Environmental Science & Policy最新文献

While the Anthropocene has seen the dissolution of nature-society dualism, disciplinary barriers have been deep-seated and limited a complete integrated analysis of the environmental crisis. Concerned by the scarcity of literature on structural and institutional barriers that leverage upon and extend this deep-seated duality between natural and social science, this paper maps the broader field of social science research in India. It also explores the epistemic effects of such inequalities on environmental research and its ability to meaningfully engage with interactions between the social and the natural worlds.

The United States is reprioritizing domestic extraction and processing of critical minerals, with billions of dollars of investments. Because of their uses in low-carbon technologies, the mining and processing of these resources falls under the scope of the Justice40 Initiative, the Biden administration’s flagship environmental justice policy. Justice40 prioritizes green investments to benefit communities deemed disadvantaged, including all recognized Tribes. This can lead to the siting of “green” mineral projects in disadvantaged communities (DACs), which is problematic if such projects are unwelcome or reproduce environmental injustices. These unintended consequences are our focus. We analyze how DACs are defined and operationalized, before examining whether and under what conditions critical mineral projects could be considered beneficial for local communities. We suggest three ways to better align Justice40’s spirit with its (currently problematic) application to critical minerals and other controversial projects – (1) centering free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) and the transparency and power restructuring needed to achieve it; (2) incentivizing community ownership to strengthen economic benefits and democratize decision making; and (3) bringing currently-exempted critical mineral activities within the purview of Justice40, particularly for the Department of Defense.

Much of the research on forestry innovation is based on models of economic rationality that are presumed to be universal and “a-gendered.” This article understands that economic processes are not “neutral” and seeks to produce empirical insights into the perceptions of gender in the male-dominated forestry sector. How does perceived gender balance in a forestry-related organisation contribute to its resilience to economic, ecological, climate-related and other contemporary crises, as well as its innovativeness? To examine the importance attributed to gender balance for resilience and innovation, we undertook a representative web survey amongst the principal Austrian forestry-related companies, institutions and agencies. The results show some links between gender and innovation, but not between gender and resilience. We then complemented the survey with in-depth interviews with high-level female representatives from the Austrian forestry sector, focusing on their personal experiences and opinions as both experts and the sole ones who made it in a sector of skewed gender balance and strong misrepresentation. Our findings reveal a contradiction between the survey results on the importance attributed to gender balance within forestry-sector organisations and the inequalities that successful women in high-level leadership positions reported in the interviews. The article discusses how gendered norms are relevant for economic outcomes and must be integrated into all related research efforts. Our findings challenge academic positions that regard economic issues and societal questions like gender balance to be strictly separated.

This article unravels the intricate connections between climate change, food systems, and human health, offering a comprehensive exploration within a concise framework focused on the Global South. The contemporary crisis stemming from the mass production model, emphasising climate change and public health repercussions, is a focal point. We highlight food production as an important driver of climate change, significantly contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. Livestock and staple crops exert varied environmental impacts. We scrutinise the implications of land-use changes, emphasising the imperative to curtail agricultural expansion into forested areas. Central to our analysis is the role of governance systems. We advocate for a multi-level, polycentric governance approach integrating health considerations with ecology and socio-economic drivers. By exploring the nuances of gender, age, and ethnicity, we underscore the need for a climate transition guided by climate justice principles. Finally, we discuss methodological challenges in researching the complex nexus of food systems, climate change, and health. We navigate the limitations of disciplinary boundaries and traditional analytical methods, urging an interdisciplinary approach for a comprehensive understanding. Our work aims to contribute to a holistic perspective, informing policy-making and action to build a resilient and sustainable future, especially in the Global South.

Background

Community engagement is crucial for integrated and adaptive river management but an organized body of knowledge to systematically promote community engagement is still lacking.

Objectives

To provide a conceptual framework of community-based river management, and to identify and synthesize evidence that describes pathways conducive to community engagement.

Methods

We carried out a systematic review of empirical evidence on community engagement in river management published from January 2000 to May 2021. By means of iterative categorization, we described three variables across all case studies: governance context, values of mobilization and pathways to engagement. A conceptual framework of community-based river management was drawn up and evidence of each pathway synthetized.

Results

Of 153 records, 51 were eligible. Three types of governance context were observed: top-down, bottom-up and hybrid. Environmental, economic, safety, scenic, cultural and social values were found to bring people together for action. Community mobilization was mostly driven by multiple values, with a prevailing perception of the river as a complex eco-social system. Seven pathways to community engagement were identified: assessing community perception, knowledge co-production, community science, common vision building, environmental education, community-based groups and pro-environmental action. We proposed a novel conceptual framework that visually represents community-based river management, informed by the interplay between values, governance and these pathways.

Conclusion

Disregarding location and scale, community-based river management is multi-faceted and dynamic. Our conceptual framework provides a baseline for systematically engaging local communities in the different stages of river management, including diagnosis and monitoring, decision-making and implementation.

Land use change is needed to mitigate climate change and biodiversity loss and is increasingly incentivised through natural capital approaches that reward delivery of ecosystem services including carbon sequestration and biodiversity. A proliferation of land use change decision-support tools are developed –often by private companies– to support land use change decision-making and measure success of government policy and private investment targets. However, understanding of land manager uptake of these tools is often limited, and the limitations and risks of tools used to support land use change decision-making is understudied. We explore these knowledge gaps in a UNESCO Biosphere in Galloway and Southern Ayrshire, Scotland through nineteen interviews with a wide range of land managers. We found that the promotion of tools as a mechanism to deliver rapid land use change is unlikely to be successful for three reasons: 1) the dominant focus on instrumental values, neglecting land managers’ broader values; 2) the technocratic tools-based approach to decision-making is at odds with land manager behaviour; and 3) the importance of peer-led networks is neglected. Framing the promotion of tools as another form of environmental rescaling, we argue that they are a red herring in addressing issues of land use change. The emphasis should instead be on appropriately supporting and resourcing local peer-led networks to enable and incentivise land-use change. These findings have global relevance given increasing promotion of these approaches within international policy and country-level policy in many countries worldwide.

We present a systematic review of the scientific production on climate adaptation in Brazil, using quantitative and qualitative methodologies. The analysis of adaptation categories indicated a good balance between social (38 %) and institutional (33 %) adaptation actions, with a lesser share of physical/infrastructure adaptation (25 %). Assessed impacts tend to focus on higher temperature or heat events (21 %), mainly with regard to human health, along with droughts or water resources issues (20 %), particularly agricultural production. The studied biomes or environments showed a predominance of the most populous areas, such as urban (27 %) and coastal (17 %), indicating the need to target climate adaptation actions at the various Brazilian natural biomes, which, together, are addressed in only 30 % of the papers analysed (all six biomes combined). Indexes development and documentary analysis were predominant methodologies. The dialogue between science and society must be improved, especially with public management, in the production, execution and dissemination of climate adaptation actions. Nature-based solutions were listed as emerging solutions for addresing climate change impacts, acting both for mitigation and adaptation. Popular participation was pointed out by several authors as fundamental in the joint construction of these actions, as well as the provision of information on access to climate finance, which may be of interest to both public and the private sectors.

There has been increased academic attention on enhancing the effectiveness of knowledge-policy interfaces at the international level for urgent food systems transformation. However, previous literature signals that actions to improve science, policy, and society relations occur at multiple scales and often through informal avenues. This paper examines the potential role of multi-actor urban food governance spaces in developing more inclusive and territorialised knowledge-policy interfaces; a subject rarely investigated in the literature. To do so, the study proposes a three-dimensional analytical framework that acknowledges their place-based and networked nature. This framework is applied in València and Barcelona, focusing on the knowledge practices within multi-actor urban food governance spaces and their interrelations with the politics of evidence-informed policymaking. The results illustrate that such spaces function as a form of informal knowledge-policy interfaces that promote local and multi-scalar collective learning and knowledge co-production. However, whether knowledge from such spaces becomes a key part of policymaking grapples with issues of limited administrative capacities, scarce data, and lack of political prioritisation of food in the municipal agenda. As such, there is a need for increased efforts to link global, national, and local processes to build on existing infrastructures at different scales, such as by developing translocal knowledge-policy interfaces. This study not only contributes to progress in the field of food. It also offers insights to enhance science-policy-society relations more broadly, illustrating the need to acknowledge the effectiveness of knowledge-policy interfaces as a function of the broader actings of contested place-based and governance dynamics.

Recent articles have demonstrated the knowledge and accuracy of oil corporations’ predictions made since the 1950s on the effects of their products on the global environment. But can the early relationship between oil corporations and national governments and lack of climate actions by both actors count as ecocide? If so, should remedial strategies appeal to freer markets for oil or greater state regulation? Cast within the wide context of investigating the collusion at play between powerful political-economic actors and decision-makers as monopolists and debates about ‘the modern corporation and private property’ (Berle and Means, 1932/2017), ‘the new industrial state’ (Galbraith, 1967), and ‘the economic theory of regulation’ (Stigler, 1971), the paper reviews the contentious relationship between states, corporations, and markets. Specifically, the article probes strategies of oil corporations and national governments intended to delay the inclusion of environmental concerns in policies and avoid accountability. Our method of content analysis of articles, reports, and international declarations of different actors and periods relies on a qualitative methodology and ontology of critical realism. We find that not only did oil corporations hide the truth, but also that national governments, that knew (or should have known) about the threat posed by oil industrial activities and which have wider responsibilities than corporations, did not act and are (at least) as responsible and as ‘ecocidal’ in what could be called an oil TNC-state alliance. Accordingly, we open the avenues for redressing an evolutionary shift from markets and states to commons, and embedding power within communities (Polanyi, 1945) along with a more universal right to bring a case of ecocide against both transnational oil corporations and states that collude with them.