Drawing on qualitative data from a longitudinal case study of a collaborative soil conservation initiative in southern Ecuador, we study how multiple actors, including university experts, development organizations and local communities, make sense of the issues from different perspectives through the process of issue framing. Starting from an analysis of the actors' usual issue frames, we point out their differences in selecting aspects, connecting them and drawing boundaries around the issues. Bringing in the time dimension leads us to consider how changing patterns of actor involvement and evolving frame configurations mutually influence each other. In a third step, we zoom in on the here-and-now level of ongoing interaction using discourse analysis, outlining an interactive, communicative and discursive approach to dealing with differences in issue framing. We identify various ways of dealing with these differences and argue that approaching them constructively by tuning the different frames into a mutually acceptable configuration is an important challenge for any attempt at integrated management of natural resources.

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SUMMARYIntegrated crop-livestock farming in the Guinea savanna of West Africa is often assumed to lead to synergies between crop and livestock production, thereby improving the overall productivity and resilience of agricultural production. Whether these synergies actually occur remains poorly studied. On-farm trials were conducted in northern Nigeria over a period of four years to assess the agronomic and economic performance of maize-legume systems with and without the integration of livestock (goats). Groundnutmaize rotations with livestock achieved the highest carry-over of nutrients as manure from one season to the next, covering approximately one-third of the expected N, P and K uptake by maize and reducing the demand for synthetic fertilizers. However, the advantage of lower fertilizer costs in rotations with livestock was offset by higher labour costs for manure application and slightly lower values of maize grain. Overall, no clear agronomic or economic benefits for crop production were observed from the combined application of manure and synthetic fertilizer over the application of synthetic fertilizer only, probably because the amounts of manure applied were relatively small. Legume-maize rotations achieved higher cereal yields, a better response to labour and fertilizer inputs, and a higher profitability than maize-based systems with no or only a small legume component, irrespective of the presence of livestock. Livestock at or near the farm could nevertheless make legume cultivation economically more attractive by increasing the value of legume haulms. The results suggested that factors other than crop benefits, e.g. livestock providing tangible and non-tangible benefits and opportunities for animal traction, could be important drivers for the ongoing integration of crop and livestock production in the savanna.

In a tsunami event human casualties and infrastructure damage are determined predominantly by seaquake intensity and offshore properties. On land, wave energy is attenuated by gravitation (elevation) and friction (land cover). Tree belts have been promoted as "bioshields" against wave impact. However, given the lack of quantitative evidence of their performance in such extreme events, tree belts have been criticized for creating a false sense of security. This study used 180 transects perpendicular to over 100 km on the west coast of Aceh, Indonesia to analyze the influence of coastal vegetation, particularly cultivated trees, on the impact of the 2004 tsunami. Satellite imagery; land cover maps; land use characteristics; stem diameter, height, and planting density; and a literature review were used to develop a land cover roughness coefficient accounting for the resistance offered by different land uses to the wave advance. Applying a spatial generalized linear mixed model, we found that while distance to coast was the dominant determinant of impact (casualties and infrastructure damage), the existing coastal vegetation in front of settlements also significantly reduced casualties by an average of 5%. In contrast, dense vegetation behind villages endangered human lives and increased structural damage. Debris carried by the backwash may have contributed to these dissimilar effects of land cover. For sustainable and effective coastal risk management, location of settlements is essential, while the protective potential of coastal vegetation, as determined by its spatial arrangement, should be regarded as an important livelihood provider rather than just as a bioshield. Indo-Australian and southeastern Eurasian tectonic plates 150 km off the coast of west Aceh, Indonesia, triggered one of the largest seismic events in the last four decades (1). The seaquake generated a tsunami with disastrous consequences in the region.Soon after the 2004 event, the possible effects of coastal vegetation regarding the impact caused by tsunamis (mitigating or aggravating) were researched into, especially under scenarios with initial water heights below 10 m (2-5). In Sri Lanka and India, coastal communities located behind tree cover were reported to be less affected than those directly exposed to the sea (2, 3, 6). Parameters such as stem diameter and height as well as a "bioshield" width were identified as key vegetation characteristics with a bearing on impact mitigation (6). However, several studies advocating bioshields have been criticized for lacking empirical evidence to support the protective function of vegetation, some even suggesting that bioshields may give a false sense of security to coastal populations (7-10). The role of vegetation in tsunami impact mitigation still remains a controversial issue (11-13). In the coastal regions of western Aceh in 2004, the potential for mitigating tsunami impacts appeared limited as a result of the massive energy released by waves with heights exceeding 20 m (13). Mangroves along this...