Search

Seasonal variations in temperature, rainfall and resource availability are ubiquitous and can exert strong pressures on population dynamics. Infectious diseases provide some of the best-studied examples of the role of seasonality in shaping population fluctuations. In this paper, we review examples from human and wildlife disease systems to illustrate the challenges inherent in understanding the mechanisms and impacts of seasonal environmental drivers. Empirical evidence points to several biologically distinct mechanisms by which seasonality can impact host–pathogen interactions, including seasonal changes in host social behaviour and contact rates, variation in encounters with infective stages in the environment, annual pulses of host births and deaths and changes in host immune defences. Mathematical models and field observations show that the strength and mechanisms of seasonality can alter the spread and persistence of infectious diseases, and that population-level responses can range from simple annual cycles to more complex multiyear fluctuations. From an applied perspective, understanding the timing and causes of seasonality offers important insights into how parasite–host systems operate, how and when parasite control measures should be applied, and how disease risks will respond to anthropogenic climate change and altered patterns of seasonality. Finally, by focusing on well-studied examples of infectious diseases, we hope to highlight general insights that are relevant to other ecological interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the account of political obligation given by cosmopolitans and concludes that this account, which depends on a weak or thin connection between members of common humanity, leaves a motivational vacuum at the heart of cosmopolitanism. An alternative view, according to which material ties that bind prompt obligations of justice in a globalising world, is offered. This is ‘thick cosmopolitanism’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For a number of years now, green social and political theory has made a habit of holding an environmental mirror up to mainstream theory and asking it to reflect on what it sees. Social justice, democracy, rights, freedom – and others – all look rather different when confronted with the descriptive and normative elements of an environmental frame of reference. Citizenship, as concept and practice, is a relative newcomer to this mutually enriching dance between mainstream and green theory, and this Environmental Politics Special Issue is one of the foundational statements in what will surely become a lengthy conversation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pathogens that can infect multiple host species will have different dynamics than pathogens that are restricted to a single species of host. This article examines the conditions for establishment and long-term population dynamic behavior of pathogens that infect multiple species of hosts. The article attempts to address three major questions in this area: First, under which conditions will increases in the diversity of host species buffer infectious disease outbreaks, and under which conditions will host diversity amplify disease outbreaks? Second, under what conditions is it possible to control an infectious agent by focusing control against only one host species? Third, what role does host species diversity play in maintaining pathogen persistence? The answers to these questions supply some important general insights into the role that biodiversity plays in buffering humans and other species against new and emerging pathogens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Many pathogens and parasites attack multiple host species, so their ability to invade a host community can depend on host community composition. We present a graphical isocline framework for studying disease establishment in systems with two host species, based on treating host species as resources. The isocline approach provides a natural generalization to multi-host systems of two related concepts in disease ecology – the basic reproductive rate of a parasite, and threshold host density. Qualitative isocline shape characterizes the threshold community configurations that permit parasite establishment. In general, isocline shape reflects the relative forces of inter- and intraspecific transmission of shared parasites. We discuss the qualitative implications of parasite isocline shape for issues of mounting concern in conservation ecology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We censused Lemur catta within a 1 km[sup 2] study area at Berenty Reserve, Madagascar, during the September–October birth season for 19 years between 1963 and 2000, a total of 290 troop counts (266 with age and sex). The non-infant population was 155 in 1972–5, fell to 105 in 1985, and rose to a maximum of 282 in 1997, while troops increased from 12 in 1972–1985 up to 25 in 1998–2000. Local density varies between habitat types from 1 per ha to ca. 6 per ha. Troops fission at ca. 15–25 individuals, or 6–10 females. Adult sex ratio has no apparent correlation with fissions, birth rate or survival. Birth rate falls steeply with number of adult females, from 80–100% in 2-female troops to about 50% in 8–10 female troops. The penalty for large troop size is greater in the dense, rich areas, but nonetheless troops there are also larger. One-year-survival does not vary with troop size, and is lower in the sparse, dry zone. Troop size is too large for optimal birth rate, but fissioning to much lower size might make troops too small for optimal adult survival, given the intense intertroop competition. This reflects Sibley's (1983) conjecture that troop sizes may not reach stable optima. Rainfall per lemur-year (beginning Oct 1) varied from 265 to 894 mm. Drought followed by rain can eliminate >90% of a cohort, especially in the dryest zone. Possibly this results from fruit failure in years following drought. It is unknown whether food supplementation of some Berenty troops is dangerous for the forest, or helpful for an isolated and vulnerable ring-tailed lemur population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies the theory of environmental sustainability. Forms of `discursive'; Involvement of the belief in perfect substitutability; Summary of the results of the study conducted; Description of critical natural capital as capital in two senses; Distinction between capital and resources; Misleading concept of cornucopian technocentrism.

Looks at the correlation between the growth of civilization and the establishment of disease throughout human history. Microparasites versus macroparasites; The basic reproductive ratio; Thresholds for establishment of a disease; Early human populations; The first cities; Diseases in the New World; Europe from the 1500s; Vaccination; Infectious diseases in the 1990s.

Studies how climate change affects man's ability to control parasites and pathogens. Collaboration of different branches of medicine to understand the epidemiology that arises; Examination of the population dynamics of infectious diseases; Impact of habitat destruction and climate change.

Focuses on ecology and epidemiology of brucellosis in Yellowstone National Park. History of bison and brucellosis; Winter removals; Age-prevalence profiles; Relationship between population size and brucellosis serology.

An introduction to the theme issue that includes papers that identify how, where and why infectious diseases in wildlife emerge, while also addressing their possible conservation impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hunting is a primary driver of biodiversity loss across South-east Asia. Within Cambodia, the use of wire snares to capture wildlife is a severe threat in protected areas but there have been few studies of the behaviour of hunters from local communities. Here, we combine the unmatched count technique with direct questioning to estimate the prevalence of hunting behaviours and wildlife consumption amongst 705 households living within Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary, Cambodia. We assessed respondents' knowledge of rules, and their perceptions of patrols responsible for enforcing rules. Estimates of hunting behaviour were variable: results from the unmatched count technique were inconclusive, and direct questioning revealed 9% of households hunted, and 20% set snares around farms to prevent wildlife eating crops. Hunting with domestic dogs was the method most commonly used to catch wildlife (87% of households owned dogs). Wild meat was consumed by 84% of households, and was most frequently bought or caught, but also gifted. We detected a high awareness of conservation rules, but low awareness of punishments and penalties, with wildlife depletion, rather than the risk of being caught by patrols, causing the greatest reduction in hunting. Our findings demonstrate the challenges associated with reliably estimating rule-breaking behaviour and highlight the need to incorporate careful triangulation into study design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2012, the World Health Organization (WHO) set the elimination of Chagas disease intradomiciliary vectorial transmission as a goal by 2020. After a decade, some progress has been made, but the new 2021–2030 WHO roadmap has set even more ambitious targets. Innovative and robust modelling methods are required to monitor progress towards these goals. We present a modelling pipeline using local seroprevalence data to obtain national disease burden estimates by disease stage. Firstly, local seroprevalence information is used to estimate spatio-temporal trends in the Force-of-Infection (FoI). FoI estimates are then used to predict such trends across larger and fine-scale geographical areas. Finally, predicted FoI values are used to estimate disease burden based on a disease progression model. Using Colombia as a case study, we estimated that the number of infected people would reach 506 000 (95% credible interval (CrI) = 395 000–648 000) in 2020 with a 1.0% (95%CrI = 0.8–1.3%) prevalence in the general population and 2400 (95%CrI = 1900–3400) deaths (approx. 0.5% of those infected). The interplay between a decrease in infection exposure (FoI and relative proportion of acute cases) was overcompensated by a large increase in population size and gradual population ageing, leading to an increase in the absolute number of Chagas disease cases over time. This article is part of the theme issue 'Challenges and opportunities in the fight against neglected tropical diseases: a decade from the London Declaration on NTDs'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This could then be combined with reforms to risk assessments that incorporate the valuation of spillover and loss of forest-associated health co-benefits for forest conversion agricultural proposals (IPBES, 2020). Spillover of novel pathogens from wildlife to people, such as the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, is increasing and this trend is most strongly associated with tropical deforestation driven by agricultural expansion. COVID-Clarity demands unification of health and environmental policy. [Extracted from the article]

Subsistence hunting presents a conservation challenge by which biodiversity preservation must be balanced with safeguarding of human livelihoods. Globally, subsistence hunting threatens primate populations, including Madagascar's endemic lemurs. We used population viability analysis to assess the sustainability of lemur hunting in Makira Natural Park, Madagascar. We identified trends in seasonal hunting of 11 Makira lemur species from household interview data, estimated local lemur densities in populations adjacent to focal villages via transect surveys, and quantified extinction vulnerability for these populations based on species‐specific demographic parameters and empirically derived hunting rates. We compared stage‐based Lefkovitch with periodic Leslie matrices to evaluate the impact of regional dispersal on persistence trajectories and explored the consequences of perturbations to the timing of peak hunting relative to the lemur birth pulse, under assumptions of density‐dependent reproductive compensation. Lemur hunting peaked during the fruit‐abundant wet season (March–June). Estimated local lemur densities were roughly inverse to body size across our study area. Life‐history modeling indicated that hunting most severely threatened the species with the largest bodies (i.e., Hapalemur occidentalis, Avahi laniger, Daubentonia madagascariensis, and Indri indi), characterized by late‐age reproductive onsets and long interbirth intervals. In model simulations, lemur dispersal within a regional metapopulation buffered extinction threats when a majority of local sites supported growth rates above the replacement level but drove regional extirpations when most local sites were overharvested. Hunt simulations were most detrimental when timed to overlap lemur births (a reality for D. madagascariensis and I. indri). In sum, Makira lemurs were overharvested. Regional extirpations, which may contribute to broad‐scale extinctions, will be likely if current hunting rates persist. Cessation of anthropogenic lemur harvest is a conservation priority, and development programs are needed to help communities switch from wildlife consumption to domestic protein alternatives. Article impact statement: Lemur hunting will yield regional extirpations if continued unabated; domestic proteins are needed to mitigate human reliance on wild food. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concentrated monoclonal antibody (mAb) solutions can lead to high viscosity as a result of protein-protein interactions and pose challenges for manufacture. Dipicolinic acid (DPA, pyridine-2,6-dicarboxylic acid) is a potential excipient for reduction of protein solution viscosity and here we describe new DPA salts with improved aqueous solubility. Crystallinity and solubility screens identified ethanolamine and diethanolamine as two promising counterions which generated crystalline, high melting point, anhydrous salt forms of DPA at 2:1 M stoichiometry. These salts significantly reduced the solution viscosity of five mAbs, equal to or better than that for the addition of arginine hydrochloride at equivalent osmolality. The presence of the DPA salts in solution did not significantly perturb the melting point of the mAbs, as determined by calorimetry, indicating an absence of any destabilization of protein conformation. Addition of the DPA salts to the mAb solutions stored at 5 °C over 6 months did not cause additional loss of the monomer fraction, though evidence of increased aggregation and fragmentation for three of the five mAbs was observed during 40 °C (accelerated and stressed) storage. Overall, this study demonstrates that ethanolamine-DPA and diethanolamine-DPA can serve as two novel excipients for viscosity reduction and could be considered by formulation scientists when developing highly concentrated mAb formulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article the authors discuss the negative implications of the proposed construction of a two-lane road at the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. They note that the construction of the road will lead to the migration of wildebeest. They elaborate that the road will also boost grass fires and reduce grazing quality of minerals. They also suggest an alternative road to the southern part of the park for the good of the environment.

In this article, the authors reflect on the article by K. P. Paaijmans and colleagues concerning the effects of climate change on malaria risk. They indicate the authors' findings that diurnal fluctuations in temperature can modify the external incubation period of the parasite, in relation to estimates based on the coarser temporal resolution of daily mean temperature. They emphasize that the authors' work underlines the need to understand malaria biology and its interaction with climate.

This article informs that three species of horseshoe bats have now been officially recorded as the natural reservoir host of the coronavirus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome. A key step in determining the threat imposed by new pathogens is identifying the route along which they are transmitted from their reservoir to new hosts such as domestic livestock or humans. In the case of pathogens that use bats as reservoirs, a common route seems likely. Bats' feeding habits are constrained by the aerodynamics of flight, so they can not ingest huge amounts of food. Yet many bats are frugivorous, that is, they meet their energy requirements by ingesting fruits. The animal pens of the pig farms where the Nipah virus outbreak in Malaysia was first reported were littered with partially digested fruits that were regurgitated from bats. Similar observations were reported at the site of the Hendra virus outbreak in Queensland, Australia. In Bangladesh, the Nipah virus has been shown to be transmitted directly from bats to humans. There, during the fruiting season, young boys climb trees to pick fruit.

Presents information on developments related to the journal "Environmental Politics" as of September 2005. Style of the journal; Emphasis of the concentration of the journal on the environmental politics of the industrialized world; Consequence of the increase in the number of articles submitted to the journal.

Focuses on the 10th anniversary issue of the 'Environmental Politics' journal.

Summary Road construction is now common through wilderness and protected areas in tropical and subtropical countries with adverse consequences for their high native biodiversity. Here, we summarize the scope of the problem and advance specific compromise solutions that reconcile development with conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A letter to the editor is presented in response to comments made on the article "Bats are Natural Reservoirs of SARS-Like Coronaviruses" by W. Li and others, published in the October 28, 2005, issue of the "News Focus."

Presents a letter to the editor related to Dow Jones Shares.

We know much about pathogen evolution and the emergence of new disease strains, but less about host resistance and how it is signaled to other individuals and subsequently maintained. The cline in frequency of black-coated wolves (Canis lupus) across North America is hypothesized to result from a relationship with canine distemper virus (CDV) outbreaks. We tested this hypothesis using cross-sectional data from wolf populations across North America that vary in the prevalence of CDV and the allele that makes coats black, longitudinal data from Yellowstone National Park, and modeling. We found that the frequency of CDV outbreaks generates fluctuating selection that results in heterozygote advantage that in turn affects the frequency of the black allele, optimal mating behavior, and black wolf cline across the continent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several caribou (Rangifer tarandus) populations have been declining concurrently with increases in infectious diseases in the Arctic. Erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae, a zoonotic bacterium, was first described in 2015 as a notable cause of illness and death among several Arctic wildlife species. We investigated epidemiologic and environmental factors associated with the seroprevalence of E. rhusiopathiae in the Arctic and found that seropositivity was highest during warmer months, peaking in September, and was highest among adult males. Summer seroprevalence increases tracked with the oestrid index from the previous year, icing and snowing events, and precipitation from the same year but decreased with growing degree days in the same year. Seroprevalence of E. rhusiopathiae varied more during the later years of the study. Our findings provide key insights into the influence of environmental factors on disease prevalence that can be instrumental for anticipating and mitigating diseases associated with climate change among Arctic wildlife and human populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ranger‐led law enforcement patrols are the primary, site‐level response to – and the most common source of data on – illegal activity threatening wildlife in protected areas. Yet evidence that patrols effectively deter rule‐breaking is limited, and common management metrics for evaluating deterrence, which use ranger‐collected data, are particularly vulnerable to bias. "Differenced plots" (of the association between change in patrol effort and subsequent change in illegal activity) were recently proposed as a simple, new metric for deterrence, which, in tests with simulated patrol data, were more robust than the common alternatives. Here, we trial application of differenced plots to real patrol data collected in four protected areas, and explore methods for applying the metric in practice, using two indicators of rule‐breaking: snares, and people. We find evidence which is consistent with deterrence in some but not all sites, over shorter timescales than observed hitherto: increases in patrol effort were associated with subsequent reductions in snaring in one site, and in the presence of people in two sites. However, whether pressure on wildlife had been reduced or merely displaced was unclear from differenced plots, nor could the metric confirm absence of deterrence, raising questions for future applications. Our findings suggest differenced plots can be a useful metric, particularly for exploring variation in deterrence within sites, but should be applied and interpreted with care, and further work is urgently needed to determine whether and how patrols deter illegal activity, and to evaluate the effect reliably. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the Joint Monitoring Program (JMP) as an example which can inform efforts to monitor the range of targets set by the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 in 2017. The JMP has enabled comparable data on sanitation services and drinking water services globally, building on interagency collaboration headed by the World Health Organization and UNICEF.

Background: Chagas disease is a long-lasting disease with a prolonged asymptomatic period. Cumulative indices of infection such as prevalence do not shed light on the current epidemiological situation, as they integrate infection over long periods. Instead, metrics such as the Force-of-Infection (FoI) provide information about the rate at which susceptible people become infected and permit sharper inference about temporal changes in infection rates. FoI is estimated by fitting (catalytic) models to available age-stratified serological (ground-truth) data. Predictive FoI modelling frameworks are then used to understand spatial and temporal trends indicative of heterogeneity in transmission and changes effected by control interventions. Ideally, these frameworks should be able to propagate uncertainty and handle spatiotemporal issues. Methodology/principal findings: We compare three methods in their ability to propagate uncertainty and provide reliable estimates of FoI for Chagas disease in Colombia as a case study: two Machine Learning (ML) methods (Boosted Regression Trees (BRT) and Random Forest (RF)), and a Linear Model (LM) framework that we had developed previously. Our analyses show consistent results between the three modelling methods under scrutiny. The predictors (explanatory variables) selected, as well as the location of the most uncertain FoI values, were coherent across frameworks. RF was faster than BRT and LM, and provided estimates with fewer extreme values when extrapolating to areas where no ground-truth data were available. However, BRT and RF were less efficient at propagating uncertainty. Conclusions/significance: The choice of FoI predictive models will depend on the objectives of the analysis. ML methods will help characterise the mean behaviour of the estimates, while LM will provide insight into the uncertainty surrounding such estimates. Our approach can be extended to the modelling of FoI patterns in other Chagas disease-endemic countries and to other infectious diseases for which serosurveys are regularly conducted for surveillance. Author summary: Metrics such as the per susceptible rate of infection acquisition (Force-of-Infection) are crucial to understand the current epidemiological situation and the impact of control interventions for long-lasting diseases in which the infection event might have occurred many years previously, such as Chagas disease. FoI values are estimated from serological age profiles, often obtained in a few locations. However, when using predictive models to estimate the FoI over time and space (including areas where serosurveys had not been conducted), methods able to handle and propagate uncertainty must be implemented; otherwise, overconfident predictions may be obtained. Although Machine Learning (ML) methods are powerful tools, they may not be able to entirely handle this challenge. Therefore, the use of ML must be considered in relation to the aims of the analyses. ML will be more relevant to characterise the central trends of the estimates while Linear Models will help identify areas where further serosurveys should be conducted to improve the reliability of the predictions. Our approaches can be used to generate FoI predictions in other Chagas disease-endemic countries as well as in other diseases for which serological surveillance data are collected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current perception that climate change is the principal threat to biodiversity is at best premature. Although highly relevant, it detracts focus and effort from the primary threats: habitat destruction and overexploitation. We collated causes of vertebrate extinctions since 1900, threat information for amphibia, birds, and mammals from the IUCN Red List, and scrutinized others' attempts to compare climate change with commensurate anthropogenic threats. In each analysis, none of the arguments founded on climate change's wide‐ranging effects are as urgent for biodiversity as those for habitat loss and overexploitation. Present conservation efforts must refocus on these issues. Conserving ecosystems by focusing on these major threats not only protects biodiversity but is the only available, economically viable, global strategy to reverse climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore pathogen virulence evolution during the spatial expansion of an infectious disease epidemic in the presence of a novel host movement trade-off, using a simple, spatially explicit mathematical model. This work is motivated by empirical observations of the Mycoplasma gallisepticum invasion into North American house finch (Haemorhous mexicanus) populations; however, our results likely have important applications to other emerging infectious diseases in mobile hosts. We assume that infection reduces host movement and survival and that across pathogen strains the severity of these reductions increases with pathogen infectiousness. Assuming these trade-offs between pathogen virulence (host mortality), pathogen transmission, and host movement, we find that pathogen virulence levels near the epidemic front (that maximize wave speed) are lower than those that have a short-term growth rate advantage or that ultimately prevail (i.e., are evolutionarily stable) near the epicenter and where infection becomes endemic (i.e., that maximize the pathogen basic reproductive ratio). We predict that, under these trade-offs, less virulent pathogen strains will dominate the periphery of an epidemic and that more virulent strains will increase in frequency after invasion where disease is endemic. These results have important implications for observing and interpreting spatiotemporal epidemic data and may help explain transient virulence dynamics of emerging infectious diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We captured, ectoparasite-combed, and blood-sampled cave-roosting Madagascan fruit bats (Eidolon dupreanum) and tree-roosting Madagascan flying foxes (Pteropus rufus) in four single-species roosts within a sympatric geographic foraging range for these species in central Madagascar. We describe infection with novel Bartonella spp. in sampled Eidolon dupreanum and associated bat flies (Cyclopodia dubia), which nest close to or within major known Bartonella lineages; simultaneously, we report the absence of Bartonella spp. in Thaumapsylla sp. fleas collected from these same bats. This represents the first documented finding of Bartonella infection in these species of bat and bat fly, as well as a new geographic record for Thaumapsylla sp. We further relate the absence of both Bartonella spp. and ectoparasites in sympatrically sampled Pteropus rufus, thus suggestive of a potential role for bat flies in Bartonella spp. transmission. These findings shed light on transmission ecology of bat-borne Bartonella spp., recently demonstrated as a potentially zoonotic pathogen. Author Summary: Bartonella spp. are bacteria that inhabit the red blood cells of both human and animal hosts. Among humans, Bartonella spp. are known to cause several febrile illnesses, including Carrion's disease (Bartonella bacilliformis), trench fever (Bartonella quintana), and cat scratch fever (Bartonella henselae), all of which are transmitted via arthropod vectors—respectively sand flies, lice, and fleas. Bats are known to host multiple Bartonella spp., including some capable of infecting humans. Some bat species are also known to host obligate ectoparasites known as bat flies (Diptera: Hippoboscoidea), which also sometimes support Bartonella spp. infections. The role of bat flies and other bat ectoparasites as vectors for Bartonella spp. transmission has been suggested, but not fully explored. We demonstrate Bartonella spp. infection in one species of Madagascar fruit bat, which hosts bat flies, simultaneously with the absence of Bartonella in a fruit bat species of overlapping range that appears not to support these ectoparasites. In light of ongoing trends of zoonotic emergence of human diseases from bat reservoirs, further understanding of the transmission dynamics of bat-borne pathogens is paramount. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We captured, ectoparasite-combed, and blood-sampled cave-roosting Madagascan fruit bats (Eidolon dupreanum) and tree-roosting Madagascan flying foxes (Pteropus rufus) in four single-species roosts within a sympatric geographic foraging range for these species in central Madagascar. We describe infection with novel Bartonella spp. in sampled Eidolon dupreanum and associated bat flies (Cyclopodia dubia), which nest close to or within major known Bartonella lineages; simultaneously, we report the absence of Bartonella spp. in Thaumapsylla sp. fleas collected from these same bats. This represents the first documented finding of Bartonella infection in these species of bat and bat fly, as well as a new geographic record for Thaumapsylla sp. We further relate the absence of both Bartonella spp. and ectoparasites in sympatrically sampled Pteropus rufus, thus suggestive of a potential role for bat flies in Bartonella spp. transmission. These findings shed light on transmission ecology of bat-borne Bartonella spp., recently demonstrated as a potentially zoonotic pathogen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper challenges “Big Society (BS) Localism”, seeing it as an example of impoverished localist thinking which neglects social justice considerations. We do this through a critical examination of recent turns in the localist discourse in the UK which emphasise self-reliant communities and envisage a diminished role for the state. We establish a heuristic distinction between positive and negative approaches to localism. We argue that the Coalition Government's BS programme fits with a negative localist frame as it starts from an ideological assumption that the state acts as a barrier to community-level associational activity and that it should play a minimal role. “BS localism” (as we call it) has been influential over the making of social policy, but it also has implications for the achievement of environmental goals. We argue that this latest incarnation of localism is largely ineffective in solving problems requiring collective action because it neglects the important role that inequalities play in inhibiting the development of associational society. Drawing upon preliminary research being undertaken at the community scale, we argue that staking environmental policy success on the ability of local civil society to fill the gap left after state retrenchment runs the risk of no activity at all. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]