Search results for: forest rights

Authors: Meinrad Haule Lembuka

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Social work profession one of its primary mission is to restore and maintain human rights where social workers recognise all humanity as equal, and so too the philosophies that have developed across the world’s regions. Ubuntu means African Humanism, where realization of human rights has been a primary role for every member of community to protect other member. Before Universal declaration of human rights, African societies had a long history of embracing human rights through Ubuntu approach model. The article used Ubuntu theory to guide the review process of existing literature since Ubuntu theory since is grounded in African cultural values and ecology, and it was thought that application of Ubuntu theory was relevant to reflect reality of Ubuntu model and indigenization of social work in African context. Results have shown that in realization of human rights, Ubuntu was practiced is termed as model, philosophy, cultural values, way of life or framework originated in sub-sahara Africa and some of remarkably practice model in several African communities such as Angola, (gimuntu), Botswana (muthu), Burkina Faso (maaya), Ghana (biako ye), Malawi (umunthu), Mali (maaya/hadama de ya), Namibia (omundu), Nigeria (mutunchi/iwa/agwa), (bantu), Sierra Leonne (maaya), South Africa (ubuntu/botho) and Tanzania (utu/obuntu/bumuntu). Collective and holistic mechanism of Ubuntu is found through an Ubuntu framework that is contributed by individual, family, community and spirit that is characterised by interconnectedness of all things and beings. Each society has its own name but the practice remained the same and realization of human rights in Africa context was centred through human dignity, Ubuntu is built under cultural values of humanism that brings implications for African social worker to integrate this indigenous model into social work practice in restoring and maintain human rights. Social workers should promote policies and practices that demonstrate respect for human life, difference, support and expansion of cultural knowledge and resources, advocate for programmes and institutions that demonstrate cultural competence and promote policies that safeguard the rights and confirm equity and social justice for all people.

Keywords: African ubuntu, indigenous practice, African humanism, African human rights, social work and human rights

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Authors: Anshu Siwach, Qianlai Zhuang, Ratul Baishya

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Context: This study focuses on the influence of moss cover and seasonality on soil microbial biomass and enzymatic activity in different Central Himalayan temperate forest types. Soil microbial biomass and enzymes are key indicators of microbial communities in soil and provide information on soil properties, microbial status, and organic matter dynamics. The activity of microorganisms in the soil varies depending on the vegetation type and environmental conditions. Therefore, this study aims to assess the effects of moss cover, seasons, and different forest types on soil microbial biomass carbon (SMBC), soil microbial biomass nitrogen (SMBN), and soil enzymatic activity in the Central Himalayas, Uttarakhand, India. Research Aim: The aim of this study is to evaluate the levels of SMBC, SMBN, and soil enzymatic activity in different temperate forest types under the influence of two ground covers (soil with and without moss cover) during the rainy and winter seasons. Question Addressed: This study addresses the following questions: 1. How does the presence of moss cover and seasonality affect soil microbial biomass and enzymatic activity? 2. What is the influence of different forest types on SMBC, SMBN, and enzymatic activity? Methodology: Soil samples were collected from different forest types during the rainy and winter seasons. The study utilizes the chloroform-fumigation extraction method to determine SMBC and SMBN. Standard methodologies are followed to measure enzymatic activities, including dehydrogenase, acid phosphatase, aryl sulfatase, β-glucosidase, phenol oxidase, and urease. Findings: The study reveals significant variations in SMBC, SMBN, and enzymatic activity under different ground covers, within the rainy and winter seasons, and among the forest types. Moss cover positively influences SMBC and enzymatic activity during the rainy season, while soil without moss cover shows higher values during the winter season. Quercus-dominated forests, as well as Cupressus torulosa forests, exhibit higher levels of SMBC and enzymatic activity, while Pinus roxburghii forests show lower levels. Theoretical Importance: The findings highlight the importance of considering mosses in forest management plans to improve soil microbial diversity, enzymatic activity, soil quality, and health. Additionally, this research contributes to understanding the role of lower plants, such as mosses, in influencing ecosystem dynamics. Conclusion: The study concludes that moss cover during the rainy season significantly influences soil microbial biomass and enzymatic activity. Quercus and Cupressus torulosa dominated forests demonstrate higher levels of SMBC and enzymatic activity, indicating the importance of these forest types in sustaining soil microbial diversity and soil health. Including mosses in forest management plans can improve soil quality and overall ecosystem dynamics.

Keywords: moss cover, seasons, soil enzymes, soil microbial biomass, temperate forest types

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Authors: Laxuman Thakuri

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Despite the large number of in-depth case studies focused on policy analysis, institutional arrangement, and collective action of common property resource management; how the local institutions take the pricing decision of forest products in community forest management and what kinds of effects produce it, the answers of these questions are largely silent among the policy-makers and researchers alike. The study examined how the local institutions take the pricing decision of forest products in the lowland community forestry of Nepal and how the decisions affect to equitable distribution of benefits and livelihood improvement which are also objectives of Nepalese community forestry. The study assumes that forest products pricing decisions have multiple effects on equitable distribution and livelihood improvement in the areas having heterogeneous socio-economic conditions. The dissertation was carried out at four community forests of lowland, Nepal that has characteristics of high value species, matured-experience of community forest management and better record-keeping system of forest products production, pricing and distribution. The questionnaire survey, individual to group discussions and direct field observation were applied for data collection from the field, and Lorenz curve, gini-coefficient, χ²-text, and SWOT (Strong, Weak, Opportunity, and Threat) analysis were performed for data analysis and results interpretation. The dissertation demonstrates that the low pricing strategy of high-value forest products was supposed crucial to increase the access of socio-economically weak households, and to and control over the important forest products such as timber, but found counter productive as the strategy increased the access of socio-economically better-off households at higher rate. In addition, the strategy contradicts to collect a large-scale community fund and carry out livelihood improvement activities as per the community forestry objectives. The crucial part of the study is despite the fact of low pricing strategy; the timber alone contributed large part of community fund collection. The results revealed close relation between pricing decisions and livelihood objectives. The action research result shows that positive price discrimination can slightly reduce the prevailing inequality and increase the fund. However, it lacks to harness the full price of forest products and collects a large-scale community fund. For broader outcomes of common property resource management in terms of resource sustainability, equity, and livelihood opportunity, the study suggests local institutions to harness the full price of resource products with respect to the local market.

Keywords: community, equitable, forest, livelihood, socioeconomic, Nepal

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Authors: Ratun Rahman, Rafid Islam, Akin Ahmed, Kamrul Hasan, Hasan Mahmud

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Malware is becoming more prevalent, and several threat categories have risen dramatically in recent years. This paper provides a bird's-eye view of the world of malware analysis. The efficiency of five different machine learning methods (Naive Bayes, K-Nearest Neighbor, Decision Tree, Random Forest, and TensorFlow Decision Forest) combined with features picked from the retrieval of Android permissions to categorize applications as harmful or benign is investigated in this study. The test set consists of 1,168 samples (among these android applications, 602 are malware and 566 are benign applications), each consisting of 948 features (permissions). Using the permission-based dataset, the machine learning algorithms then produce accuracy rates above 80%, except the Naive Bayes Algorithm with 65% accuracy. Of the considered algorithms TensorFlow Decision Forest performed the best with an accuracy of 90%.

Keywords: android malware detection, machine learning, malware, malware analysis

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Authors: W. Promprom, W. Chatan

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Leguminosae is a large plant family and its members are important for local people utilization in the Northeast of Thailand. This research aimed to survey medicinal plants in this family in Kantharalak Community forest. The plant collection and exploration were made from October 2017 to September 2018. Folk medicinal uses were studied by interviewing villagers and folk medicine healers living around the community forest by asking about local names, using parts, preparation and properties. The results showed that 65 species belonging to 40 genera were found. Among these, 30 species were medicinal plant. The most used plant parts were leaf. Decoction and drinking were mostly preparation method and administration mode used. All medicinal plants could be categorized into 17 diseases/symptoms. Most plant (56.66%) were used for fever. The voucher specimens were deposited in Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Mahasarakham University, Thailand. Therefore, the data from this study might be widely used by the local area and further scientific study.

Keywords: ethnobotany, ethnophamacology, medicinal plant, taxonomy, utilization

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Authors: Yeliz Sarı Nayim, B. Niyami Nayim

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Biotopes such as forest areas rich in biodiversity, wetlands, hedgerows and woodlands play important ecological roles in agricultural landscapes. Of these semi-natural areas and features, hedgerows are the most common landscape elements. Their most significant features are that they serve as a barrier between the agricultural lands, serve as shelter, add aesthetical value to the landscape and contribute significantly to the wildlife and biodiversity. Hedgerows surrounding agricultural landscapes also provide an important habitat for pollinators which are important for agricultural production. This study looks into the identification of hedgerows in agricultural lands in the Mugada rural area within Bartın province, Turkey. From field data and-and satellite images, it is clear that in this area, especially around rural settlements, large forest areas have been cleared for settlement and agriculture. A network of hedgerows is also apparent, which might potentially play an important role in the otherwise open agricultural landscape. We found that these hedgerows serve as an ecological and biological corridor, linking forest ecosystems. Forest patches of different sizes and creating a habitat network across the landscape. Some examples of this will be presented. The overall conclusion from the study is that ecologically, biologically and aesthetically important hedge biotopes should be maintained in the long term in agricultural landscapes such as this. Some suggestions are given for how they could be managed sustainably into the future.

Keywords: agricultural biotopes, Hedgerows, landscape ecology, Turkey

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Authors: Narissara Nuthammachot, Dimitris Stratoulias

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Fire is one of the main causes of environmental and ecosystem change. Therefore, it is a challenging task for fire risk assessment fire potential mapping. The study area is Hua Sai district, Nakorn Sri Thammarat province, which covers in a part of peat swamp forest areas. 55 fire points in peat swamp areas were reported from 2012 to 2016. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Geographic Information System (GIS) methods were selected for this study. The risk fire area map was arranged on these factors; elevation, slope, aspect, precipitation, distance from the river, distance from town, and land use. The results showed that the predicted fire risk areas are found to be in appreciable reliability with past fire events. The fire risk map can be used for the planning and management of fire areas in the future.

Keywords: analytic hierarchy process, fire risk assessment, geographic information system, peat swamp forest

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Authors: Gajendra Kumar Mourya, Dinesh Bhatia, Akash Handique, Sunita Warjri, Syed Achaab Amir

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Nowadays, Medical imaging has become an integral part of modern healthcare. Abdominal CT images are an invaluable mean for abdominal organ investigation and have been widely studied in the recent years. Diagnosis of liver pathologies is one of the major areas of current interests in the field of medical image processing and is still an open problem. To deeply study and diagnose the liver, segmentation of liver is done to identify which part of the liver is mostly affected. Manual segmentation of the liver in CT images is time-consuming and suffers from inter- and intra-observer differences. However, automatic or semi-automatic computer aided segmentation of the Liver is a challenging task due to inter-patient Liver shape and size variability. In this paper, we present a technique for automatic segmenting the liver from CT images using Random Forest Classifier. Random forests or random decision forests are an ensemble learning method for classification that operate by constructing a multitude of decision trees at training time and outputting the class that is the mode of the classes of the individual trees. After comparing with various other techniques, it was found that Random Forest Classifier provide a better segmentation results with respect to accuracy and speed. We have done the validation of our results using various techniques and it shows above 89% accuracy in all the cases.

Keywords: CT images, image validation, random forest, segmentation

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Authors: Hila Levi

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Respect for human rights is a fundamental element of the European Union's (EU) identity and law. Surprisingly, however, the protection of human rights has been significantly restricted in the austerity programs ordered by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the European Commission (EC) (often labeled 'the Troika') in return for financial aid to the crisis-hit countries. This paper focuses on the role of the ECB in the crisis management. While other international financial institutions, such as the IMF or the World Bank, may opt to neglect human rights obligations, one might expect a greater respect of human rights from the ECB, which is bound by the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. However, this paper argues that ECB officials made no significant effort to protect human rights or strike an adequate balance between competing financial and human rights needs while coping with the crisis. ECB officials were preoccupied with the need to stabilize the economy and prevent a collapse of the Eurozone, and paid only marginal attention to human rights concerns in the design and implementation of Troikas' programs. This paper explores the role of Organizational Culture (OC) in explaining this marginalization. While International Relations (IR) research on Intergovernmental Organizations (IGOs) behavior has traditionally focused on external interests of powerful member states, and on national and economic considerations, this study focuses on particular institutions' internal factors and independent processes. OC characteristics have been identified in OC literature as an important determinant of organizational behavior. This paper suggests that cultural characteristics are also vital for the examination of IGOs, and particularly for understanding the ECB's behavior during the crisis. In order to assess the OC of the ECB and the impact it had on its policies and decisions during the Eurozone crisis, the paper uses the results of numerous qualitative interviews conducted with high-ranking officials and staff members of the ECB involved in the crisis management. It further reviews primary sources of the ECB (such as ECB statutes, and the Memoranda of Understanding signed between the crisis countries and the Troika), and secondary sources (such as the report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on Austerity measures and economic, social, and cultural rights). It thus analyzes the interaction between the ECBs culture and the almost complete absence of human rights considerations in the Eurozone crisis resolution scheme. This paper highlights the importance and influence of internal ideational factors on IGOs behavior. From a more practical perspective, this paper may contribute to understanding one of the obstacles in the process of human rights implementation in international organizations, and provide instruments for better protection of social and economic rights.

Keywords: European central bank, eurozone crisis, intergovernmental organizations, organizational culture

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Authors: Neelam Kadyan, Pratima Ranga, Yogender

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Indigenous people are the One who are affected by the climate change the most, although there have contributed little to its causes. This is largely a result of their historic dependence on local biological diversity, ecosystem services and cultural landscapes as a source of their sustenance and well-being. Comprising only four percent of the world’s population they utilize 22 percent of the world’s land surface. Despite their high exposure-sensitivity indigenous peoples and local communities are actively responding to changing climatic conditions and have demonstrated their resourcefulness and resilience in the face of climate change. Traditional Indigenous territories encompass up to 22 percent of the world’s land surface and they coincide with areas that hold 80 percent of the planet’s biodiversity. Also, the greatest diversity of indigenous groups coincides with the world’s largest tropical forest wilderness areas in the Americas (including Amazon), Africa, and Asia, and 11 percent of world forest lands are legally owned by Indigenous Peoples and communities. This convergence of biodiversity-significant areas and indigenous territories presents an enormous opportunity to expand efforts to conserve biodiversity beyond parks, which tend to benefit from most of the funding for biodiversity conservation. Tapping on Ancestral Knowledge Indigenous Peoples are carriers of ancestral knowledge and wisdom about this biodiversity. Their effective participation in biodiversity conservation programs as experts in protecting and managing biodiversity and natural resources would result in more comprehensive and cost effective conservation and management of biodiversity worldwide. Addressing the Climate Change Agenda Indigenous Peoples has played a key role in climate change mitigation and adaptation. The territories of indigenous groups who have been given the rights to their lands have been better conserved than the adjacent lands (i.e., Brazil, Colombia, Nicaragua, etc.). Preserving large extensions of forests would not only support the climate change objectives, but it would respect the rights of Indigenous Peoples and conserve biodiversity as well. A climate change agenda fully involving Indigenous Peoples has many more benefits than if only government and/or the private sector are involved. Indigenous peoples are some of the most vulnerable groups to the negative effects of climate change. Also, they are a source of knowledge to the many solutions that will be needed to avoid or ameliorate those effects. For example, ancestral territories often provide excellent examples of a landscape design that can resist the negatives effects of climate change. Over the millennia, Indigenous Peoples have developed adaptation models to climate change. They have also developed genetic varieties of medicinal and useful plants and animal breeds with a wider natural range of resistance to climatic and ecological variability.

Keywords: ancestral knowledge, cost effective conservation, management, indigenous peoples, climate change

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Authors: S. Benkraouda, Z. Djelloul-Khedda, B. Yagoubi

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we present a method for early detection of forest fires from a thermal infrared satellite image, using the image matrix of the probability of belonging. The principle of the method is to compare a theoretical mathematical model to an experimental model. We considered that each line of the image matrix, as an embodiment of a non-stationary random process. Since the distribution of pixels in the satellite image is statistically dependent, we divided these lines into small stationary and ergodic intervals to characterize the image by an adequate mathematical model. A standard deviation was chosen to generate random variables, so each interval behaves naturally like white Gaussian noise. The latter has been selected as the mathematical model that represents a set of very majority pixels, which we can be considered as the image background. Before modeling the image, we made a few pretreatments, then the parameters of the theoretical Gaussian model were extracted from the modeled image, these settings will be used to calculate the probability of each interval of the modeled image to belong to the theoretical Gaussian model. The high intensities pixels are regarded as foreign elements to it, so they will have a low probability, and the pixels that belong to the background image will have a high probability. Finally, we did present the reverse of the matrix of probabilities of these intervals for a better fire detection.

Keywords: forest fire, forest fire detection, satellite image, normal distribution, theoretical gaussian model, thermal infrared matrix image

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Authors: Kurt Willems

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The right to education is a fundamental human right, which has been entrenched in many international and regional treaties and national constitutions. Nevertheless, practice shows that many obstacles impede easy access to quality education for refugees. Overall, the material effects of international human rights legislation on improving (irregular) migrants’ access to social rights in the European countries have remained limited due to the lack of guarantees on effective incorporation in the municipal legal order and due to the lack of effective enforcement mechanisms. After the recent refugee crisis in Europe, this issue has grown in importance. The presentation aims to give a brief overview of the most important issues impeding the effective enforceability of the right to education for refugees. I. Do refugees fall within the scope of application of the relevant human rights treaties and to which extent can they invoke human rights treaties in domestic courts to set aside domestic legislation? II. How is the justiciability of the right to education organized in those treaties? III. What is the legal answer to questions raised in practice when dealing with the influx of refugees in Europe: (i) can refugees be placed in separate schools or classes until they can follow the regular curriculum?; (ii) can higher school fees be asked from pupils without legal documents?; (iii) do refugees have a right to be taught in their own native language until they learn to speak the national language? To answer the above questions, the doctrinal and comparative legal method will be used. The normative framework, as interpreted within Europe, will be distilled from the recent and relevant international treaties and European law instruments (in particular the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the European Convention on human rights, the European Social Charter and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights) and their underlying policy documents, the legal literature, the (limited) European jurisprudence, and the general comments to those treaties. The article is mainly descriptive in nature. Its aim is to serve as a summary of the legal provisions, case law and legal literature on the topic of the right to education for refugees. The research shows that the reasons for the delicate enforceability of the rights to and the rights in education are multifold. The research will categorize the different contributing factors under the following headings: (i) problems related to the justiciability of international law as such; (ii) problems specifically related to the educational field; (iii) problems related to policy issues in the refugee debate. By categorizing the reasons contributing to the difficult enforceability of the right to education and the rights in education for refugees, this research hopes to facilitate the search for solutions to this delicate problem.

Keywords: right to education, refugees, discrimination, enforceability of human rights

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Authors: Taguekou Kenfack Alexie

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For a long time, refugee protection has constituted one of the main concerns of the international community as a whole and for the South African government in particular.The focus of this paper is on the challenges refugees face in accessing their rights in South Africa. In particular, it analyses the legal framework for the protection of the socio economic rights of refugees under international law, regional and domestic law and the extent to which the rights have been realized. The main hypothesis of the study centered on the fact that the social protection of refugees in South Africa is in conformity with international standards. To test this hypothesis, the qualitative research method was applied. Refugee related legal instruments were analyzed as well as academic publications, organizational reports and internet sources. The data analyzed revealed that there has been enormous progress in meeting international standards in the areas of education, emergency relief and assistance, protection of women and refugee children. The results also indicated that much remain to be desired in such areas as nutrition, shelter, health care, freedom of movement and very importantly, employment and social security. The paper also seeks to address the obstacles which prevent the proper treatment of refugees and to make recommendations as how the South African government can better regulate the treatment of refugees living in its territory.Recommendations include the amendment of the legal instruments that provide the normative framework for protection and improvement of protection policies to reflect the changing dynamics.

Keywords: international community, refugee, socioeconomic rights, social protection

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Authors: Sepideh Yeganegi, Andre Laplume, Parshotam Dass, Cam-Loi Huynh

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This paper empirically examines organizational and institutional antecedents of entrepreneurial entry. We employ multi-level logistic regression modelling methods on a sub-sample of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor’s 2011 survey covering 30 countries. The results reveal that employees who have experience with activities unrelated to the core technology of their organizations are more likely to spin out entrepreneurial ventures, whereas those with experiences related to the core technology are less likely to do so. In support of the recent theory, we find that the strength of intellectual property rights and the availability of venture capital have negative and positive effects, respectively, on the likelihood that employees turn into entrepreneurs. These institutional factors also moderate the effect of relatedness to core technology such that entrepreneurial entries by employees with experiences related to core technology are curbed more severely by stronger intellectual property rights protection regimes and lack of venture capital.

Keywords: spinouts, intellectual property rights, venture capital, entrepreneurship, organizational experiences, core technology

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Authors: Kayode Julius Oni

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Without mincing words, democracy is by far the most popular form of government in the world today. No matter how we look at it, and regardless of the variant, most leaders in the world today wish to be seen or labeled as Democrats. Perhaps, its attractions in terms of freedom of allocation, accountability, smooth successions of leadership and a lot more, account for its appeal to the ordinary people. The governance style in Nigeria since 1999 cannot be said to be different from the military. Elections are manipulated, judicial processes abused, and the ordinary people do not have access to the dividends of democracy. The paper seeks to address the existing failures experienced under democratic rule in Nigeria which have to transcend into violation of human rights in the conduct of government business. The paper employs the primary and secondary sources of data collection, and it is highly descriptive and critical.

Keywords: democracy, human rights, Nigeria, politics, republic

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Authors: Karl D. Humm

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The United Nations’ Community-based REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation) (CBR+) is a programme that directly finances grassroots climate change mitigation strategies that uplift Indigenous Peoples (IPs) and other marginalised groups. A pilot for it in six countries was developed in response to criticism of the REDD+ programme for excluding IPs from dialogues about climate change mitigation strategies affecting their lands and livelihoods. Despite the pilot’s conclusion in 2017, no complete report has yet been produced on the results of CBR+. To fill this gap, this study investigated the experiences with involving IPs in the CBR+ programmes and local projects across all six pilot countries. A literature review of official UN reports and academic articles identified challenges and successes with IP participation in REDD+ which became the basis for a framework guiding data collection. A mixed methods approach was used to collect and analyse qualitative and quantitative data from CBR+ documents and written interviews with CBR+ National Coordinators in each country for a cross-country comparative analysis. The study found that the most frequent challenges were lack of organisational capacity, illegal forest activities, and historically-based contentious relationships in IP and forest-dependent communities. Successful programmes included IPs and incorporated respect and recognition of IPs as major stakeholders in managing sustainable forests. Findings are summarized and shared with a set of recommendations for improvement of future projects.

Keywords: climate change, forests, indigenous peoples, REDD+

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Authors: Abdulrahman Fahim M. Alsulami

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This paper is dedicated to a detailed investigation of the interaction between the agreement on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS) and bilateral investment treaties (BITs) in the regulation of health-related intellectual property rights in Australia and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The chosen research object is complex and requires a thorough examination of a set of factors influencing the problem under investigation. At the moment, to the author’s best knowledge’ there is no academic research that would conceptualize and critically compare the regulation of health-related intellectual property rights in these two countries. While there is a substantial amount of information in the literature on certain aspects of the problem, the existing knowledge about certain aspects of the health-related regulatory frameworks in Australia and Saudi Arabia barely explains in detail the specifics of the ways in which the TRIPS agreement interacts with (BITs) in the regulation of health-related intellectual property rights. Therefore, this paper will address an evident research gap by studying an intriguing yet under-researched problem. The paper comprises five subsections. The first subsection provides an overview of the investment climate in Saudi Arabia and Australia with an emphasis on the health care industry. It will cover political, economic, and social factors influencing the investment climate in these countries, the systems of intellectual property rights protection, recent patterns relevant to the investment climate’s development, and key characteristics of the investment climate in the health care industry. The second subsection analyses BITs in Saudi Arabia and Australia in light of the countries’ responsibilities under the TRIPS Agreement. The third subsection provides a critical examination of the interaction between the TRIPS Agreement and BITs in Saudi Arabia on the basis of data collected and analyzed in previous subsections. It will investigate key discrepancies concerning the regulation of health-related intellectual property rights in Saudi Arabia and Australia from the position of BITs’ interaction with the TRIPS Agreement and explore the existing procedures for clarifying priorities between them in regulating health-related intellectual property rights. The fourth subsection of the paper provides recommendations concerning the transformation of BITS into a TRIPS+ dimension in regulating health-related intellectual property rights in Saudi Arabia and Australia. The final subsection provides a summary of differences between the Australian and Saudi BITs from the perspective of the regulation of health-related intellectual property rights under the TRIPS agreement and bilateral investment treaties.

Keywords: Australia, bilateral investment treaties, IP law, public health sector, Saudi Arabia

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Authors: Crescentia Ugwuona

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Appropriate language use has been central and critical in advancing education and human rights for women and girls in many countries the world over. Unfortunately, these lofty aims have often been violated by rural Igbo-Nigerians as they use stereotyping and dehumansing language in their cultural songs against women and girls. The psychological impact of the songs has a significant negative impact on education, human rights, quality of life, and opportunities for many rural Igbo-women and girls in Nigeria. This study, therefore, examines the forms, shades, and manifestations of derogatory and stereotypical language against women and girls the Igbo cultural songs; and how they impede education and human rights for females in Nigeria. Through Critical discourse analysis (CDA) of data collected via recording, the study identifies manifestations of women and girls’ stereotypes such as subjugations, male dominance, inequality in gender roles, suppression, and oppression, and derogatory use of the language against women and girls in the Igbo cultural songs. This study has a great promise of alerting the issues of derogatory and stereotypical language in songs, and contributes to an education aimed at gender equality, emancipator practice of appropriate language use in songs, equal education and human rights for both male and female, respect and solidarity in Nigeria and beyond.

Keywords: gender stereotypes, cultural songs, women and girls, language use in Nigeria, critical discourse analysis, CDA, education

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Authors: Rainner Roweder

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Theme: The present paper aims to analyze the specificity of the judicial evidence linked to the subjects of dignity and personality rights, otherwise known as moral rights, in the determination of the truth and formation of the judicial reasoning in cases concerning these areas. This research is about the way courts in Brazilian domestic law search for truth and handles evidence in cases involving moral rights that are abundant and important in Brazil. The main object of the paper is to analyze the effectiveness of the evidence in the formation of judicial conviction in matters related to morally controverted rights, based on the Brazilian, and as a comparison, the Latin American legal systems. In short, the rights of dignity and personality are moral. However, the evidential legal system expects a rational demonstration of moral rights that generate judicial conviction or persuasion. Moral, in turn, tends to be difficult or impossible to demonstrate in court, generating the problem considered in this paper, that is, the study of the moral demonstration problem as proof in court. In this sense, the more linked to moral, the more difficult to be demonstrated in court that right is, expanding the field of judicial discretion, generating legal uncertainty. More specifically, the new personality rights, such as gender, and their possibility of alteration, further amplify the problem being essentially an intimate manner, which does not exist in the objective, rational evidential system, as normally occurs in other categories, such as contracts. Therefore, evidencing this legal category in court, with the level of security required by the law, is a herculean task. It becomes virtually impossible to use the same evidentiary system when judging the rights researched here; therefore, it generates the need for a new design of the evidential task regarding the rights of the personality, a central effort of the present paper. Methodology: Concerning the methodology, the Method used in the Investigation phase was Inductive, with the use of the comparative law method; in the data treatment phase, the Inductive Method was also used. Doctrine, Legislative, and jurisprudential comparison was the technique research used. Results: In addition to the peculiar characteristics of personality rights that are not found in other rights, part of them are essentially linked to morale and are not objectively verifiable by design, and it is necessary to use specific argumentative theories for their secure confirmation, such as interdisciplinary support. The traditional pragmatic theory of proof, for having an obvious objective character, when applied in the rights linked to the morale, aggravates decisionism and generates legal insecurity, being necessary its reconstruction for morally charged cases, with the possible use of the “predictive theory” ( and predictive facts) through algorithms in data collection and treatment.

Keywords: moral rights, proof, pragmatic proof theory, insufficiency, Brazil

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Authors: K. Kanja, M. Mweemba, K. Malungwa

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Due to the rampant population growth coupled with retrenchments currently going on in the Copper mines in Zambia, a number of people are resorting to land clearing for agriculture, illegal settlements as well as charcoal production among other vices. This study aims at assessing the rate of expansion of agricultural fields and illegal settlements in protected areas using remote sensing and Geographic Information System. Zambia’s Mwekera National Forest Reserve was used as a case study. Iterative Self-Organizing Data Analysis Technique (ISODATA), as well as maximum likelihood, supervised classification on four Landsat images as well as an accuracy assessment of the classifications was performed. Over the period under observation, results indicate annual percentage changes to be -0.03, -0.49 and 1.26 for agriculture, forests and settlement respectively indicating a higher conversion of forests into human settlements and agriculture.

Keywords: geographic information system, land cover change, Landsat TM and ETM+, Mwekera forest reserve, remote sensing

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Authors: Ibrahim Ilker Ozyigit, Ertugrul Filiz, Seda Birbilener, Semsettin Kulac, Zeki Severoglu

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In this study, we have performed genetic diversity analysis of Tilia tomentosa genotypes by using randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) primers. A total of 28 genotypes, including 25 members from the urban ecosystem and 3 genotypes from forest ecosystem as outgroup were used. 8 RAPD primers produced a total of 53 bands, of which 48 (90.6 %) were polymorphic. Percentage of polymorphic loci (P), observed number of alleles (Na), effective number of alleles (Ne), Nei's (1973) gene diversity (h), and Shannon's information index (I) were found as 94.29 %, 1.94, 1.60, 0.34, and 0.50, respectively. The unweighted pair-group method with arithmetic average (UPGMA) cluster analysis revealed that two major groups were observed. The genotypes of urban and forest ecosystems showed a high genetic similarity between 28% and 92% and these genotypes did not separate from each other in UPGMA tree. Also, urban and forest genotypes clustered together in principal component analysis (PCA).

Keywords: Tilia tomentosa, genetic diversity, urban ecosystem, RAPD, UPGMA

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Authors: Menuka Maharjan

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In the name of food security, agriculture intensification through conventional farming is being implemented in Nepal. Government focus on increasing agriculture production completely ignores soil as well human health. This leads to create serious soil degradation, i.e., reduction of soil fertility and microbial activity and health hazard in the country. On this note, organic farming is sustainable agriculture approach which can address challenge of sustaining food security while protecting the environment. This creates a win-win situation both for people and the environment. However, people have limited knowledge on significance of organic farming for environment conservation and food security especially developing countries like Nepal. Thus, the objective of the study was to assess the impacts of organic farming on soil fertility and microbial activity compared to conventional farming and forest in Chitwan, Nepal. Total soil organic carbon (C) was highest in organic farming (24 mg C g⁻¹ soil) followed by conventional farming (15 mg C g⁻¹ soil) and forest (9 mg C g⁻¹ soil) in the topsoil layer (0-10 cm depth). A similar trend was found for total nitrogen (N) content in all three land uses with organic farming soil possessing the highest total N content in both 0-10 cm and 10-20 cm depth. Microbial biomass C and N were also highest under organic farming, especially in the topsoil layer (350 and 46 mg g⁻¹ soil, respectively). Similarly, microbial biomass phosphorus (P) was higher (3.6 and 1.0 mg P kg⁻¹ at 0-10 and 10-20 cm depth, respectively) in organic farming compared to conventional farming and forest at both depths. However, conventional farming and forest soils had similar microbial biomass (C, N, and P) content. After conversion of forest, the P stock significantly increased by 373% and 170% in soil under organic farming at 0-10 and 10-20 cm depth, respectively. In conventional farming, the P stock increased by 64% and 36% at 0-10 cm and 10-20 cm depth, respectively, compared to forest. Overall, organic farming practices, i.e., crop rotation, residue input and farmyard manure application, significantly alters soil fertility and microbial activity. Organic farming system is emerging as a sustainable land use system which can address the issues of food security and environment conservation by increasing sustainable agriculture production and carbon sequestration, respectively, supporting to achieve goals of sustainable development.

Keywords: organic farming, soil fertility, micobial biomas, food security

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Authors: Moschos Vogiatzis, K. Perakis

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Spatial-explicit and up-to-date land use/land cover information is fundamental for spatial planning, land management, sustainable development, and sound decision-making. In the last decade, many satellite-derived land cover products at different spatial, spectral, and temporal resolutions have been developed, such as the European Copernicus Land Cover product. However, more efficient and detailed information for land use/land cover is required at the regional or local scale. A typical Mediterranean basin with a complex landscape comprised of various forest types, crops, artificial surfaces, and wetlands was selected to test and develop our approach. In this study, we investigate the improvement of Copernicus Land Cover product (CLC2018) using Landsat 8 and Sentinel-2 pixel-based classification based on all available existing geospatial data (Forest Maps, LPIS, Natura2000 habitats, cadastral parcels, etc.). We examined and compared the performance of the Random Forest classifier for land use/land cover mapping. In total, 10 land use/land cover categories were recognized in Landsat 8 and 11 in Sentinel-2A. A comparison of the overall classification accuracies for 2018 shows that Landsat 8 classification accuracy was slightly higher than Sentinel-2A (82,99% vs. 80,30%). We concluded that the main land use/land cover types of CLC2018, even within a heterogeneous area, can be successfully mapped and updated according to CLC nomenclature. Future research should be oriented toward integrating spatiotemporal information from seasonal bands and spectral indexes in the classification process.

Keywords: classification, land use/land cover, mapping, random forest

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Authors: Dina Hadad

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Women empowerment in the Arab world remains a central issue in the context of development and human rights. Akin to many societies around the globe, gender equality is yet to be achieved. This research will provide an introduction into the current legal stand of some Arab countries in terms of gender equality and women rights in the context of family law. It will look specifically into the recent family law in Kuwait and why many women consider it a positive step towards affirming their rights and their needs. Depending on comparative material from the area, the research argues that whilst some countries made efforts to promote women’s empowerment as a concept and practice throughout its policies, others have indeed some unique journeys that reflect organic and from within evolutions. Nonetheless, these efforts are yet to reflect a comprehensive structure that addresses women legal and political empowerment let alone social status. A contradiction in the realities of different Arab states is nothing new since the lack of comprehensive rights-based policy making in Arab countries has contributed to the disconnect between economic growth and development challenges.

Keywords: women empowerment, cultural challenges, gender equality, Islamic law, international standards, family law

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Authors: Arzyana Sunkar, Yanto Santosa

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The expansions of independent smallholdings in Indonesia are feared to increase the negative ecological impacts of oil palm plantation on biodiversity. Hence, research is required to identify the conservation importance of independent smallholder oil palm plantations on biodiversity. This paper discussed the role of independent smallholdings in the conservation of biodiversity in oil palm plantations and to compare it with High Conservation Value Forest as a conservation standard of RSPO. The research was conducted from March to April 2016. Data on biodiversity were collected on 16 plantations and 8 private oil palm plantations in the Districts of Kampar, Pelalawan, Kuantan, Singingi and Siak of Riau Province, Indonesia. In addition, data on community environmental perceptions of both smallholder plantation and High Conservation Value (HCV) Forest were also collected. Species that were observed were birds and earthworms. Data on birds were collected using transect method, while identification of earthworm was determine by taking some soil samples and counting the number of individual earthworm found for each worm species. The research used direct interview with oil palm owners and community members, as well as direct observation to examine the environmental conditions of each plantation. In general, field observation and measurement have found that birds species richness was higher in the forested HCV Forest. Nevertheless, if compared to non-forested HCV, bird’s species richness was higher in the independent smallholdings. On the other hand, different results were observed for earthworm, where the density was higher in the independent smallholdings than in the HCV. It can be concluded from this research that managing independent smallholder oil palm plantations and forested HCV forest could enhance biodiversity conservation. The results of this study justified the importance of retaining forested area to safeguard biodiversity in oil palm plantation.

Keywords: biodiversity conservation, high conservation value forest, independent smallholdings, oil palm plantations

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Authors: Sampriti Panda

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Earning one’s own livelihood is the most basic and inseparable activity for survival and existence of humankind. In any kind of situation and in every type of geographical terrain, human does adopt various strategies and ways of earning their own livelihood. Since time immemorial, anthropocentrism has been the saga of livelihood where environment is out casted and exploited to any limit so that mankind can survive. With the passage of time, humans regained their consciousness and realized that the time has arrived now to shift to sustainable livelihood and stop being self centered. This paper tries to focus on the very central issue and the hotpot of discussion in the present era which revolves around sustainable livelihood. The aim of the paper is to find out how the tribal communities which are primarily forest based are the best example of sustainable livelihood since their existence. The paper also tries to throw light on the burning issue of the so-called term ‘development’ affecting the traditional ways of livelihood opted by the forest based tribal communities. The data presented in the paper are primary and have been collected using various techniques and methodology like observation, interviews, life histories, case studies and other techniques used in a self conducted fieldwork among the Juangs, who are one of the PVTGs of Odisha.

Keywords: forest, livelihood, sustainability, tribe

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Authors: Ima Rahmawati, Nur Hafizul Kalam

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Development of industrial and economic sectors in various countries very rapidly caused raising the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Greenhouse gases are dominated by carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) in the atmosphere that make the surface temperature of the earth always increase. The increasing gases caused by incomplete combustion of fossil fuels such as petroleum and coals and also high rate of deforestation. Yogyakarta Special Province which every year always become tourist destination, has a great potency in increasing of greenhouse gas emissions mainly from the incomplete combustion. One of effort to reduce the concentration of gases in the atmosphere is keeping and empowering the existing forests in the Province of Yogyakarta, especially forest in Kulonprogro is to be maintained the greenness so that it can absorb and store carbon maximally. Remote sensing technology can be used to determine the ability of forests to absorb carbon and it is connected to the density of vegetation. The purpose of this study is to determine the density of the biomass of forest vegetation and determine the ability of forests to store carbon through Photo-interpretation and Geographic Information System approach. Remote sensing imagery that used in this study is LANDSAT 8 OLI year 2015 recording. LANDSAT 8 OLI imagery has 30 meters spatial resolution for multispectral bands and it can give general overview the condition of the carbon stored from every density of existing vegetation. The method is the transformation of vegetation index combined with allometric calculation of field data then doing regression analysis. The results are model maps of density and capability level of forest vegetation in Kulonprogro, Yogyakarta in storing carbon.

Keywords: remote sensing, carbon, kulonprogo, forest vegetation, vegetation index

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Authors: Vijaya Chandra Tenneti

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The juvenile justice delivery system in India suffers from many lacunae at the operational level and ignores many dimensions of human rights guaranteed to the juvenile delinquents. The present study begins with the hypothesis that the existing justice delivery system seemingly ignores the basic tenets of the fair trial and systemic support to the delinquent juveniles in integrating them into the mainstream of society. As per the designed methodology, data has been collected from the unit of the present study, and other stakeholders, namely, Juvenile Justice Board, Observation Homes etc., of Warangal district of Telangana state, India. The study shows that there is the overemphasis on procedural laws. The juvenile integration programs are not effective. The administrators lack training. Juveniles lack formal education. The study indicates the incidents of juvenile crimes is on the rise and that the majority of the juvenile delinquents hold a low socio-economic profile. Another significant observation of the study is that the juvenile justice system lacks a holistic and human rights-centric approach.

Keywords: delinquency, human rights, juvenile justice, rehabilitation

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Authors: A. Drong, K. S. Kerkhoff

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Migration affects women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights. This paper reports on the social constructs of gender, and livelihood pursuits as beauty parlours workers amongst the young Garo women in Bangladesh, and studies changes in their accessibility to the healthcare services due to migration and livelihood. The paper is based on in-depth interviews and participant-led group discussions with 30 women working in various beauty parlours across the city. The data indicate that social perceptions of ‘good’, ‘bad’ and ‘respectable’ determine the expression of sexuality, and often dictates sexual and reproductive practices for these women. This study also reveals that unregulated work conditions, and the current cost of local healthcare services, have a strong impact on the women’s accessibility to the healthcare services; thus often limiting their choices to only customary and/or unqualified practitioners for abortions and child-births. Development programmes on migrant indigenous women’s health must, therefore, take the contextual gender norms and livelihood choices into account.

Keywords: gender, indigenous women, reproductive rights, sexual rights, Garo, migration, livelihood, healthcare

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Authors: Desmond F. Bellamy

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Discourses about animal rights usually assume an ontological abyss between human and animal. This supposition of non-animality allows us to utilise and exploit non-humans, particularly those with commercial value, with little regard for their rights or interests. We can and do confine them, inflict painful treatments such as castration and branding, and slaughter them at an age determined only by financial considerations. This paper explores the way images and texts depicting human cannibalism reflect this deprivation of rights back onto our species and examines how this offers new perspectives on our granting or withholding of rights to farmed animals. The animals we eat – sheep, pigs, cows, chickens and a small handful of other species – are during processing de-animalised, turned into commodities, and made unrecognisable as formerly living beings. To do the same to a human requires the cannibal to enact another step – humans must first be considered as animals before they can be commodified or de-animalised. Different iterations of cannibalism in a selection of fiction and non-fiction texts will be considered: survivalism (necessitated by catastrophe or dystopian social collapse), the primitive savage of colonial discourses, and the inhuman psychopath. Each type of cannibalism shows alternative ways humans can be animalised and thereby dispossessed of both their human and animal rights. Human rights, summarised in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights as ‘life, liberty, and security of person’ are stubbornly denied to many humans, and are refused to virtually all farmed non-humans. How might this paradigm be transformed by seeing the animal victim replaced by an animalised human? People are fascinated as well as repulsed by cannibalism, as demonstrated by the upsurge of films on the subject in the last few decades. Cannibalism is, at its most basic, about envisaging and treating humans as objects: meat. It is on the dinner plate that the abyss between human and ‘animal’ is most challenged. We grasp at a conscious level that we are a species of animal and may become, if in the wrong place (e.g., shark-infested water), ‘just food’. Culturally, however, strong traditions insist that humans are much more than ‘just meat’ and deserve a better fate than torment and death. The billions of animals on death row awaiting human consumption would ask the same if they could. Depictions of cannibalism demonstrate in graphic ways that humans are animals, made of meat and that we can also be butchered and eaten. These depictions of us as having the same fleshiness as non-human animals reminds us that they have the same capacities for pain and pleasure as we do. Depictions of cannibalism, therefore, unconsciously aid in deconstructing the human/animal binary and give a unique glimpse into the often unnoticed repudiation of animal rights.

Keywords: animal rights, cannibalism, human/animal binary, objectification

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