Tourism and the IUCN World Parks Congress 2014
Every decade, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) convenes a World Parks Congress (WPC), in conjunction with the World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA). The sixth WP...
Tourism and protected areas: Comparing the 2003 and 2014 IUCN World Parks Congress
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature World Parks Congress is held once a decade, and brings together thousands of the world’s experts on protected areas. In 2014, the Sydney World Parks Congress and the parallel event, Global Eco, provided a platform for 125 presentations relating to tourism and visitation. This paper presents a synthesis of the body of work shared at Sydney, including some of the cutting-edge issues, best practices, and inspiring initiatives relating to sustainable tourism. In particular, it compares issues that were highlighted at the 2003 World Parks Congress, and how they have evolved and progressed over the past decade. The paper highlights the role of different stakeholders from different corners of the world in promoting sustainable tourism practices. It also considers the relevance of tourism to the themes of the World Parks Congress, and how the sector is reflected within the official records of the 2003 and 2014 World Parks Congress. Looking forward to the next 10 years, the paper reflects on specific challenges, gaps in knowledge, and areas for further research and outreach.
Design and Development of an In Vitro Tear Replenishment System
Understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms of the corneal tissue and translating them into effective therapies requires organotypic culture systems that can better model the physiological conditions of the front of the eye. Human corneal in vitro models currently exist, however, the lack of tear replenishment limits corneal in vitro models’ ability to accurately simulate the physiological environment of the human cornea. The tear replenishment system (TRS), a micro-fluidic device, was developed to mimic the in vivo tear replenishment in the human eye in an in vitro corneal model. The TRS is capable of generating adjustable intermittent flow from 0.1 µL in every cycle. The TRS is a sterilizable device that is designed to fit standard 6-well cell culture plates. Experiments with the corneal models demonstrated that exposure to the TRS did not damage the integrity of the stratified cell culture. Contact lenses “worn” by the in vitro corneal model also remained moist at all times and the cytotoxicity of BAK could also be verified using this model. These in vitro results confirmed that the TRS presents novel avenues to assess lens-solution biocompatibility and drug delivery systems in a physiologically relevant milieu.