The trade relationship between small-scale growers and processing companies often plays an important role in determining the nature and extent of benefi ts derived from commercial forestry, and the distribution of these benefi ts. Many strategies are used by individual small-scale growers, village communities, companies and government agencies to form partnerships to undertake commercial forest...

OBJECTIVE The Standardized Tobacco Assessment for Retail Settings (STARS) was designed to characterise the availability, placement, promotion and price of tobacco products, with items chosen for relevance to regulating the retail tobacco environment. This study describes the process to develop the STARS instrument and protocol employed by a collaboration of US government agencies, US state toba...

New Zealand’s offshore islands are refuges for many threatened species, a high proportion of vertebrate diversity, and the world’s most diverse fauna of seabirds. We present key issues and questions that can be used to guide research on the conservation of biodiversity on these islands. Four global reviews formed a basis from which we identified research questions of potential relevance to the ...

Concern over stratospheric ozone depletion has prompted several government agencies in North America to establish networks of spectroradiometers for monitoring solar ultraviolet irradiance at the surface of the Earth. To assess the ability of spectroradiometers to accurately measure solar ultraviolet irradiance, and to compare the results between instruments of different monitoring networks, th...

The development of Indigenous political organizations in the Ecuadorian Amazon is illustrative of the state of affairs throughout the region. The moral economy that had governed inter-ethnic relations until recently has given way to a political economy in which Indigenous groups have come to understand the importance of defining the issues surrounding their relations with government agencies. T...

Debate over the influence of postwildfire management on future fire severity is occurring in the absence of empirical studies. We used satellite data, government agency records, and aerial photography to examine a forest landscape in southwest Oregon that burned in 1987 and then was subject, in part, to salvage-logging and conifer planting before it reburned during the 2002 Biscuit Fire. Areas ...

Traffic safety is a major concern in the temporary one-lane, two-way highway work zones due to the increasing of construction and maintenance operations. To prevent rear-end crashes and to mitigate the severity of these crashes caused by the inattentive driving, the utilization of the Emergency Flasher Traffic Control Device (EFTCD) was under consideration by government agencies, in addition to...

This paper provides some reflections on lessons learned from the first five years of the Sustainable Households Programme in New Zealand. This programme is a community education initiative to support the introduction of more sustainable actions in New Zealand households. The paper begins by describing the Programme's development, and then examines the underlying learning theory which contribute...

Information and communication technologies may help reduce health disparities through their potential for promoting health, preventing disease, and supporting clinical care for all. Unfortunately, those who have preventable health problems and lack health insurance coverage are the least likely to have access to such technologies. Barriers to access include cost, geographic location, illiteracy...

There is a growing body of research on government use of Facebook (FB) and citizen engagement; however there is a paucity of empirical research that identify the extent of agency and audience engagement on government FB pages. Little is known if different types of agencies engage differently in FB. Based on a large-scale world-first empirical analysis of over 145 federal government FB pages, th...