Socioecology Research Today

The energy-growth literature contains a large number of discussions on the causal relationship between energy consumption and economic growth. The central debate focuses on whether energy consumption contributes or not to economic growth since it has direct implications for the formulation of strategic policies. Nevertheless, current studies cannot provide a conclusive suggestion due to mixed [...]

Our analysis shows that Indigenous people not only have more to lose from ‘development’ which erodes natural capital than do non-Indigenous people, but they also have significantly less to gain. Under current institutional arrangements it thus seems that, at best, ‘development’ may have a relatively benign impact on their well-being. At worst, it may have [...]

This article focuses on uneven development within emerging economies. The result of this unevenness, which often separates urban from rural populations, is that emerging economies contain two large groups: one that is enjoying rapid economic growth and begins to see a trajectory toward developed country lifestyles, and another that is lagging behind and is still [...]

http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/C3NP20120A Natural products and related structures are essential sources of new pharmaceuticals, because of the immense variety of functionally relevant secondary metabolites of microbial and plant species. Furthermore, the development of powerful analytical tools based upon genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, bioinformatics and other 21st century technologies are greatly expediting identification and characterization of these natural products. [...]

Sustainable development is turning brownish. Too many disparate initiatives are being conducted under its banner. The concept of ‘sustainable development’ no longer provides an adequate umbrella for the main challenge currently faced by global environmental governance – namely implementation. Its very strengths are turning into fatal weaknesses. Vague enough to bring all States and other [...]

Population growth is in general constrained by food production, which in turn depends on the access to water resources. At a country level, some populations use more water than they control because of their ability to import food and the virtual water required for its production. Here, we investigate the dependence of demographic growth on [...]

The donation of food which is still edible can be seen as a specific application of urban mining as food is recovered for its original purpose – human intake. There are several projects implemented worldwide but due to a lack of data, scientific literature about the topic is rare. This paper summarises briefly the evolution [...]

We often evaluate ecosystems according to their natural biodiversity. However we rarely see these metrics applied to human populations. Supposing we wanted to evaluate the human diversity of nations. How could this be done. Among the several methods that come to mind is the use of a genetic proxy for diversity, the y-dna haplogroup. Using [...]

► In 2004, one fourth of global land use was for internationally traded products. ► Net land use displaced from rich to poor countries was 6% of the total global land use. ► Still, rich countries had more domestic land available per capita than poor countries. ► Per capita land footprints increased with affluence, largely [...]

Societal pressure on the global land and freshwater resources is increasing as a result of the rising food demand by the growing human population, dietary changes, and the enhancement of biofuel production induced by the rising oil prices and recent changes in United States and European Union bioethanol policies. Many countries and corporations have started [...]