RESUMO
For those concerned with the future of forests, the COVID-19 pandemic has simultaneously offered cause for great concern, and renewed hope. On one hand, the pandemic is occurring at a time when forests are already under unprecedented pressures from climate change, amplifying concerns about unsustainable forest extraction in the name of economic recovery. On the other hand, however, the crisis has helped to gather momentum around the notion of a "green recovery," including setting aside additional land for forest conservation. Drawing insights from past and ongoing research in India, we highlight an issue that exemplifies the tension between these two poles: the role of forests as social safety nets for rural communities in developing countries. It is well established that forests can provide critical resources for rural livelihoods, especially in times of crisis, and preliminary reports suggest that these resources have become even more important in the context of India's COVID lockdowns, and mass return migration from urban to rural areas. As the second wave of the pandemic continues to unfold in India, we highlight some key research priorities, including: 1) understanding how and to what extent forest-dependent communities and industries are changing their use of wood- and non-wood resources in the context of return migration and economic stress; 2) tracking shifts in forest cover, structure, and composition that may result from increased extractive pressures; 3) assessing the role of institutions, whether local, national, or international, in mediating these outcomes. Drawing on these observations, we suggest some key principles for integrating forest-based livelihoods into "green recovery," founded on principles that articulate forests as complex and integrated social-ecological systems, prioritize equity, and build on past learnings of community-based forest management.
RESUMO
Countries around the world have undertaken a wide range of strategies to halt the spread of COVID-19 and control the economic fallout left in its wake. Rural areas of developing countries pose particular difficulties for developing and implementing effective responses owing to underdeveloped health infrastructure, uneven state capacity for infection control, and endemic poverty. This paper makes the case for the critical role of local governance in coordinating pandemic response by examining how state authorities are attempting to bridge the gap between the need for rapid, vigorous response to the pandemic and local realities in three Indian states - Rajasthan, Odisha, and Kerala. Through a combination of interviews with mid and low-level bureaucrats and a review of policy documents, we show how the urgency of COVID-19 response has galvanized new kinds of cross-sectoral and multi-scalar interaction between administrative units involved in coordinating responses, as local governments have assumed central responsibility in the implementation of disease control and social security mechanisms. Evidence from Kerala in particular suggests that the state's long term investment in democratic local government and arrangements for incorporating women within grassroots state functions (through its Kudumbashree program) has built a high degree of public trust and cooperation with state actors, while local authorities embrace an ethic of care in the implementation of state responses. These observations, from the early months of the pandemic in South Asia, can serve as a foundation for future studies of how existing institutional arrangements and their histories pattern the long-term success of disease control and livelihood support as the pandemic proceeds. Governance, we argue, will be as important to understanding the trajectory of COVID-19 impacts and recovery as biology, demography, and economy.
RESUMO
The authors of this article examine reasons for missed appointments and preferences for appointment reminders among inner city obstetrics and gynecology clinic patients having a high missed-appointment rate. Sixty low-income women, including African Americans, Caucasians, and members of other ethnic groups, with a mean age of 27 years, were interviewed by telephone. The most frequently cited reason for missed appointments was forgetfulness. Almost all study participants indicated that they would like a text message reminder of upcoming appointments along with telephone and/or postal letter reminders. In this article the authors review the literature addressing both missed appointments and trends in mobile technologies, report their study of missed appointments, and conclude that text messaging appointment reminders can decrease missed appointments among young, low-income women.
