Environmental Policy and Governance最新文献

International aid for biodiversity conservation is expected to provide alternative livelihoods for forest-dependent communities to offset restrictions on forest use. This aligns with the contemporary conservation discourse that promotes pro-poor, human rights-based, and sustainability principles. We used the Central Africa Forest Ecosystem Program (ECOFAC), the longest-running EU-funded initiative with nearly 200 million euros invested for about 30 years, as a case study to analyze how international aid, has attempted to achieve fair and sustainable conservation practices. Through a longitudinal study of the design of ECOFAC, we assessed its implementation arrangements, budget distribution, prioritized technical solutions, and target actors to identify to whom it has benefited the most (winners) and for whom it has not been beneficial or even harmful (losers). Our findings show that the EU biodiversity conservation program has prioritized the reinforcement of state administrations to strengthen their coercive power in protected areas. A co-dependency has developed between transnational actors, preferred by the EU as implementing partners, and state conservation actors. This relationship has become a barrier to meaningful reform within ECOFAC despite decades of policy learning. The pro-poor discourse and human rights concerns of the EU aid have not been reflected in the types of activities funded nor in the level of investments aimed at incentivizing forest-dependent communities to support conservation restrictions. EU policymakers need to pay more attention to how their interventions in biodiversity conservation policies create or reinforce power asymmetries and inequality, especially in Central Africa.

Research has shown that effective flood risk management is closely connected to land use governance, i.e., the land use system involving diverse, relevant stakeholders (e.g., landowners, public authorities, disaster management organisations) and their formal and informal land development practices. Our research scrutinises the often-observed enforcement gaps emerging when unauthorised encroachment in flood-prone areas occurs despite existing formal regulations on building activities. The study identifies factors that help explain these enforcement gaps in flood risk-sensitive land use governance by applying an institutional analysis and development (IAD) framework and a property rights perspective. Our empirical research focuses on Accra, Ghana, which has a long history of both regular and extreme flood events and is experiencing significant growth and high in-migration rates, leading to increased demand for land. This, paired with land litigation and limited security of tenure, has led to unplanned settlements and encroachments of flood-prone areas, thus heightening the local population's vulnerability—conditions typical of many similar cases in Sub-Saharan Africa. The research builds on analysing policy documents and interviews with diverse stakeholders related to flood risk management and land use governance in Accra. Applying qualitative content analysis, we identified explanatory factors in connection with the enforcement gaps, which include overlapping property rights, outpaced planning efforts, land conflicts, legal loopholes, authority mismatch, information gaps, political influence and selective enforcement, and socio-economic pressures.

Wildfires in Southern European Mediterranean regions, exacerbated by climatic conditions and human activity, pose significant threats to ecosystems and human well-being. Current fire management policies tend to prioritize fire exclusion, neglecting traditional land use practices and socio-ecological interactions underlying the human–fire relationship. Diverging from exclusion-dominated management paradigms is challenging due to entrenched beliefs and conflicting interests across local stakeholders. Developing effective fire management and characterizing the mechanisms driving wildfire frequency and severity requires understanding the interests of stakeholder groups, the historical and institutional context these emerged in, and their interactions with land use management practices. We examine the diverse narratives shaping fire management attitudes and policy in fire-prone regions at the urban–wildland interface with a long history of land use management conflict. We focus on Monreale, Sicily, a region characterized by frequent catastrophic wildfires. Employing a participatory approach with representatives of local authorities, government agencies, and civil society, we formalize diverse stakeholder perspectives on land use and fire management, revealing the socio-economic and political dimensions that contribute to deep-rooted conflicts. We provide insights into the role of local governance, social, and institutional complexities and highlight the need for cross-stakeholder collaboration to foster resilient and sustainable fire management.

City representatives actively share and seek knowledge, experiences, and solutions to address climate change challenges. This research investigates the question: What conditions explain engagement in city-to-city learning on climate change policy? To answer this, the study defines engagement as an active, directed approach of sharing and seeking policy information. It identifies 14 potential conditions influencing engagement, categorized into five broad areas: internal context, partner attributes, intercity relations, boundary spanners, and individual characteristics. Using a global survey and quantitative analyses, the study determines the most influential conditions. Findings highlight the importance of individual characteristics—particularly the frequency of working on climate change-related issues and the number of years an individual has worked for the city. Additionally, internal context, especially local pressures, plays a crucial role in shaping engagement in C2C learning.

Marine ecosystems are facing substantial stress due to global challenges that have escalated in magnitude and impact. The European Green Deal (EGD) can act as a driver of change and innovation in marine governance. There are multiple enabling and constraining conditions to orchestrate change and innovation, as it requires coordination of multiple governance levels and across different economic sectors. Drawing on established theory and concepts, this paper introduces a Multi-layered Collaborative Marine Governance (MLCMG) Model to evaluate change and innovation of marine governance arrangements. The MLCMG model integrates multiple components: (1) marine governance arrangements (comprising actors/coalitions, rules of the game, resources, and discourses); (2) the institutional setting and structural conditions affecting collaborative processes; (3) collaborative dynamics (comprising principled engagement, shared motivation, and capacity for joint action); (4) governance capabilities of state and non-state actors to attain societal goals; and it considers the role of e-governance to lever institutional arrangements, collaborative dynamics, and governance capabilities. Process performance refers to the ways that change and innovation came about, centering the decision-making abilities and social learning potential of the public and private actors active in marine governance arrangements. Productivity performance focuses on the cumulative results of change and innovation, namely outputs, outcomes, and impacts. Using the EGD vision as a normative reference point against which governance performance can be assessed, the model offers a framework that supports studies of governance change, innovation, and performance.

Literature highlights the importance of collaborative arrangements in implementing Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) to address climate change impacts, such as the urban heat island effect. However, very little is known about the design and implementation of such collaborative arrangements. We address this gap by analysing the NBS collaborative arrangements in two European cities, Ghent (Belgium) and Heerlen (the Netherlands). To do this, we apply the Integrative Framework for Collaborative Governance (IFCG), originally developed by Emerson, Nabatchi and Balogh to explore the contextual factors and drivers influencing the collaborative dynamics and their short- and long-term results. We address the following research questions: “What do collaborative arrangements for NBS in cities look like, and how do they function?” and “How useful is the IFCG for understanding NBS collaborative arrangements in cities?”. This article draws on desk research, document analysis of publicly available documentation and online data, and 17 qualitative interviews with city actors. The analysis reveals two types of collaborative arrangements: comprehensive city-wide collaborative arrangements and implementation-focused collaborative arrangements focusing on city neighbourhoods. While the IFCG captures key aspects such as network connectedness, leadership, financial resources and shared theory of action, the fragmented and evolving nature of urban NBS arrangements complicates its complete application. Based on our findings, we identify some areas for refinement. Overall, this article enhances collaborative governance theory by critically examining the IFCG and providing a deeper understanding of collaborative arrangements for NBS in urban settings.

Treated water releases into the Pacific from the Fukushima Dai'ichi nuclear plant in Japan have drawn opposition from fishing communities, who accused proponents of acting irresponsibly in commencing releases before gaining local support. The controversy reflects questions in social licence to operate and social impact assessment about how proponents' responsibilities to host communities encompass knowledge production and fit with broader visions for a locality. Research into geographies of responsibility—how society takes care and enacts responsibility across space and place—helps think through what it means to take responsibility for host communities. Focusing on the Fukushima Dai'ichi treated water releases, we therefore aim to explore how relational responsibility becomes manifest in a complex and emotive environmental situation. Through interviews with people working in coastal Fukushima fisheries, we find that alongside economic motivations, a desire to ‘defend’ the Fukushima coast for future generations drives cooperatives to continue fishing and demonstrate safety and quality of Fukushima seafood. Those working in fisheries understand marine radioactivity cannot neatly be managed across scales, and that providing more and better scientific data is unlikely to bring others on-side if proponents are not seen as taking responsibility for the Fukushima coast. We argue that in a complex and emotive environmental situation like Fukushima Dai'ichi, multiple actors may hold responsibilities to place and people, and that intermediary organisations are important in enabling relational responsibility. However, proponents must be cognisant of power and resourcing differentials, and ensure those assuming responsibility for place receive financial and technical support.

Venuti F., A. Heinilä, and P. R. Davids. 2025. “Regulations ‘Under the Weather’: Legal Factors of Stability and Change for the Implementation of Natural Stormwater Management in Finland.” Environmental Policy and Governance 35: 431–449. https://doi.org/10.1002/eet.2150.

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Open access publishing facilitated by Ita-Suomen yliopisto, as part of the Wiley–FinELib agreement.

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Social science inquiry into environmental governance is theoretically and methodologically diverse, resulting in a large array of isolated pieces of knowledge. Scholars' reflections around knowledge cumulation focus on how separate bits of knowledge can feasibly be integrated to build a broader, consensual state of knowledge. Yet, experience shows that transferring knowledge from existing research to a new case can lead to ill-adapted governance solutions. We argue that this points to a disconnect between scholars' approaches to knowledge cumulation and cumulation efforts that create actionable knowledge. Indeed, we find there is little concrete guidance offered to scholars on which rationale should guide knowledge cumulation, limiting their capacity to effectively produce actionable knowledge. In this article, we suggest giving precedence to epistemic justice instead of strict feasibility in knowledge cumulation. As a first step, we review common blind spots in knowledge cumulation efforts and argue that a perspective grounded in epistemic justice is best suited to address (global) environmental issues. As a second step, and while acknowledging the structural and institutional limits within which scholars operate, we propose that they can contribute to a shift in the principles guiding knowledge cumulation. This transformation towards epistemic justice should be pursued already at various stages of the knowledge production process, namely in conducting research, presenting and publishing research, and communicating research to policy-makers and communities. This article is primarily directed at environmental governance scholars in the social sciences but may offer valuable insights for anyone interested in inter/trans-disciplinary and boundary-spanning approaches to science and policy-making.