Janet Rojas Martínez (p), Jorge Alfredo, Carballo Concepción

Elena Preda

Social capital has become an approach that has gained importance in the generation of value and knowledge exchange. Tourism enterprises, as well as the territorial dimension, have acquired great relevance to understand processes linked to development, as dynamic agents of local economies and living conditions; based on complex and heterogeneous networks that characterize and distinguish the different territorial instances. Entrepreneurship and social capital have a bidirectional relationship. On the one hand, entrepreneurial activity can contribute to the generation of social capital; and, on the other hand, social capital can favor the consolidation and development of ventures. For this, social relationships and networks are fundamental elements, and are sustained by territorial substrata that configure and reconfigure socio-economic dynamics; hence it is argued that a territorial context will be richer to the extent that its individuals and groups have relationships of greater or lesser scope and intensity.
In recent decades, entrepreneurship in the tourism sector has become the main activity of the local economy in some inland areas of Spain, and in others it has been incorporated and coexists alongside other traditional activities. From the academic point of view, studies on social capital, tourism entrepreneurship and territory have increased, but there are still insufficient studies that address these three aspects in an integrated manner; and to a lesser extent, those that generate cartographic outputs (maps) on social capital linked to tourism entrepreneurship in rural areas. In this sense, the research addresses the influence of social capital in the management of tourism enterprises in the Els Ports region, province of Castellón, Spain, from a territorial perspective.
The results show that there is a significant relationship between the stock of social capital and the development of tourism enterprises in the study area, conditioned by the existing territorial dynamics, which make individual, collective and/or institutional relationships, strengthen and enable cooperation between different actors. To this end, the analysis from a territorial perspective provides tools that allow the study of social capital and tourism entrepreneurship in a more holistic way, through the study of its territorial components. The results of the research aim to contribute to the generation of new knowledge, which will favor decision making, tourism management, as well as the implementation and evaluation of more accurate development plans and strategies.

Mamoru Fujita (p), Eiji Ohno, Ryuta Mori, Shin Sugiura, Masafumi Morisugi

Janet Rojas Martínez

In many local communities in Japan, environmental clean-up activities are held on embankments and in public parks, using the voluntary time of local resident. Usually, fallen leaves and mowed grass are gathered and taken to an incineration facility by a waste management company, where they are incinerated. However, this process comes with several issues. Firstly, there are costs associated with transportation and incineration of the waste, and secondly, carbon dioxide is emitted during the incineration process. Lastly, there is also a limit on the amount of waste that can be accepted at the incineration facility. If collected fallen leaves and mowed grass are simply dumped on the grand, the costs of transport and incineration are reduced. However, bacteria and micro-organisms in the ground decompose and ferment them to produce methane, which is released directly into the atmosphere. Methane is considered having a greenhouse effect much higher than carbon dioxide.
On the other hand, methane is the main component of natural gas, and it is also known to generate energy from burning methane. The method of power generation using methane (gas) produced from biological resources (biomass) is called “Biogas” power generation. Biogas power generation uses biological resources that have grown by absorbing carbon dioxide, so the carbon dioxide produced by the burning process is assumed not to increase substantially because it was originally contained in the atmosphere. Therefore, the shift from fossil fuel-based power generation to biogas power generation will play an important role in an eco-friendly energy policy.
However, there is a limit to the supply of biomass fuels, and there is an urgent requirement for the establishment of an efficient system for the collection and supply of biomass fuels. In addition, it is known that power generation projects using biomass fuels are high-cost to install and maintain. Therefore, to overcome these challenges, cooperation with local communities and public support are required. This study focuses on environmental clean-up activities held in local communities in Japan, we propose a power generation project using the fallen leaves and mowed grass obtained from these activities as biomass fuel. Then, we discuss the feasibility of the project from the viewpoint of awareness of participation to the project among local resident, revitalization of local community and improvement of social welfare level through the participation of local resident, reduction of administrative expenditure and increase of social benefit by the project.

Mehmet Kucukmehmetoglu (p), Yasin Fahjan, Muhammed Ziya Paköz

Mamoru Fujita

This study methodologically identifies the strength and potency of geography to those who possess it. When combined with the size of countries’ economies and geographic strategic characteristics, countries’ rational benefit expectations from cooperative behaviour are identified via spatial cooperative games. The sources of coalition benefits are based on the multinational trade and the principles of scale and agglomeration economies of spatially cooperating countries. Game strategies and associated returns are generated and computed by a developed script. Later, an existence of core solution and economic returns from comprehensive coalition formations are optimally and rationally determined by using the prepared linear programming model. Besides, countries’ least expectations from grand coalition and their marginal effects to grand coalition are observed with/without country scenarios.

Elena Preda (p)

Mehmet Kucukmehmetoglu

A major challenge of the world today is to manage the natural resources needs on the one hand and the social and economic impact of unexpected extreme events. In this context, the resilience is a key characteristic of the socio-ecological systems. The understanding of the resilience concept and identification of the knowledge and skills needed for better managing the natural systems and forecasting the dangerous events are extremely important for a smooth governance of the societal transition and transformation at local and global level.
The resilience characterizes the capacity of a social-ecological system to cope with disturbances and stressors under a certain level such that the system remains within the same regime, maintaining its structure and functions. It describes the degree to which the system is capable of self-organization, learning and adaptation (Holling, 1973, Gunderson & Holling 2002, Walker et al. 2004, Resilience Alliance, 2023). In fact, the resilience is a property of the social-ecological systems, integrating both ecological and socio-economic systems. The humans play a double opposite role, respectively of added capacity to anticipate and adapt to disturbances and of agent that significantly contribute to disturbances, directly or indirectly.
In this general context, the aim of the paper is to identify the needs for specific knowledge covering and integrating all the above elements and skills that could help significantly in governing the society today. The education for sustainable development contains disciplines and approaches that could contribute to identification of the proper solutions for increasing the socio-ecological resilience. The paper presents a research-based perspective on the resilient communities’ governance.
The analysis focused on the curricula content of different higher education specializations and institutions and on the opinions of academic staff, students and public authorities related to the needed knowledge and skills. The questionnaire and the document analysis are the main methodological tools, followed by a proper interpretation of the qualitative and quantitative data.
Even if there are specialized disciplines or curricula with very good scientific content and approach, the interdisciplinary fields and communication are missing (totally or partially). Systems thinking and holistic understanding are the most appropriate approaches for developing the adaptive capacity of the communities for the actual and future societal transformations. The understanding of the strong relationship between humans or communities and natural systems is, in our opinion, the key for a sustainable development of the resilient socio-ecological systems.