Institutions for sustainable governance of forests: Equity, robustness and cross-level interactions in Mawlyngbna, Meghalaya, India

This study adopts Ostrom’s Social-Ecological Systems (SES) framework in empirical fieldwork to explain how local forestry institutions affect forest ecosystems and social equity in the community of Mawlyngbna in North-East India. Data was collected through 26 semi-structured interviews, participatory timeline development, policy documents, direct observation, periodicals, transect walks, and a concurrent forest-ecological study in the village. Results show that Mawlyngbna's forests provide important sources of livelihood benefits for the villagers. However, ecological disturbance and diversity varies among the different forest ownership types and forest-based livelihood benefits are inequitably distributed. Based on a bounded rationality approach, our analysis proposes a set of causal mechanisms that trace these observed social-ecological outcomes to the attributes of the resource system, resource units, actors and governance system. We analyse opportunities and constraints of interactions between the village, regional, and state levels. We discuss how Ostrom’s design principles for community-based resource governance inform the explanation of robustness but have a blind spot in explaining social equity. We report experiences made using the SES framework in empirical fieldwork. We conclude that mapping cross-level interactions in the SES framework needs conceptual refinement and that explaining social equity of forest governance needs theoretical advances.

Listening to your heart and feeling yourself: effects of exposure to interoceptive signals during the ultimatum game

The ultimatum game (UG) is commonly used to study the tension between financial self-interest and social equity motives. Here, we investigated whether experimental exposure to interoceptive signals influences participants' behavior in the UG. Participants were presented with various bodily sounds--i.e., their own heart, another person's heart, or the sound of footsteps--while acting both in the role of responder and proposer. We found that listening to one's own heart sound, compared to the other bodily sounds: (1) increased subjective feelings of unfairness, but not rejection behavior, in response to unfair offers and (2) increased the unfair offers while playing in the proposer role. These findings suggest that heightened feedback of one's own visceral processes may increase a self-centered perspective and drive socioeconomic exchanges accordingly. In addition, this study introduces a valuable procedure to manipulate online the access to interoceptive signals and for exploring the interplay between viscero-sensory information and cognition.

Implications of the sustainable development paradigm for Switzerland

The sustainable development paradigm raises issues of global, intra- and intergenerational social equity as well as respect for nature, and economic welfare. Switzerland is confronted by these issues within its own country, and has a moral responsibility vis-a-vis the rest of the world. Syndromes of global change are affecting many eco-regions, not only in developing and transition countries, but to a lesser extent also the affluent countries. Switzerland as a nation has an impact on syndromes through its far-reaching economic activities, which are non-sustainable. At the global level, more modest consumption patterns, a considerably slowed demographic change, a nonconsumptive but sustainable use of natural resources, and conflict transformation are the main prerequisites for improving sustainability. Switzerland's current contribution to sustainability is much less than what it could be, hence the need for additional action along general principles in,accordance with Swiss traditions and innovative potentials. A number of concrete actions could be taken immediately. These are: labelling the socially and ecologically sustainable production of goods and services, and their negotiation at WTO level; enhancing international cooperation and research; strengthening education and research for sustainability, and emphasizing energy and material flux efficiency at home and abroad.