The community idea in American country life

The American Country LifeAssociation was heir to Theodore Roosevelt'sCountry Life Commission, which examined thegeneral conditions of farming life in the opencountry, and...its larger problems. In1919, Kenyon Butterfield, a member ofRoosevelt's Commission, met withrepresentatives from 30 states and 25 nationalorganizations to form the American Country LifeAssociation. In that year, Butterfield, ACLA'sfirst president, published a book, TheFarmer and the New Day, whose defining chapterwas The Making of Communities: The CommunityIdea. The ACLA was educator created and led.Solutions to rural problems were seen aseducational matters. But educational philosophywas undergoing scrutiny and new educationalconcepts were arising from the bustling,industrializing, urbanizing times of late19th century. The experimental,unconstrained spirit of the nation at the turnof the century was formalized as pragmatism. Aleading pragmatist and educator of the time wasJohn Dewey, a contemporary of Butterfield.The communitarianism of Butterfield and Deweycarried throughout the life of ACLA in avariety of forms. Even after ACLA ended as anorganization in 1976, the concerns and idealscontinued in successor organizations, and canbe found in environmental, sustainableagriculture, and rural life organizationstoday. This paper traces one of continuingthemes of the ACLA, the community idea as a wayof adding a social dimension to agriculture'seconomic policies and development. The ACLAstory is a metaphor for country life throughmuch of 20th century America. ACLA is alsoa lesson in how organizations come into being,flourish, falter, die, and leave their legaciesto future generations.     

Habitat loss, Fragmentation, and Alteration – Quantifying the Impactof Land-use Changes on a Spanish Dehesa Landscape by Use of Aerial Photography and GIS

Mediterranean agroforestry landscapes, dehesas, experience significant structural changes that affect their ability to support habitats for a rich biodiversity. The goal of this study is to provide quantitative information on loss, fragmentation, and alteration of holm oak (Quercus ilex) stands over a 42-year period, based on two sites in the lowlands of Cáceres province, Spain. Aerial photography and orthoimages from 1956, 1984, and 1998 were processed in a geographic information system (GIS). Important changes in demography and land-use were rural depopulation, abandonment of traditional agricultural activities, and a sharp increase in livestock stocking levels. These were related to intensification and extensification of land-uses determined by national and EU agricultural policies. Results of the land cover analysis indicated that dehesas suffered an annual 0.27% and 0.04% decrease in cover in the two sites. From 1984 loss rate had markedly accelerated (0.83% and 0.30%). Most dehesas were lost by shrub encroachment or conversion to open grassland. Fragmentation through roads increased by 28% and 45%, while rural buildings decreased by 17% and 50% from 1956 to 1998. Mean tree density decreased from 1956 to 1984, but a recovery was found since 1984. Significant factors determining stand densities in most time points were altitude (related with different land-uses and geological substrates), ownership, and proximity to villages. This suggests that stand structure is controlled both by human interventions and ecological settings. The findings support the view that opposite trends of land abandonment and intensification of land-uses arise in most northern Mediterranean countries as an effect of the EU Common Agricultural Policy.     

Bridging the Gap between Centrally Defined Policies and Local Decisions – Towards more Sensitive and Creative Rural Landscape Management

European policies and instruments such as the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and many instruments for nature and landscape conservation in Europe have for some decades been dominated by centralisation and standardisation. This paper shows that this has led to the neglect of contextual and place-related approaches and an unnecessarily high degree of over-simplification. Recently, as a reaction to this over-simplification, diversity and specific character has been particularly stressed in many European and national strategies for rural landscapes and conservation, but the processes of simplification still continue. Using examples from mixed agriculture and forestry landscapes in Portugal, Slovenia and Sweden, this paper aims to contribute to understanding the gap between centrally defined strategies for rural landscapes and awareness and management practices at local level. The three countries are situated at the outer fringes of Europe, and are complementary with their different degrees of urbanisation, forest distribution and tree-richness in the agricultural landscapes. Furthermore, the aim is to show how local landscape management is driven and to identify factors contributing to a better use of public policies through a participatory process with visions for the future. Systems of landscape classifications such as landscape character assessment often recognise the specific character of these landscapes, but have so far achieved very little for the preservation of their locally specific values, nor have they contributed to the development and the creation of new visions for future management. Such systems could contribute much more if they could be opened to adaptation on a more local scale in communication-led management planning.     

Effect of road density on abundance of white-footed mice

While several studies have demonstrated that roads can act as barriers to small mammal movement, the relationship between road density and small mammal abundance has not yet been investigated. In southeastern Ontario, Peromyscus leucopus (white-footed mice) suffer high over-winter mortality rates, resulting in small springtime populations and frequent local extinctions. Peromyscus leucopus movement is known to be inhibited by roads, which should result in lower rates of immigration into and recolonization of habitats in landscapes with high road density. We tested two predictions: (1) Forest sites situated in landscapes with high road densities have a higher chance of P. leucopus being absent during the early spring than forest sites situated in landscapes with low road densities and (2) P. leucopus populations during the summer are smaller in forest sites situated in landscapes with high road densities than in landscapes with low road densities. We sampled P. leucopus in focal patches within nineteen landscapes (7 rural, low-road-density landscapes; 7 rural, high-road-density landscapes; 5 urban landscapes). There was no significant relationship between road density and the presence/absence of P. leucopus during the early spring. We found a significant positive effect of road density on P. leucopus relative abundance during the summer, even when we excluded the urban landscapes and based the analysis on only the 14 rural landscapes. Our results suggest that any negative effect of roads on P. leucopus populations, created by their inhibition to moving across roads, is far outweighed by some positive effect of roads on P. leucopus abundance. We suggest that the two most likely explanations are that roads are positively correlated with an important as-yet-undetermined component of habitat quality, or that roads positively affect P. leucopus by negatively affecting their predators.     

基层政府信息化建设现状与对策研究——以河北省阳原县为例

为了解决基层政府信息化落后的问题,以河北省阳原县为例,考察县级以下政府信息化建设现状,调查问题、分析原因,提出解决对策.     

宁夏现代化农产品物流问题及对策研究

在介绍宁夏现代化农产品物流体系存在的问题的基础上,剖析了产生问题的原因,提出了相应的对策。     

经济后发地区农村新型医疗保障体系模式研究——以江苏省宿迁市为例

以江苏省宿迁市农村为研究对象,分析了现阶段宿迁市农村医疗保障体系运行中存在的主要问题,研究设计一个符合我国经济欠发达地区农村居民需求的多层次新型医疗保障体系,对农村新型医疗保障体系的结构模式和各种制度政策进一步完善优化,并提出切实可行的政策措施,以期完善经济后发达地区农村医疗保障体系,满足农村居民医疗保障需求。     

浅析农村人力资源开发的现实条件构建路径

阐述了我国农村人力资源开发的现实意义,从农村自然、人文、经济和制度环境条件探讨了农村人力资源开发的构建路径。     

集体林权改革对乡村治理效用影响的研究

从乡村治理的角度探讨集体林权改革带给林区农村除经济方面以外的其他各方面的效用。论述了林权改革对林区稳定的作用、宣传作用;探讨了林改给林农思想观念与生活方式带来的变化,指出了林改促进了村容村貌以及社保机制的建立;促进了基层组织建设与村民的自治,并且林改催生的林业合作组织同时具有乡村治理的效能。因此得出了结论:集体林权改革对林区农村乡村治理效用存在积极的作用。     

论农村私营企业主的政治参与

分析了农村私营企业主的形成和发展，并在此基础上深入研究了农村私营企业主的政治参与，即：其资本形成与农村经济、政治之间的必然联系。