School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences - Research Publications
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ItemPrecarity, illicit markets, and the 'mystery' of prices(Taylor and Francis Group, 2023)Stand-alone price analysis of illicit opium and coca does not explain why smallholders turn to illicit crops for coping and survival. Under conditions of precarity, illicit crop markets can stimulate productivity. They generate returns that can tame crises and relieve pressures. To smallholders facing marginalisation, violence, and climate change – growing opium and coca, despite their illegality, can reduce or spread risks and provide more predictability. Thus, rather than fix on the ‘invisible hand’ of price theory, the focus should be on the ‘visible hand’ of political entrepreneurship, interdependent relationships, and the metrics of precarity. To do this, this paper retrospectively compares illicit crop prices before and after certain historical moments in Bolivia, Myanmar, Colombia, and Afghanistan.
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ItemCriminal entrepreneurs as pioneers, intermediaries, and arbitrageurs in borderland economies(ELSEVIER, 2021-03)Many discussions of mafia and criminal entrepreneurs typically focus on violence and illegality, and less on their possible roles in rural transformation, even when they are located in borderland economies linking the subsistence cultivators of illicit crops to regional and global markets. This paper assesses the life stories of drug lords, the Castaño brothers of Colombia and Roberto Suárez Gomez of Bolivia, to draw inferences into how such rural elites in the illicit drugs trade are not only specialists in crime but are also actors who regulate and manipulate, often coercively, access to land and resources, mobilise labour and shape its divisions, and promote certain forms of capital accumulation. This paper contends that a better understanding of the roles of these rural elites as pioneers for capital, intermediaries in commodity chains, and arbitrageurs between state and borderlands may provide ways of unpacking key challenges to peacebuilding and economic transformation in borderlands where illicit economies thrive.
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ItemThe paradox of illicit economies: survival, resilience, and the limits of development and drug policy orthodoxy(Taylor and Francis Group, 2020)The illicit drug crops opium and coca are conventionally regarded as sources of instability, an ‘evil’ that breeds fragility and violence. Fragile states are supposed to be most vulnerable to their production and consequent harms. Yet by looking into the local contexts of the world’s leading opium and coca producers – Afghanistan, Myanmar, Colombia and Bolivia – these illicit crops are found to also be sources of stability, even drivers of economic growth. They enable marginalized communities and territories abandoned by the state to be reinserted into national and global markets. Within so-called ‘fragile’ and conflict-affected areas are displaced and dispossessed households adopting innovative and unorthodox strategies for coping and survival in changing and insecure environments. This paper maps out an approach, useful for examining the resilience that has emerged amidst violence and uncertainty in illicit-crop-producing territories, and which can hopefully tackle the continuing disconnect between drugs and development policy.
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ItemLand Reform, Conflict and Local Development on “Grande Terre”(Springer, 2024-04-12)New Caledonia-Kanaky has operated customary and European models of land tenure in parallel for almost 170 years, since the early days of colonisation when francophone governance was imposed to enable settlement, and Kanak populations on prime agricultural were forcibly displaced onto “reserves”. This “historic dualism” has been at the heart of lengthy political discussion and the demands of the Kanak independence movement to reclaim its land and sovereignty. While debates about the development of customary land continue in times of political uncertainty, since the late 1970s re-allocation of land to Kanak clans by the state, latterly through the Agence de développement rural et d’aménagement foncier (ADRAF), has been substantial. We assess this process, offering two examples from the Northern Province where land conflicts remain and where “modern” development has taken place on customary land now controlled by clans, under their stewardship. This partial integration into the market economy has addressed many, but not all, of the problems of “historic dualism”.
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ItemGeographies of New Caledonia-Kanaky(Springer International Publishing, 2024)This open access book provides a unique overview of geographical, historical, political and environmental issues facing the French overseas territory New Caledonia, also called “Kanaky” by the indigenous Kanak people, who outnumber citizens of European and other origin. New Caledonia has seen a long and complex struggle for decolonization, but is still on the United Nations’ list of “Non-Self Governing territories” and there is little sign of change following three referendums on independence and extensive negotiations with France. The archipelago possesses around a quarter of the world’s nickel deposits, giving it additional strategic importance when demand for the mineral is strong. The islands have unique biodiversity, and Caledonian coastal lagoons have been listed as UNESCO world heritage sites since 2008. The book offers detailed insights into the environmental and human geographies of the archipelago, with a focus on the linksbetween environmental protection and extensive mining operations, between political independence struggles and continued wellbeing and economic development, and the differing visions for the future of the islands. This multidisciplinary volume, one of the few to appear in English, appeals to researchers, students and policy makers across the environmental, social and political sciences.
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ItemBringing the forest back: Restoration priorities in Colombia(Wiley, 2024-04)Aim: Colombia has committed to ambitious forest restoration targets which include a 1 million ha Bonn Challenge commitment and 6.47–8.31 million ha (rehabilitation and restoration, respectively) under the National Restoration Plan. Determining where and how to implement programs to achieve these targets remains a significant challenge. Location: Colombia. Methods: We adopt a multi‐objective optimisation framework for restoration planning and apply it to Colombia. We explore cost‐effective solutions that leverage the potential for assisted natural regeneration benefits while accounting for opportunity and establishment costs of restoration and maximising biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation benefits. We explore four politically relevant restoration area‐based targets (1, 6, 6.47 and 8.31 million ha) and identify minimum cost, and suites of maximum benefit and cost‐effective solutions. Results: We identify solutions that simultaneously perform well across biodiversity and carbon objectives, despite trade‐offs between these objectives. We find that cost‐effective solutions can achieve on average 91.1%, 90.8%, 90.5% and 90.1% of maximum carbon benefit and 100% of the maximum biodiversity benefit while significantly reducing costs. On average, the cost‐effective solutions reduce the cost by 87.5%, 56.8%, 59.6% and 46.2% compared to the maximum benefit solutions considering one, six, 6.47 and 8.31 million ha restoration targets, respectively. Main Conclusions: Colombia has committed to bold restoration and conservation targets, such as those under the new 2030 Convention on Biological Diversity Global Biodiversity Framework. Strategic forest restoration planning will play an important role in achieving Colombia's biodiversity conservation and climate mitigation goals. We provide quantitative evidence to inform planning for environmentally and economically sensible restoration policy and practice in the country. Our framework and results can help guide Colombia towards meeting its ambitious forest restoration targets cost‐effectively.
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ItemA field work report on newly discovered and documented megalithic jar sites in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic(Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2023-12)Abstract Xieng Khouang and neighboring provinces in Central Laos are home to a vast megalithic landscape featuring large stone jars, discs, and imported boulders located in elevated positions. Sites were first noted in the late nineteenth century, with systematic recording commencing in the 1930s. Continuing on from the 2019 field survey by the Plain of Jars Archaeological Research Project, this paper presents the results of a 2020 survey across Xieng Khouang Province, Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR) which led to the documentation of 27 previously unreported megalithic sites, growing the Lao PDR Government database from 102 to 127 known jar sites, with 124 geo-located. In addition, a preliminary analysis of the known jar sites to date is conducted regarding distribution and jar characteristics providing a basis for further investigation.
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ItemThe human right to climate adaptation(Springer Science and Business Media LLC, )Abstract We demonstrate that a right to climate change adaptation exists in a bundle of pre-existing human rights norms. This existing right provides clear principles to guide the implementation of climate adaptation in ways that are equitable and effective, obliging States to, inter alia, prioritise those whose rights are most at risk from climate change; maximise the adaptive capacity of individuals; preserve territory to protect the sovereign rights of peoples; and ensure that adaptation practices themselves do not harm human rights. Human rights law requires that these obligations be fulfilled without discrimination on any grounds, including economic judgements about the cost effectiveness of adaptation in small or remote countries or communities.
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ItemMicroglial ferroptotic stress causes non-cell autonomous neuronal death(BMC, 2024-02-05)BACKGROUND: Ferroptosis is a form of regulated cell death characterised by lipid peroxidation as the terminal endpoint and a requirement for iron. Although it protects against cancer and infection, ferroptosis is also implicated in causing neuronal death in degenerative diseases of the central nervous system (CNS). The precise role for ferroptosis in causing neuronal death is yet to be fully resolved. METHODS: To elucidate the role of ferroptosis in neuronal death we utilised co-culture and conditioned medium transfer experiments involving microglia, astrocytes and neurones. We ratified clinical significance of our cell culture findings via assessment of human CNS tissue from cases of the fatal, paralysing neurodegenerative condition of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). We utilised the SOD1G37R mouse model of ALS and a CNS-permeant ferroptosis inhibitor to verify pharmacological significance in vivo. RESULTS: We found that sublethal ferroptotic stress selectively affecting microglia triggers an inflammatory cascade that results in non-cell autonomous neuronal death. Central to this cascade is the conversion of astrocytes to a neurotoxic state. We show that spinal cord tissue from human cases of ALS exhibits a signature of ferroptosis that encompasses atomic, molecular and biochemical features. Further, we show the molecular correlation between ferroptosis and neurotoxic astrocytes evident in human ALS-affected spinal cord is recapitulated in the SOD1G37R mouse model where treatment with a CNS-permeant ferroptosis inhibitor, CuII(atsm), ameliorated these markers and was neuroprotective. CONCLUSIONS: By showing that microglia responding to sublethal ferroptotic stress culminates in non-cell autonomous neuronal death, our results implicate microglial ferroptotic stress as a rectifiable cause of neuronal death in neurodegenerative disease. As ferroptosis is currently primarily regarded as an intrinsic cell death phenomenon, these results introduce an entirely new pathophysiological role for ferroptosis in disease.
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ItemThe distribution of fossil pollen and charcoal in stalagmites(CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS, 2023-05-16)Abstract Pollen preserved in caves provides a little-appreciated opportunity to study past vegetation and climate changes in regions where conventional wetland sediments are either unavailable, contain little organic matter, and/or are difficult to date accurately. Most palynology in caves has focused on clastic infill sediments, but pollen preserved in growing speleothems provides important new opportunities to develop vegetation and climatic records that can be dated accurately with radiometric methods. However, when pollen is present in speleothems, concentrations can vary by orders of magnitude, highlighting how little we know about the processes that transport pollen into caves and onto speleothem surfaces, and that determine the pollen's preservation probability. To explore these aspects of speleothem pollen taphonomy, we investigated the distribution of pollen and microscopic charcoal within several stalagmites from southwest Australia. We examined spatial patterns in pollen and charcoal preservation in order to distinguish whether observed gradients result from preservation or are products of systematic transport processes working along stalagmite surfaces. We find that pollen grains and charcoal fragments are located preferentially on the flanks of most stalagmites. This suggests that pollen grain and charcoal deposition on speleothems is influenced by transport and accumulation of detrital debris on growing surfaces. These insights will assist in future sampling campaigns focusing on speleothem pollen and charcoal contents.