Browsing by Author "Jones, Brian"

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    The impact of people-centred approaches to natural resource management on poverty reduction
    (Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2006) Jones, Brian
    Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) is often promoted by governments, NGOs and donors as a means of reducing poverty in rural communities, particularly through income-generation from various natural resource-based activities. CBNRM is increasingly being adopted as a means of poverty reduction in the national development strategies of most southern African countries. But can these high expectations be met? Evidence shows CBNRM is able to contribute to combating poverty in terms of empowering local communities, helping to buffer them against shocks, and building natural capital, rather than putting large amounts of money into their pockets. But CBNRM approaches do not reach their full potential because of policy weaknesses and gaps in implementation. That said, the lack of clear criteria and indicators means that the contribution of CBNRM is not measured, and has probably been underestimated. CBNRM cannot combat poverty on its own – its impact is partially determined by larger political and economic conditions, and it does not address all the causes of poverty. CBNRM should therefore be a part of a broader, multi-faceted national strategy to deal with poverty, and it should be strengthened through further policy reform and improved implementation.
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    Sequence analysis of an Archaeal virus isolated from a hypersaline lake in Inner Mongolia, China
    (BioMed Central, 2007) Pagaling, Eulyn; Haigh, Richard D.; Grant, William D.; Cowan, Donald A.; Jones, Brian; Ma, Yanhe; Ventosa, Antonio; Heaphy, Shaun
    Background: We are profoundly ignorant about the diversity of viruses that infect the domain Archaea. Less than 100 have been identified and described and very few of these have had their genomic sequences determined. Here we report the genomic sequence of a previously undescribed archaeal virus. Results: Haloarchaeal strains with 16S rRNA gene sequences 98% identical to Halorubrum saccharovorum were isolated from a hypersaline lake in Inner Mongolia. Two lytic viruses infecting these were isolated from the lake water. The BJ1 virus is described in this paper. It has an icosahedral head and tail morphology and most likely a linear double stranded DNA genome exhibiting terminal redundancy. Its genome sequence has 42,271 base pairs with a GC content of ~65 mol%. The genome of BJ1 is predicted to encode 70 ORFs, including one for a tRNA. Fifty of the seventy ORFs had no identity to data base entries; twenty showed sequence identity matches to archaeal viruses and to haloarchaea. ORFs possibly coding for an origin of replication complex, integrase, helicase and structural capsid proteins were identified. Evidence for viral integration was obtained. Conclusion: The virus described here has a very low sequence identity to any previously described virus. Fifty of the seventy ORFs could not be annotated in any way based on amino acid identities with sequences already present in the databases. Determining functions for ORFs such as these is probably easier using a simple virus as a model system.