Environmental Policy and Governance

This working paper examines the concept of metabolism and its potential as a critical analytical lens to study the contemporary city from a political perspective. The paper illustrates how the metabolism concept has been used historically, both as a metaphor to describe the technological, social, political and economic dimensions of human-environment relations, and as a concrete analytical tool to quantify and better understand how flows of matter and energy shape the territorial and spatial configurations of cityscapes. Drawing on the example of the urban water metabolism of the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA), the paper shows how the metabolism concept can be applied to study the politics of water in the city.

Politique agricole, relance économique, vaccin contre le Covid-19, législation environnementale, etc. : l’Union européenne joue un rôle essentiel et controversé dans la vie de ses habitants depuis des décennies. Sur toutes ces questions, trois modèles s’affrontent : l’Europe du marché, l’Europe solidaire et l’Europe puissance.
À partir d’archives inédites, Laurent Warlouzet revisite l’histoire du continent au prisme de la lutte homérique entre ces trois visions depuis 1945 : l’Europe du marché, souvent dénoncée pour ses dérives ultralibérales, surtout depuis la tragédie grecque du début des années 2010 ; l’Europe solidaire, celle des législations sociales et de la promotion de l’égalité hommes-femmes, qui a conduit la majorité des syndicats britanniques à appeler à voter contre le Brexit ; l’Europe puissance, enfin, évanescente sur le plan militaire, mais s’exprimant dans les projets de politique industrielle communautaire ou dans la lutte contre les GAFAM, et voulant s’imposer face à ses concurrents, États-Unis, Russie ou Chine.
Cette nouvelle histoire de l’Europe, vivante, heurtée et mouvementée, nous montre que l’organisation de l’Union ne suit pas une logique mécanique et univoque. En exhumant des projets abandonnés mais sérieusement envisagés, elle propose aussi autant de futurs possibles dont les Européens pourraient se saisir.

The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, held in June 2012 in Rio de Janeiro, was probably the largest event in a long series of megasummits on environmental protection and sustainable development. Roughly 44 000 participants descended on Rio de Janeiro to take part in ten days of preparatory committee meetings, informal consultations, side events, and the actual conference. Yet despite this unprecedented high attendance by participants from governments and civil society, the outcome of the conference is less than many had hoped for. In this paper I review the outcomes of the 2012 Rio conference in detail, with a special focus on its contributions towards the reform of the institutional framework for sustainable development. Following this review, I discuss the way ahead and options for structural reform to restrengthen earth system governance.

The book points out that rural regions need proper attention at the global level concerning solid waste management sector where bad practices and public health threats could be avoided through traditional and integrated waste management
routes. Solid waste management in rural areas is a key issue in developing and transitioning countries due to the lack of proper waste management facilities and services. The book further examines, on the one hand, the main challenges in the development of reliable waste management practices across rural regions and, on the other hand, the concrete solutions and the new opportunities across the world in dealing with municipal and agricultural wastes. The book provides useful information for academics, various professionals, the members of civil society, and national and local authorities.

The principal intention of the paper is to describe and comment on the key components of the Marine Coastal Area Act 2011 (“MCAA”) with regard to the commons, customary rights and decision making under the Resource Management Act 1991. During the process of the Marine and Coastal Area Bill through Parliament the author acted for Local Government New Zealand (“LGNZ”). The author advised on policy and legislative review, consultation with the Ministry of Justice and other Crown departments, and submissions to the Maori Affairs Select Committee. Our firm has also acted for local authorities in respect of a number of treaty settlements. Much of the work we have undertaken focuses on the implications of the MCAA, and other proposed settlement legislation, on issues of public interest and local government decision making. In this context the paper finishes by considering first the implications of the MCAA for other marine and coastal area users; secondly a hypothetical case study in which customary rights are implemented; and thirdly the potential influence the MCAA will have on local government decision-making and public participation under future settlement legislation.

El tema de las elites ha sido controversial en las ciencias sociales
latinoamericanas. Se les ha estudiado indirectamente como terratenientes,
capitalistas, líderes empresariales o políticos y, también,
fueron abordadas directamente utilizando conceptos y teorías de
los estudios de la elite. Aunque existe una cantidad significativa de
literatura sobre el papel de las elites en las transformaciones democráticas
(ver, por ejemplo, Highley y Gunther, 1992), a menudo las
elites han sido consideradas como un obstáculo para la formación
de sociedades más democráticas, prósperas e igualitarias (ver, por
ejemplo, Paige, 1997; Cimoli y Rovira, 2008). Este también es el
caso de la literatura sobre gobernanza ambiental, en el cual los grupos
de elite a menudo son considerados como un obstáculo para el
desarrollo sostenible y para establecer un enfoque más equitativo
sobre el uso y aprovechamiento de los recursos naturales. Por lo
tanto, a pesar de que en América Latina haya existido un movimiento
de conservación elitista, desde hace mucho tiempo, las luchas
para proteger el medio ambiente de la sobreexplotación y la contaminación
estuvieron invariablemente relacionadas con las luchas a de grupos subalternos contra las elites locales, nacionales y transnacionales
(Carruthers, 2008; Martínez-Alier, 2002; y los capítulos 2
y 3 de este libro).
En la última década, han ocurrido en América Latina una serie
de cambios que podrían tener cierto impacto en la composición y
las actitudes de las elites. Estos cambios podrían tener consecuencias
para la gobernanza ambiental en el sentido amplio del concepto,
como se indica en el primer capítulo de este volumen. De las
49 elecciones presidenciales en el período 2003-2013, 22 fueron ganadas
por candidatos de centroizquierda y, a excepción de México
y Colombia, durante la mayor parte de este período, los gobiernos
de centroizquierda ascendieron al poder en todas las grandes economías
en América Latina (Bull, 2014). Muchos de estos gobiernos
representan grupos que habían sido marginados de la política y confrontado
a las elites, incluyendo los movimientos indígenas y socioambientales.
Con los cambios en la economía política global, entre
los que se incluyen el avance de China y varias economías emergentes,
América Latina presenció el ingreso de una serie de nuevos actores
económicos, incluyendo nuevas compañías transnacionales y
nuevos prestamistas. Por otra parte, en los sectores clave las nuevas
tecnologías cambiaron la estructura de la producción y, por tanto,
también la concentración de los recursos –y a su vez, posiblemente la composición de las elites.
A pesar de estos cambios, se disipó el optimismo inicial con respecto
a las implicancias para la gobernanza ambiental. En 2010, el
ecologista Eduardo Gudynas les preguntó retóricamente a los nuevos
gobiernos: ¿si son tan progresistas, por qué destruyen el medio
ambiente? (Gudynas, 2010). Subsecuentemente, fueron formuladas
numerosas y variadas preguntas acerca de por qué los gobiernos que
rechazaron públicamente la agricultura genéticamente modificada
luego la promovieron; por qué aceleraron la licitación de las concesiones
mineras a pesar de las protestas de sus propios electores; o por
qué se ampliaron la extracción y explotación petrolera en áreas vulnerables
a pesar de las promesas proteccionistas.
El objetivo de este capítulo es iluminar la dinámica de las elites,
para dar respuestas a algunas de las preguntas señaladas anteriormente.
Basado en material empírico de seis estudios del caso, este
capítulo examina los cambios de las elites , esbozando la forma en que
surgieron las nuevas elites, cómo las viejas elites continuaron influyendo
en la política y la economía y, cómo la relación entre las nuevas
y viejas elites ha afectado la gobernanza ambiental en la región.

Gas flaring practices started since the first discovery of oil in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria,
and this practice has continued without seizure. Gas flaring has been associated with many socioeconomic,
political and health implication in Nigeria, especially the Niger Delta region.
Moreover, the Niger Delta region of Nigerian is known for its abundance resources endowment
and multi-ethnic diversity enrichment, and it is the second largest wetland in the world with
mangrove swamps and fertile alluvial plain which is one of the resourceful plain in the world.
The region is however known for restiveness, violence, poverty and arms conflict and all sorts of
environmental atrocities and crime. Nigeria is currently one of the largest gas flarers in the world
and this has contributed enormously to the alteration of the climate condition of earth systemclimate
change and global warming. Being aware with what is happening and the negative
impacts of flaring gas in the region, the Nigerian government instituted many legal framework
and institutions to ensure that this practice is put to an end. This practice of gas flaring still
continues irrespective of the orchestrated laws and intuitions put in place in the oil rich region of
Nigeria. So the objective of this research study is to find out what are the factors hindering the
realisation of the aims of the various laws with respect to gas flaring in the Niger Delta. It is
identified that there are many factors affecting the effectiveness of these laws and the superb
functioning of the agencies. Some of the factors identified are: lack of management framework;
societal composition; low financial incentives; lack of human resources reserved environmental
groups; insufficient data; and the influence of Multinational Corporation etc. This work also
explored other efforts apart from enactment of laws that Nigerian government has been
embarking on to ensure the end of gas flaring practice in the region, and also other stakeholders
who are involved in this environmental discourse were explored. Nevertheless this research
shades light on the alternative approaches to end the gas flaring practice- clean development
mechanism (CDM) and reducing emission from deforestation and forests degradation (REDD). It
is found out in this study that the primary causes of the ineffectiveness of environmental laws to
end gas flaring are the lack of governmental political will and so many competing claims in the
region and its resources.

The global COVID-19 pandemic is a health crisis, an economic crisis, and a justice crisis. It also brings to light multiple ongoing, underlying social crises. The COVID-19 crisis is actively revealing crises of energy sovereignty in at least four ways. First, there are many whose access to basic health services is compromised because of the lack of energy services necessary to provide these services. Second, some people are more vulnerable to COVID-19 because of exposure to environmental pollution associated with energy production. Third, energy services are vital to human wellbeing, yet access to energy services is largely organized as a consumer good. The loss of stable income precipitated by COVID-19 may therefore mean that many lose reliable access to essential energy services. Fourth, the COVID-19 crisis has created a window of opportunity for corporate interests to engage in aggressive pursuit of energy agendas that perpetuate carbon intensive and corporate controlled energy s...

This study tests the hypothesis that disparities of hypertension risk in African Americans is related to lead exposure, perceptions of racism, and stress, among urban (Roxbury, MA) and rural (Gadsden, FL) communities. Analysis of preliminary data from Phase I reveal 60% in Gadsden and 39% in Roxbury respondents self-reported having hypertension. In Gadsden 80% people did not know if their residence contained lead paint, compared to 45% in Roxbury. In Gadsden County, 58% of respondents reported experiencing racial discrimination in different settings compared with 72% in Roxbury. In regression analyses high cholesterol emerged as a significant predictors of hypertension in Gadsden County (OR=8.29, CI=1.4-49.3), whereas monthly household income (OR=0.15, CI=0.04-0.7) and diabetes (OR=6.06, CI=1.4-26.17) were significant predictors of hypertension in Roxbury after adjusting for other covariates. These preliminary findings set the stage for initiating Phase II (Phase I continues recruit...

This chapter utilizes a green criminological perspective to examine this key issue as it pertains to waste dumping in rural northwestern China. First, we offer a brief review of green criminology’s approach to waste crime and summarize the literature on top-down environmental regulation enforcement in China. Next, we describe the development of the medical waste regulation framework and highlight the current obstacles to enforcement in China. The chapter then utilizes a case study to illustrate how institutional incentives in the job performance evaluation system of bureaucrats shaped the under-enforcement of medical waste regulations at the grassroots level of rural governance. Our chapter concludes with a discussion of how the study expands our understanding of waste crime and environmental regulation enforcement in an illiberal context.

Survival and well-being of all animate things depend on the healthy and productive environment. As a result of human interference, unsustainable growth and inadequate precautionary measures our planet is witnessing environmental imbalances, affecting the lives of all creatures including human beings. The problem of environmental pollution transcended geographical limits necessitating the co-operation between all State parties and other stakeholders at the international level. In this regard, International Environmental Law seems to be subjectively sufficiently developed, yet due to its inherent defects and aversion of State parties in implementing International Conventions has turned the problem of environmental pollution and degradation from bad to worse.
There are many instances wherein lack of accountability on part of State parties concerning environmental protection resulted in total destruction of habitat (ex: Ganga River Water Pollution in India) and often human activity caused many irreversible or inherently dangerous impact on both natural and human environment, but respective State Parties and stakeholders failed to take timely actions to maintain ecological balance and prevention of environmental degradation. To the contrary, with view to protecting economic interests, international commitments are also undermined and no affirmative steps were taken to implement conventional obligations, amongst of all such vulnerable aspects of International Environmental Law, the Principle of Precautionary measures is one, and it is being regularly exposed to dilemmas interpretations, both as to its meaning and relevance. Accordingly, the researcher considered it as an apt subject matter of research.

Key Words: Precautionary Approach; Cost-Benefit; Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO); Genetic Engineering (GE); etc.

Вперше у вітчизняній історіографії здійснено комплексне дослідження етапу становлення екологічної політики США, який тривав з кінця XIX ст. до Другої світової війни. Розглянуто чинники зростання інтересу американського суспільства до охорони
природних ресурсів, підґрунтя та засади урядової діяльності в цій царині. Виявлено особливості природоохоронної політики США за часів президентства Теодора Рузвельта, Говарда Тафта, Вудро Вільсона, Воррена Гардінга, Калвіна Куліджа, Герберта Гувера, Франкліна Рузвельта. Розкрито роль лідерів у захисті довкілля
Сполучених Штатів Америки. Охарактеризовано головні етапи діяльності Служби національних парків США. Проаналізовано особливості природоохоронної діяльності під час «прогресивної епохи», доби «проспериті», економічної кризи і рецесії 1930-х рр.
Розкрито екологічні аспекти «Нового курсу» та ефективність використання довкілля в якості антикризового інструменту.
Оцінено теоретичні і практичні здобутки екологічної політики США напередодні Другої світової війни.
Монографія адресована науковцям, викладачам навчальних закладів, політикам, студентам, та всім тим, хто цікавиться екологічною історією та історією Сполучених Штатів Америки і прагне зробити свій внесок у покращення екологічної політики
України.

At the beginning of the twentieth century the importance of solving
environmental problems is no longer in doubt. It is hardly possible to find a country that doesn’t suffer from global climate changes today, the
consequences of which lead to increasing number of victims of floods,
hurricanes, high temperatures and droughts; lack of fresh water; serious
changes in the food production; increasing vulnerability of ecosystems; the threat of flooding of small island countries and some cities. For decades, countries around the world have been working together to overcome environmental problems, and especially the effects of global warming. At the same time, an important part of this problem is the national level of environmental protection. As Ukraine has many environmental problems and its environmental policy is still in a stage of formation it is extremely important to analyze the best foreign experience and the possibilities that it gives with local specifics.
The United States is a major player in the international arena and leader
in world economic development; its approaches to solving environmental problems determine the effectiveness of the entire world community.
However, the vision of ways to overcome the global environmental crisis in the United States is contradictory (for example, the country withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Climate Agreement). Meanwhile, in the late nineteenth- early twenties centuries it became one of the first countries in the world that started a policy of environmental protection and conservation of national resources. Many positive achievements in this area haven’t lost its relevance even nowadays.
It is considered, that the beginning of the environmental movement in the United States is publication "Silent Spring" in 1962 by the biologist of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service R. Carson, in which she substantiated the detrimental harmful effects of pesticides on nature and death of many species of flora and fauna. Spring without birds chirping and singing, made not only citizens, but also policymakers and businessmen all over the world to think about the future of our planet. This book has influenced on formation of powerful environmental movement and stimulated actions around the world.
In the United States of America, a new era of environmental policy
started. It marked by establishment EPA (United States Environmental
Protection Agency) and adoption in the 1970s a number of laws that
regulated different aspects of environmental protection – the Wilderness Act (1964), the National Environmental Policy Act (1970), the Pesticide Control Act (1972), the Clean Water Act (1972), the Endangered Species Act (1973), the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (1976) etc. These fundamental changes in attitude towards the environment had led some researchers to believe that the US environmental policy at least given the scale and new quality of the measures started only in 1960 – 1970s.
However, nothing occurs in a vacuum. R. Carson wrote her book in
response to the introduction of the anthropocentric model of nature
management that had developed in the United States in previous decades. The consequences of uncontrolled pollution by pesticides, especially DDT, which considered as an extremely effective after World War II but in fact had led to death of many birds, made her ask the question: what would be next?
The diverse experience of US environmental policy needs to be studied
in more details. In this book we intended to turn to its origins, to consider the formation of philosophical approaches, problems and achievements in environmental protection as well as their peculiarities from the first
environmental steps in the late nineteenth century until the World War II.
During this period a platform was laid, on which a new stage of this policy developed in late 1960s.
This brief insight into US environmental history, particularly in engendering of its nature protection policy, will allow us to understand the role of nature in life of the American nation, the reasons for the emergence of environmental consciousness, the features of the nature model, which largely determine the country's current environmental policy, as well as analyze useful ideas and achievements to avoid possible mistakes in Ukraine.

In 2007, China overtook the US to become the largest emitter of CO2 into the Earth's atmosphere. China's vital role in global efforts to combat climate change creates a pressing challenge to explore the unique characteristics of Chinese environmental values and policy processes, and to identify the frames that are employed to understand climate change and related environmental issues domestically. This paper investigates a) how the political context, as well as differing political agendas and policy goals within which actors operate, affects and sometimes constrains the frames they generally employ; and b) the specific frames used to understand and discuss climate change by interview subjects and in written documents. It finds that different frames are employed by those supporting the current regime and its attendant official discourses on climate change and the environment (mainly government officials) and those challenging or in opposition to such dominant framings (particularly NGOs).

The current battle for climate change in the USA represents two visions of the American Way of Life. The current interpretation is that individual liberty, especially to consume, is paramount. However, the sentiment of the Founding Fathers stipulates that people must act in spite of their federal government, which acts as the main obstacle to meaningful climate action

The Water Framework Directive (WFD) is arguably the most ambitious piece of European Union (EU) legislation in the field of water. The directive defines a general framework for integrated river basin management in Europe with a view to achieving
“good water status” by 2015. Institutional novelties include, among others, water management at hydrological scales, the involvement of nonstate actors in water planning, and various economic principles, as well as a common strategy to support EU member states during the implementation of the directive. More than 15 years after the adoption of the WFD, and with the passing of an important milestone, 2015, we believe it is time for an interim assessment. This article provides a systematic review of existing scholarship on WFD implementation. We identify well-documented areas of research, describe largely unchartered territories, and suggest avenues for future studies. Methodologically, we relied on a meta-analysis. Based on a codebook of more than 35 items, we analyzed 89 journal articles reporting on the implementation of the directive in EU member states. Our review is organized around three major themes. The first is “who, when, and where”; we explore publication patterns, thereby looking into authors, timelines, and target journals. The second is “what”; we analyze the object of study in our source articles with a particular focus on case study countries, policy levels, the temporal stage of WFD implementation, and if the directive was not studied in its entirety, the aspect of the WFD that received
scholarly attention. The third is “how,” i.e., theoretical and methodological choices made when studying the WFD.

Case study analysis of the Arctic Council as a "new governance paradigm". Using case study model from Athabasca University GOVN500-Governance and Leadership course. Case study examines 5 areas or foundations: historical, philosophical/ideological, sectoral convergence, leadership and accountability. The overarching theme of "where are the people" is addressed in all sections of the paper.
The final section will draw a conclusion from the information provided in the case study to answer the question: Does the Arctic Council represent a new governance paradigm where sectoral lines are no longer relevant in the production of knowledge and public policy? Yes, the Arctic Council represents a new governance paradigm that blends sectoral lines in pursuit of knowledge production and public policy.

This article focuses on the way the European Union acted as a negotiating party during the international negotiations leading to the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (1998–2000). Starting from a principal–agent model, the article discusses how the EU participated in these negotiations and how the internal decision-making process developed. It argues that the EU was able to negotiate in a unified and influential way by defending a common position, which was expressed by a flexible negotiation arrangement, at the international level. Three features of the EU decision-making process engendered such a strong EU negotiation arrangement: homogeneous preferences among the actors in the EU, symmetrically distributed information among them and a cooperative and institutionally dense decision-making context. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

The Bundelkhand region in India has been dealing with a severe water crisis for the last two decades. This water crisis has received a significant amount of attention from the central government, media and academics. However, although multiple policies and acts have been passed, and extensive resources distributed, there has not been much improvement on the ground. This thesis analyzes the reasons behind ineffective water governance and implementation at all levels of government, and concludes that over-centralization of planning, crisis-response rather than long-term planning, and a lack of pragmatic planning are key to understanding the current situation. More generally, the disjointed nature of water governance in India has made it difficult for the public sector to carry out cohesive planning approaches. We suggest reforms that can be adopted, and consider the possible consequences to water management and planning if Bundelkhand were to become a separate state.

The study had three objectives: 1) to study policies evolution relating to community rights in Thailand's natural resource and environmental management from the past to the present (1932 -2014); 2) to compare policies regarding community rights in Thailand's natural resources and environmental management during three periods (1932 – 1996, 1997 – 2006, and 2007 – 2014); and 3) to propose policy alternatives concerning community rights in Thailand's natural resource and environmental management. The study used a qualitative approach drawing on documentary data. Data were analyzed by means of classification and content analysis. The results showed that the policies relating to community rights in Thailand's natural resource and environmental management from the past to present had changed in a positive direction from 1932 to 2014. During 1932 – 1996, the policies were unreceptive because the government sector was the main actor in natural resource and environmental management. In the following period, 1997 – 2006, the policies became more open to communities with the addressing of community rights in the 1997 Constitution. During 2007 – 2014, community rights were further recognized in the 2007 Constitution and by Thai governments. In this period, there was a drive to enact a specific law on community rights. However, there was still a lack of concrete mechanisms for mobilization. The study proposed natural resource and environmental policy based on community management. In addition, it would be advantageous to apply various techniques to examine this study’s findings and recommendations in greater depth, with close observation of specific areas and communities, to understand the details concerning the various resources managed and how that relates with communities.

Authors: Yoon Kim, Joel B. Smith, Charlotte Mack, Jonathan Cook, John Furlow, Joyce-Lynn Njinga, and Michael Cote

National adaptation planning has evolved from a focus on short-term, project-level interventions to mainstreaming adaptation into broader development goals. Initial adaptation efforts tended to focus on climate science and project-level assessments and measures. In contrast, National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) provide an opportunity to take a longer-term, more strategic approach to adaptation. A " development-first " approach, rather than a " climate-first " or climate stressor-driven approach, enables climate change to be more effectively integrated into development planning and decision-making. The United States Agency for International Development's (USAID's) Climate-Resilient Development framework, as applied to NAPs, begins with a workshop attended by a broad array of government and non-government stakeholders. During the workshop, participants take a comprehensive view of a country's social and economic development goals and key climate and non-climate risks to those goals. Participants also identify potential adaptations that can reduce the most significant climate risks to development. USAID has applied this approach in stakeholder workshops in Jamaica, West Africa, and Tanzania, and these workshops have helped to catalyse NAP processes in the countries. Lessons learned from these applications include the importance of stakeholder ownership and buy-in at an early stage of the NAP process, the value of embedding NAPs in an existing planning process such as long-term economic development planning to promote more effective mainstreaming, and the key role that NAPs can play in the coordination of financial and technical support by development agencies and other institutions.

Paper setting out questions for directors and boards to ask in relation to environmental governance, strengthening markets, monitoring developments, securing an integrated response, cooperation and collaboration, environment cities, environment management and behaviour, creative environments and innovation, and aesthetic, supportive and inclusive environments prepared for 17th World Congress on Environment Management.

Abstract: Throughout history, wars have harmed human populations by inflicting immediate casualties and reverberating environmental destruction. The international community increasingly recognizes the risks from environmental damage, and as a result mammoth inter-national initiatives have attempted to curb sources of environmental destruction. Yet so far, global environmental progress is unimpressive. To what extent does experiencing war impair nations from contributing to global environmental progress? The research presented here used 10 years of national-level data for 161 nations and 25 wars to quantify the global aver-age causal effect of war on ten indicators of progress toward global environmental policy goals (referred to as ‘environmental progress’). The results indicate wars severely damage biodiversity, habitats, and—most significantly—environmental health conditions. The results also found warfare is increasingly harming ecological vitality. These findings suggest international actors should 1) expand efforts to stabilize environmental health factors in territories that recently experienced war and 2) increase initiatives that foster ecological resilience in conflict-prone states.

Umwelt, Technik & Risiko – damit verbinden wir eine Symptomatik, die für die Moderne von bestandskritischer Bedeutung ist. Soweit herrscht Einigkeit. Kontrovers sind hingegen Diagnose und Therapie. Ist die industriegesellschaftliche Risikoproblematik auf die In- und Extensivierung der Inanspruchnahme der Natur zurückzuführen? Oder herrschen kulturelle Veränderungen in der Wahrnehmung von Unsicherheiten vor? Diesen Fragen folgend werden Probleme der Forschung, der Gesellschaftstheorie und des Risikomanagements erörtert.

Though it has been home for centuries to indigenous peoples who have mastered its conditions, the Arctic has historically proven to be a difficult region for governments to administer. Extreme temperatures, vast distances, and widely dispersed patterns of settlement have made it impossible for bureaucracies based in far-off capitals to erect and maintain the kind of infrastructure and institutions that they have built elsewhere. As climate change transforms the polar regions, this book seeks to explore how the challenges of governance are developing and being met in Alaska, the Canadian Far North, and Greenland, while also drawing upon lessons from the region's past. Though the experience of each of these jurisdictions is unique, their place within democratic, federal systems and the prominence within each of them of issues relating to the rights of indigenous peoples situates them as part of an identifiably 'North American Arctic.' Today, as this volume shows, their institutions are evolving to address contemporary issues of security, environmental protection, indigenous rights, and economic development.

The sustainable development indicators perform an essential function of incorporating knowledge about the development of human society into decision making at all stages from planning and implementation to evaluation of the policy impacts. This paper provides an overview of evolution and application experience of sustainability measuring practice. Researchers analyze the directions of measurement approach progress. Modern trends of indicators’ using are explored. From assessment of current status of sustainable development indicators authors reveal the main challenges in defining an appropriate set of them. The ways of overcoming the lack of harmonization in variety of conceptual and organizational frameworks used by the different countries are reviewed. Authors consider the direction of modernization of SDI system. The importance of measuring sustainable development at different scale levels: local, regional, enterprise and household levels is stressed. Researchers reveal the main task in division of responsibilities of national authorities, managing data quality and data accessibility. An additional challenge of providing better analysis of cross linkages between indicators is pointed out.

Kenya’s Vision 2030 and all its flagship projects are envisaged to spur rapid economic growth and steer the country into a middle income economy by the year 2030. The LAPSSET Corridor Projects (LCPs) which includes a port in Lamu, resort cities, the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) and upgrading of the Isiolo Airport to international standards among others, is part of the programme. This paper sought to examine the effects of project on economic and socio-cultural rights of the communities living along the corridor in Isiolo County.

A mixed approach was employed with multi-stage, snowball and purposive sampling techniques to generate both quantitative and qualitative data. Life experiences and issues of concern raised by the concerned respondents were raised by communities’ expressions. The communities along the North Eastern Transport Improvement Projects had not been sensitized about the projects. They were not informed about the impacts that the project would have on their lives.

This paper examines procedures for public scrutiny and stakeholder participation in relation to private governance of the flexibility mechanisms established under the Kyoto Protocol. It also studies the role of these procedures in enhancing the accountability of the mechanisms.

The paper presents an account of transparency and public scrutiny over private agents involved in the flexibility mechanisms in two consecutive steps. The first section proposes a descriptive analysis of the rules and norms aiming to enhance the role of stakeholders in relation to the accountability of agents validating and verifying Clean Development Mechanism and Joint Implementation projects. A second section elaborates a normative assessment based on the study of practical experience with these processes over the past years and supported by interviews with key actors within this regime. The management of the flexibility mechanisms being a typical example of global governance extending into new administrative functions, the present paper builds on literature studying the context of the emergence of a global administrative space.

This study aims to analyze individual and organizational innovation in small businesses and their impact on the environment. The focus of the analysis is also expanded on how to engineer the innovations that exist in small businesses through consumer behavior so that the engineering carried out is effective in protecting the environment. The role of the government is used as a regulator in a country. The research was conducted using a quantitative descriptive method, then continued with a document study on the Indonesian government's environmental regulations. The research was carried out during the Covid-19 pandemic in a sizeable Indonesian city, namely Bandung City. The study results show that small businesses' individual and organizational innovation play a role in determining environmental conditions. Government engineering to change consumer behavior and consumer needs is very effective in changing the behavior of entrepreneurs to go green and green business

In standard textbook accounts, the history of European Community (EC) environmental policy conventionally begins in 1973, when the First Environmental Action Programme was officially accepted. Some texts also mention the Paris summit of October 1972 and the subsequent ministerial meeting of the member states in Bonn on 31 October 1972, where the governments agreed in principle and in detail on the start of environmental policy measures at EC level. 1 Even though these were important steps, putting the new policy on track, the origins of EC environmental policy actually go back to the summer of 1969. The new policy was not simply the result of the enlightened environmental spirit of national governments still under the impression of the Stockholm United Nations (UN) Conference on the Human Environment in June 1972. In fact, EC environmental action can be traced back to an initiative by what is usually believed to be the least powerful of European institutions, the unelected European Parliament (EP). The EP first put the issue of water pollution on the agenda of the European institutions via an own initiative report, one of the few instruments available to it. 2 Members of the EP (MEPs) responded to a massive fish kill in the river Rhine, Western Europe's main watershed, in June 1969, caused by a pesticide released in Germany. The Dutch were particularly cross with their German neighbours upstream, not only because they had not been notified, but also because they crucially relied on Rhine for their water resources. Activist MEPs from the Committee of Public Health and Social Affairs skilfully widened the issue from the Rhine to river and water pollution more generally, to other issues, such as noise and air pollution, that contemporary scientists and policy makers increasingly conceptualised as part of the problem called the "environment". MEPs argued for the introduction of European level policy action on such environmental issues.

How do societies negotiate the apparently competing agendas of environmental protection and social justice? Why do some countries perform much better than others on this front?

Democracy in the Woods addresses these question by examining land rights conflicts--and the fate of forest-dependent peasants--in the context of the different forest property regimes in India, Tanzania, and Mexico. These three countries are prominent in the scholarship and policy debates about national forest policies and land conflicts associated with international support for nature conservation. This unique comparative study of national forestland regimes challenges the received wisdom that redistributive policies necessarily undermine the goals of environmental protection. It shows instead that the form that national environmental protection efforts take--either inclusive (as in Mexico) or exclusive (as in Tanzania and, for the most part, in India)--depends on whether dominant political parties are compelled to create structures of political intermediation that channel peasant demands for forest and land rights into the policy process. This book offers three different tests of this theory of political origins of forestland regimes. First, it explains why it took the Indian political elites nearly sixty years to introduce meaningful reforms of the colonial-era forestland regimes. Second, it successfully explains the rather counterintuitive local outcomes of the programs for formalization of land rights in India, Tanzania, and Mexico. Third, it provides a coherent explanation of why each of these three countries proposes a significantly different distribution of the benefits of forest-based climate change mitigation programs being developed under the auspices of the United Nations.

In its political analysis of the control over and the use of nature, this book opens up new avenues for reflecting on how legacies of the past and international interventions interject into domestic political processes to produce specific configurations of environmental protection and social justice. Democracy in the Woods offers a theoretically rigorous argument about why and in what specific ways politics determine the prospects of a socially just and environmentally secure world.

The book highlights important urban development issues in Punjab such as urbanisation, slums, housing, poverty, urban governance, development, infrastructure/ services etc and suggests major reforms to improve quality of life in urban areas.

Nepal is known as one of the world's most conservation-friendly countries, with more than 18% of its total area as protected areas. However, because of the top-down, bureaucratically oriented, exclusionary governance systems practised in the protected areas, there is tension between park authorities and local people that ultimately causes livelihood insecurities. Most of the sufferers from the poor conservation governing systems in Nepal are poor, marginalised and indigenous people. As indigenous people are the victims of protected area management systems, an intense debate on the property rights and prior rights of indigenous people has emerged. To shed light on this debate, the author has employed the conceptual framework of legal pluralism, thereby providing better understanding of the conflict between the customary rights exercised by the indigenous communities and the formal legal arrangements of the state. The study presented in this paper was conducted in the Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve in Eastern Nepal. The study reveals that the main cause of the conflict between park authorities and local people was the National Park and Wildlife Conservation Act of 1973, which makes provisions such as prohibition of access for domestic animals and birds for drinking water and grazing, in areas used by local people for these very purposes. Realising the complexity of the conflict, the government of Nepal initiated a participatory conservation project (called Park– People Programme). However, this participatory approach is not able to provide benefits to the poor and marginal sections of society mainly because the participatory process as well as outcome of the participatory approach was captured by the powerful elites.