Initially portrayed as the “great equalizer,” the COVID-19 pandemic has proved anything but. This essay recounts the sobering social disparities and vulnerabilities that the pandemic has exposed, especially when it comes to the inequalities that are baked into existing membership regimes, before turning to narratives of hope and democratic renewal. My discussion shines a spotlight on the relationship between borders, (im)mobility, and struggles for recognition and inclusion that have long been central to the practice of citizenship. Focusing on pathways to the acquisition of full membership status for those who are currently denied it, I will deploy logics and policies that have already begun to take shape in different parts of the world, with the goal of amplifying their effects and multiplying their scale. I identify three possible trajectories for postpandemic recovery, two of which offer ways to enhance equality of status and public standing by enlarging the circle of membership: first, through contribution (or what I will term “jus contribuere”), and second, by highlighting what we might call “solidarity in place.” The third reaction, which we might call the “stratification of membership,” pulls in the opposite direction by sharply redrawing the lines—legal, economic, social—that have distinguished insiders from outsiders, and exacerbated patterns of stratification and inequality of status and opportunity that predate the pandemic.

Litter decomposition plays an important role in the carbon cycle and is affected by many factors in forest ecosystems. This study aimed to quantify the rhizosphere priming effect on litter decomposition in subtropical forest southwestern China. A litter decomposition experiment including control and trenching treatments was conducted using the litter bag method, and the litter decomposition rate was calculated by litter dry mass loss. Trenching did not change soil temperature, but increased the soil water content by 14.5%. In this study, the interaction of soil temperature and soil water content controlled the litter decomposition rate, and explained 87.4 and 85.5% of the variation in litter decomposition in the control and trenching treatments, respectively. Considering changes in soil environmental factors due to trenching, the litter decomposition rates were corrected by regression models. After correction, the litter decomposition rates of the control and trenching treatments were 32.47 ± 3.15 and 25.71 ± 2.72% year–1, respectively, in the 2-year period. Rhizosphere activity significantly primed litter decomposition by 26.3%. Our study suggested a priming effect of rhizosphere activity on litter decomposition in the subtropical forest. Combining previous interaction effect results, we estimated the contributions of total soil organic matter (SOM) decomposition, total litter decomposition, and root respiration to soil respiration in the subtropical forest, and our new method of estimating the components of soil respiration provided basic theory for SOM decomposition research.

The 70th anniversary of the adoption of the Geneva Conventions on 12 August 1949 provided an opportunity for reflection on international humanitarian law (IHL). This article continues that reflection and presents some fresh scholarship about and from the Asia-Pacific region. The region's plurality leads to a complex and diverse landscape where there is no single “Asia-Pacific perspective on IHL” but there are instead many approaches and trajectories. This fragmented reality is, however, not a mess of incoherence and contradiction. In the following pages, the author argues for and justifies the following assessments. The first is that the norm of humanity in armed conflict, which underpins IHL, has deep roots in the region. This, to some extent, explains why there is no conceptual resistance to IHL, in the way that exists with the human rights doctrine. The second is that there has been meaningful participation of certain States from the region in IHL law-making. Thirdly, some Asia-Pacific States are among those actively contributing to the development of new or emerging areas relevant to IHL, such as outer space, cyberspace and the protection of the environment in armed conflict. This leads to the unavoidable issue of contradiction. How is it that in a region where such findings can be made (i.e., where there is discernible positivity towards the norm of humanity in armed conflict), there are so many armed conflicts with very serious IHL violations emerging? Should we reflect in a more nuanced way on “norm internalization” and “root causes”? These issues will be considered in the second section of the article. This examination leads to a third and final section, a concluding reflection on what all of this reveals about IHL in the Asia-Pacific. The real challenge for progressive humanitarianism, the author contends, is to traverse disciplines and to build on work done in, on and from the region in order to develop more informed and nuanced approaches to understanding the countries and societies of the region, moving on to study the process of norm internalization, and then developing creative and meaningful strategies for strengthening the links between that internalization, actual conduct on the ground, and norm socialization in the wider community.

The National Visitor Use Monitoring (NVUM) program data underlies estimates of the volume of recreation use of the National Forest System. The data also enable estimation of both the local economic contributions and nonmarket benefits of that visitation. Applications include evaluating the effects of natural disasters, site characteristics, and climate change, as well as expenditure and benefit transfers. This article describes the history and science background of the NVUM program, outlines the methods used in estimating market and nonmarket economic outcomes, and lists some examples of results found in the literature.

This article presents the results of a qualitative study on the contributions made by volunteers from a volunteer community organization to the home care of older adults living in a rural setting. In this study, the volunteer was considered as part of a social care system made up of a number of groups (the elderly themselves, those close to them, professional health providers, and volunteers). Results show that the lines delimiting the responsibilities of these various groups are neither clear nor precise. The place of the volunteer must take into account the nature of the participation of the other groups. How far the services offered by volunteers are used depends upon the characteristics that define their contributions and on the type of relationship they develop with a given older adult.