Natural Resources and the Environment, CSIR, PO Box 320, Stellenbosch 7599, South Africa.
J Environ Manage. 2012 May 30;99:76-83. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2012.01.014. Epub 2012 Feb 9.
Invasive alien plants (IAPs) impose significant social costs on the population of the Agulhas Plain region in South Africa due to their adverse impacts on ecosystem goods and services (decreased water supply and increased fire risk). While the cost of clearing IAPs is considerable, this paper assesses opportunities to reduce some of the social and environmental burdens (e.g. disruptions of ecosystems which have negative impacts on livelihoods) by using IAP biomass to produce bio-energy. However, such an initiative could increase financial dependency on these plants and is thus considered to be a major risk factor which could create adverse incentives to illegally grow these plants. A participatory decision-making process with active stakeholder participation is a key element in managing such an initiative. We used a multi-stakeholder engagement process and the analytical hierarchy process to define and weigh suitable criteria for the assessment of different "IAP biomass to bio-energy" technology scenarios on the Agulhas Plain. Feasible scenarios were constructed by means of an expert panel which were then ranked according to stakeholder preference. The six criteria were: minimising impacts on natural resources; job creation; certainty of benefits to local people in the study area; development of skills for life; technology performance and cost efficiency. This ranking was largely determined by the preference for resource efficiency in terms of minimising impacts on natural ecosystems and the localisation of benefits. The smaller, modular technologies were consequently preferred since these realise direct local benefits while developing local skills and capacity in their manufacture, sales and maintenance. The rankings as obtained in this study are context-bound, which implies that the findings only have limited application to areas with similar biophysical and socio-economic characteristics. However, the method itself is fully generalisable, and the same prioritisation process can be followed in any study area to ensure that a participatory decision-making process fulfils local energy needs and contributes to sustainable development.
入侵外来植物（IAP）对南非阿古拉斯平原地区的人口造成了重大的社会成本，因为它们对生态系统商品和服务（减少供水和增加火灾风险）产生了不利影响。虽然清除 IAP 的成本相当可观，但本文评估了通过利用 IAP 生物质来生产生物能源，减少一些社会和环境负担（例如，破坏对生计产生负面影响的生态系统）的机会。然而，这样的举措可能会增加对这些植物的财务依赖，因此被认为是一个主要的风险因素，可能会对非法种植这些植物产生不利的激励。一个具有积极利益相关者参与的参与式决策过程是管理此类举措的关键要素。我们使用多利益相关者参与过程和层次分析法来定义和权衡评估阿古拉斯平原不同“IAP 生物质到生物能源”技术方案的合适标准。通过专家小组构建了可行的方案，然后根据利益相关者的偏好对其进行排名。六个标准是：最大限度地减少对自然资源的影响；创造就业机会；确保研究区域当地人民受益；发展终身技能；技术性能和成本效益。这种排名主要取决于资源效率的偏好，即最大限度地减少对自然生态系统的影响和利益的本地化。因此，较小的模块化技术更受欢迎，因为这些技术在开发其制造、销售和维护的本地技能和能力的同时，直接实现了本地利益。本研究中的排名是有上下文限制的，这意味着这些发现仅对具有类似生物物理和社会经济特征的地区具有有限的应用。然而，该方法本身是完全普遍适用的，可以在任何研究区域遵循相同的优先级排序过程，以确保参与式决策过程满足当地的能源需求并促进可持续发展。
