal trends. Alternative methods (Poisson regression, autocorrelation analysis, and surrogate data tests) were used to check validity. Results: The authors found a reduction in both the overall suicide rate and the firearm suicide rate after the Army XXI reform. No significant increases were found for other suicide methods overall. An increase in railway suicides was observed. It was estimated that 22% of the reduction in firearm suicides was substituted by other suicide methods. The attenuation of the suicide rate was not compensated for during the follow-up years. Neither of the comparison groups showed statistically significant changes in firearm suicide rate and overall suicide rate. Conclusions: The restriction of firearm availability in Switzerland resulting from the Army XXI reform was followed by an enduring decrease in the general suicide rate.

Kinneret – eine nichtbiblische Stadt im Land der Bibel

Schon lange schlägt die Region um den See Gennesaret die Menschen in ihren Bann. Zahlreiche Touristen und Pilger besuchen die Region in jedem Jahr, und seit Beginn der wissenschaftlichen Erforschung Palästinas haben unterschiedliche Expeditionen viele neue Erkenntnisse über die Kultur und Geschichte dieses für Judentum wie Christentum so bedeutsamen Landstrichs erbracht. Der Vortrag beleuchtet die Vorgeschichte dieser bedeutenden Kulturlandschaft am Beispiel der antiken Stadt Kinneret, die in ägyptischen Quellen mehrfach, in der Bibel jedoch nur einmal (Josua 19:35) erwähnt wird. Die Ortslage wurde von 2003 bis 2008 im Rahmen des internationalen «Kinneret Regional Project» unter leitender Beteiligung der Universität Bern in einer ersten Phase untersucht. Die Publikation der Zwischenergebnisse ist derzeit in Vorbereitung. Der Ruinenhügel von Kinneret (hebr. Tel Kinrot, arab. Tell el-‘Orēme) liegt am Nordwestufer des Sees Gennesaret. Die Fundstätte weist eine – freilich nicht kontinuierliche – Besiedlung von der Jungsteinzeit bis in die osmanische Zeit auf. Im Fokus der Berner Forschung lag bisher vor allem die Untersuchung der Siedlungsschichten der Frühen Eisenzeit (ca. 1100 bis 950 v.u.Z.). Während dieser Epoche dominierte die Stadt Kinneret die Region um den See. Der Ort verfügte damals – im Gegensatz zu vielen anderen, zeitgenössischen Siedlungen in der Grossregion – über eine imposante Wehranlage, zentral geplante Straßenzüge und eine eindrückliche Wohnbebauung, die mehreren Tausend Einwohnern Platz bot. Zahlreiche Funde belegen intensive, transregionale Handels- und Kulturkontakte, die von Ägypten über Philistäa, Phönizien und Zypern bis nach Nordsyrien reichten. Aufgrund des ungewöhnlich guten Erhaltungszustandes der überaus reichen materiellen Kultur ermöglicht die Untersuchung des antiken Kinneret einen einzigartigen Einblick in die sozio-kulturellen Strukturen eines urbanen Zentrums zur Zeit der ersten Könige Israels und Judas am Anfang des 1. Jahrtausends v.u.Z. Informationen zum «Kinneret Regional Project» finden Sie unter: www.kinneret-excavations.org

The research-action interface in sustainable land management in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan: Challenges and recommendations

International agencies and programmes introduced sustainable land management (SLM) to Central Asia after the former Soviet Republics became independent in 1991. An aim of early SLM initiatives was to address challenges linked to the transformation of the agricultural sector from a centrally planned economy to a decentralized market economy. This article analyses the knowledge–action interface in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan as it relates to SLM. The analysis focuses on the influence of underlying land management concepts by means of a literature review. Contemporary barriers at the research–action interface were identified using participatory appraisal. And a historically contextualized understanding of the effectiveness of interactions between researchers, policy makers and practitioners is based on an analysis of purposefully selected cases. The study concludes that knowledge of different stakeholder groups is often highly disconnected. Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary studies are rare, and academic research on SLM has subsequently been ineffective at contributing to substantial benefits for society. Further, researchers, policy makers and practitioners in this context must recognize the differences between SLM and what is often referred to as the equivalent Soviet-era concept—rational use of land resources—and the resulting implications of these differences. The authors recommend the following: creating an enabling environment for SLM research through academic institutional reform removing structural constraints, making research outcomes more effective by applying systems approaches that produce evidence for policy makers on the multiple benefits of SLM, helping land users evaluate SLM strategies and investing in the establishment and maintenance of a multi-stakeholder SLM platform that allows dynamic exchange.

Land system science and sustainable development of the earth system: A global land project perspective

Land systems are the result of human interactions with the natural environment. Understanding the drivers, state, trends and impacts of different land systems on social and natural processes helps to reveal how changes in the land system affect the functioning of the socio-ecological system as a whole and the tradeoff these changes may represent. The Global Land Project has led advances by synthesizing land systems research across different scales and providing concepts to further understand the feedbacks between social-and environmental systems, between urban and rural environments and between distant world regions. Land system science has moved from a focus on observation of change and understanding the drivers of these changes to a focus on using this understanding to design sustainable transformations through stakeholder engagement and through the concept of land governance. As land use can be seen as the largest geo-engineering project in which mankind has engaged, land system science can act as a platform for integration of insights from different disciplines and for translation of knowledge into action.

Climatic change and contemporaneous land-use phases north and south of the Alps 2300 BC to 800 AD

Fluctuations in the Δ14C curve and subsequent gaps of archaeological findings at 800–650 and 400–100 BC in western and central Europe may indicate major climate-driven land-abandonment phases. To address this hypothesis radiocarbon-dated sediments from four lakes in Switzerland were studied palynologically. Pollen analysis indicates contemporaneous phases of forest clearances and of intensified land-use at 1450–1250 BC, 650–450 BC, 50 BC–100 AD and around 700 AD. These land-use expansions coincided with periods of warm climate as recorded by the Alpine dendroclimatic and Greenland oxygen isotope records. Our results suggest that harvest yields would have increased synchronously over wide areas of central and southern Europe during periods of warm and dry climate. Combined interpretation of palaeoecological and archaeological findings suggests that higher food production led to increased human populations. Positive long-term trends in pollen values of Cerealia and Plantago lanceolata indicate that technical innovations during the Bronze and Iron Age (e.g. metal ploughs, scythes, hay production, fertilising methods) gradually increased agricultural productivity. The successful adoption of yield-increasing advances cannot be explained by climatic determinism alone. Combined with archaeological evidence, our results suggest that despite considerable cycles of spatial and demographic reorganisation (repeated land abandonments and expansions, as well as large-scale migrations and population decreases), human societies were able to shift to lower subsistence levels without dramatic ruptures in material culture. However, our data imply that human societies were not able to compensate rapidly for harvest failures when climate deteriorated. Agriculture in marginal areas was abandoned, and spontaneous reforestations took place on abandoned land south and north of the Alps. Only when the climate changed again to drier and warmer conditions did a new wide-spread phase of forest clearances and field extensions occur, allowing the reoccupation of previously abandoned areas. Spatial distribution of cereal cultivation and growth requirements of Cerealia species suggest that increases in precipitation were far more decisive in driving crop failures over central and southern Europe than temperature decreases.