Environmental problems and their management, particularly when related to urban ecosystems, are becoming increasingly challenging. The end-of-pipe method which has been practiced in the past, and is manifested in our laws and regulations, has gradually changed towards a more pro-active approach. Industries now recognize that environmental management and pollution control are no longer liabilities, but rather opportunities to increase their competitiveness. The general public is increasingly aware of the fact that they have to pay more for management of the environment that is based on the end-of-pipe approach. International agencies and industries world-wide are responding positively with a new paradigm shift towards proactive environmental management through voluntary initiatives. The most challenging task in Malaysia however, is to convince the small and medium scale enterprises to shift from the old to the new management system. While local government agencies remain the key players in the management of urban ecosystems, they still lack human resources and the capacity to handle new challenges. This paper discusses new initiatives towards achieving sustainable urban ecosystem management. It highlights the tools and approaches that are being used as alternatives to the existing end-of-pipe approaches. These tools include, eco-management, wastes minimization, ISO 14000 standardization, design for environment, eco-labeling, life cycle assessment and industrial ecology.
We estimated translocatory balance in fruit of the tropical tree Durio zibethinus Murray on the basis of a compartment model. Rates of fruit respiration, dry weight growth and translocation increased with time. Over the 8.2 weeks of fruit development, the relative distribution of translocation was 80% to dry weight growth and 20% to respiration. The ratio of respiration rate to translocation rate, which ranged from 14 to 32%, tended to decrease with time, whereas the ratio of dry weight growth rate to translocation rate, which ranged from 68 to 86%, tended to increase with time. The relationship between dry weight growth rate and translocation rate was fitted by a power function, where dry weight growth rate was statistically proportional to translocation rate. The relationship between respiration rate and translocation rate was formulated by a smooth curve, where respiration rate increased as translocation rate increased. Examination of these ratios with respect to the translocation rate indicated that the dry weight growth rate/translocation rate ratio increased slightly with increasing translocation rate, whereas the respiration rate/translocation rate ratio decreased with increasing translocation rate. A comparative analysis of these results with those obtained for Cinnamomum camphora (L.) J. Presl revealed a lower ratio of translocation to dry weight growth in D. zibethinus than in C. camphora, indicating that D. zibethinus fruits have a low translocatory efficiency.
During the redrawing of Figure 1 some of the bars within Exp. 1 were omitted, plus the incorrect species name was introduced on two of the graphs. The publishers would like to apologise to the authors and their readers for these errors. The corrected figure appears below.
The evolution of tool applications and approaches for industrial-environmentally related management systems in minimizing their impact on natural environment has facilitated the concept of journey to natural capitalism, notably, on physical flows and the accumulation of substances and materials due to industrial activities. These
environmental management tools include risk assessment, resource accounting, costbenefit analysis, environmental impact statement, and environmental impact assessment.
In addition, environmental management system (EMS) series of standards derived fromSociety of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) and International
Standard of Organization (ISO) Technical Committee 207 initiatives emphasizing on EMS, environmental auditing, life cycle assessment, ecolabeling, environmental
performance evaluation, design for environment and climate change. Recent concept on industrial ecology (IE) was introduced and applied respectively into EMS for industrial
sustainability. It is based on the integration of human dimension, industrial processes, and environmental concerns that perpetually mimics natural ecosystem processes. This
paper describes how these theoretical frameworks of Environmental Impact Assessment(EIA) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tools being developed and applied and
subsequently used as central tenet in IE concept in meeting their objectives that indirectly could be further enhanced the journey towards natural capitalism.
In Malaysia, as in other parts of the world, air pollution has recently been receiving priority among environmental issues. The ambient atmospheric conditions have been progressively deteriorating due to unprecedented growth in urbanization, number of motor vehicles and continuous industrial development. Monitoring data and studies on ambient air quality show that the ambient air quality of the country is clean in general but some of the air pollutants in several large cities especially in Klang Valley, the most densely populated area, are increasing with time and are not always at acceptable levels according to the national ambient air quality standards. This research employed contingent valuation method (CVM) to estimate the willingness to pay of the respondents to avoid the illness episodes due to air pollution. To evaluate the impact of additional information on the willingness to pay (WTP) of the respondents, different sub-samples were presented with contingent valuation scenarios offering different levels of information. One sub-sample was given the cause of ill-health episodes and the policy to be implemented to remedy the cause of the ill-health episodes (context version). Another sub-sample was asked to value the avoidance of episodes of ill-health, but was not given any details of the cause of the episodes nor the policy that would be implemented to remedy the cause of ill-health episodes (non-context version). The study has found that the inclusion of additional information in the presentation of scenarios in contingent valuation exercises significantly influenced WTP for the avoidance of ill-health episodes. The average mean value of WTP of the respondents for the context version was higher than that of the non-context version i.e. RM154 for the context version and RM134 for the non-context version. Since, WTP to avoid the ill-health episodes cannot be shown to be independent of the context in which it is valued, the validity of transferring benefits of avoided ill-health episodes from one country to another must be called into question and the results of the study will not allow decision makers to apply the estimated values for the avoidance of ill-health episodes in the consideration of policies with very different context.
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