Tourism and sustainable development on the Isle of Eigg, Scotland

Acknowledgements Although this paper is not linked to any of the research carried out by, or on behalf of, the James Hutton Institute, some parts of it were written during the first author’s allocated work time. Rachel Creaney is grateful to the James Hutton Institute for giving her this opportunity. The authors would also like to thank Dr Tavis Potts (University of Aberdeen) for proofreading the first draft of the paper and providing valuable comments on its flow, structure and contents. Finally, the authors are grateful to Emily Hastings and Doug Wardell-Johnson from the James Hutton Institute for their assistance with obtaining some of the data used in this paper.

The Influence of Creative Tourism on Sustainable Development of Tourism and Reduction of Seasonality – Case Study of Óbidos

Tourism remains one of the most fast growing and important industries in the world. It is hard to underestimate the importance and the spectrum of the benefits that tourism provides. On the other hand, nowadays, the increasing growth of tourism poses a range of challenges and problems that need to be solved. These challenges resonate in the emergence of the so called 'alternative' or sustainable forms of tourism, which deem to be an antidote against the harms the traditional forms of tourism cause to the environment and local communities. These new forms of tourism, among which is creative tourism, are reinforced by the new breed of tourists, who are no longer satisfied with the static offer of tourism but rather prefer the dynamic one. The present research shows on the case of Óbidos the potential of creative tourism to meet these new needs of modern tourists while also solving number of problems that many destinations face, namely seasonality in tourism, as well as how creative tourism contributes to the sustainable development of tourism.

The Role of ‘Edutainment’ in Education for Sustainable Development

The Sustainable Strategies Game (SSG) is being developed as ‘edutainment’ in response to the need to understand sustainable futures and advocate sustainability within workplaces in Higher Education. SSG seeks to both deliver experiential teaching and learning for business sustainability and enhance students’ learning experiences within Worcester Business School. This paper presents findings from action research undertaken to formally investigate two aspects of SSG within edutainment for ESD: firstly, it explores the value students obtain from game playing as an approach to sustainability learning. Secondly, it establishes students’ suggestions for evolutions to SSG, e.g. game design and additional features such as social media interventions or legal challenges, to increase its value as a tool for teaching and learning. Informal feedback following sessions playing SSG suggests games generally generate positive effects on students’ learning. Students highlighted SSG offered an enjoyable alternative approach to learning and could drive changes to sustainability thinking. Introducing such gameplay offers the potential to engage participants in collaborative behaviours and encourage consideration of profitability through strategies which carry less impact on the environment; vital to create a sustainable future. This paper presents qualitative evidence from game players that can enhance SSG as a tool to further improve students’ learning experience and its value as edutainment rather than entertainment within ESD.

Conservation narratives in Peru: envisioning biodiversity in sustainable development

In the mega-diverse country Peru, a resource intensive development model collides with the interest of conserving biodiversity. Peruvian biodiversity experts have developed different lines of argumentation as to how to integrate conservation into the sustainable development of their country. Applying grounded theory, I define five groups of conservation narratives based on the analysis of 72 qualitative interviews with experts working in areas of biodiversity conservation. I have labeled them: biodiversity protectionists, biodiversity traditionalists, biodiversity localists, biodiversity pragmatists, and biodiversity capitalists. These groups are each discussed in connection with what they have to say about biodiversity in relation to human life, valuation and knowledge systems, participation and leadership, substitutability of natural capital, and its predominant political strategy. In a second step, a comparative analysis of the dominant and diverging political perspectives is made. I argue that by deconstructing underlying premises and ideologies, common ground and possible opportunities for collaboration can be identified. Moreover, although the presented results can serve as a discussion scaffold to organize conservation debates in Peru, this example demonstrates how the terms biodiversity and sustainability are operationalized in conservation narratives.

A MODEL FOR EVALUATING IMPACT OF BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT IN ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE

Business Process Management (BPM) is able to organize and frame a company focusing in the improvement or assurance of performance in order to gain competitive advantage. Although it is believed that BPM improves various aspects of organizational performance, there has been a lack of empirical evidence about this. The present study has the purpose to develop a model to show the impact of business process management in organizational performance. To accomplish that, the theoretical basis required to know the elements that configurate BPM and the measures that can evaluate the BPM success on organizational performance is built through a systematic literature review (SLR). Then, a research model is proposed according to SLR results. Empirical data will be collected from a survey of  larg and mid-sized industrial and service companies headquartered in Brazil. A quantitative analysis will be performed using structural equation modeling (SEM) to show if the direct effects among BPM and organizational performance can be considered statistically significant. At the end will discuss these results and their managerial and cientific implications.Keywords: Business process management (BPM). Organizational performance. Firm performance. Business models. Structural Equation Modeling. Systematic Literature Review.

Can Regional Cooperation Promote Sustainable Development?

This chapter argues that regional cooperation may be a promising framework to work towards sustainable development. There are two broad pathways linking regional cooperation and sustainable development. On the one hand, shared or transboundary socio-environmental concerns may spark regional cooperation and on the other, pre-existing regional organisations created for other purposes become frameworks to address sustainability concerns. Yet, neither of these processes is automatic and whether they take place depends on the existence of particular drivers pursuing a sustainability agenda at the regional level. Ultimately, whether regional cooperation fosters sustainable development and how this takes place thus depends to a large extent on the specific people or organisations driving a sustainability agenda at the regional level and their relationship to national governments.

Maritime domain awareness : pillar for sustainable development of maritime transportation

Doutoramento em Estudos de Desenvolvimento

An expert model approach to assess the potential of non-wood forest products for forest owners

Mestrado em Engenharia Florestal e dos Recursos Naturais - Instituto Superior de Agronomia - UL

Education for Sustainable Development in Norwegian Geography curricula

In Norway, environmental education (EE) has been part of schools’ curricula since the 1970s. The concept of education for sustainable development (ESD) was introduced after Agenda 21 was introduced at the UN conference on environment and development held in Rio in 1992. The article shows there has been little change in the geography curricula since the concept ESD was introduced, and no important differences are found between curricula for mandatory schooling (classes 1–10) and curricula for upper secondary schools. ESD is mentioned in the geography curricula but without explanation and implementation. Core goals in the general national core curricula may indicate a change to ESD, but they have not been followed in the development of geography curricula in Norway.

Positive regional species-people correlations: A sampling artefact or a key issue for sustainable development?

Many studies are documenting positive large-scale species– people correlations (Luck, 2007; Schuldt & Assmann, 2010). The issue is scale dependent: the local association of species richness and people is in many cases a negative one (Pautasso, 2007; Pecher et al., 2010). This biogeographical pattern is thus important for conservation. If species-rich regions are also densely populated, preserving biodiversity becomes more difficult, ceteris paribus, than if species-rich regions were sparsely populated. At the same time, positive, regional species–people correlations are an opportunity for the biodiversity education of the majority of the human population and underline the importance of conservation in human-modified landscapes (e.g. Sheil & Meijaard, 2010; Ward, 2010).