Environmental Management最新文献

Unregulated land use and urban growth affect the quality and quantity of wetland ecosystems in sub-Saharan African cities. Underpinned by the urban commons’ theoretical lens, this study employed mixed-methods to explore the extent and impact of wetland degradation on the daily lives and ecological wellbeing of residents in the Wa urban area. It contributes to the growing literature on how wetlands are being degraded, resulting from multiple and interconnected anthropogenic factors: urban expansion, customary land ownership and the resultant land commodification, urban planning deficits, weak institutional capacity, poor regulatory framework, lack of stakeholder collaboration, and fragmented community action towards the governance and safeguarding of wetlands in the city. The findings provide policymakers with insights to redirect attention to reconfiguring wetlands’ management and governance through the deployment of comprehensive urban planning ecological modules, collaborative stakeholder action, education, and awareness-raising about the consequences of wetland degradation in Ghana.

Many countries have been simplifying environmental licensing and environmental impact assessment (EIA) using different tactics, such as granting permits based on mere self-declarations of impacts from proponents. However, few studies, if any, have empirically explored the reliability of these self-declarations. The aim of this study was to analyze the self-declaration of impacts by proponents in simplified licensing and EIA processes, using a sample of projects from the agribusiness sector in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. Data were collected through content analysis and GIS-based spatial analysis of self-declared information in 1790 environmental licensing processes. The results showed several inconsistencies in the self-declared information, especially regarding the size of impacted areas and their overlaps with environmentally restricted areas. Agribusiness projects in Minas Gerais are probably being licensed based on inaccurate and unreliable information. Findings serve as a warning to other national and international jurisdictions that intend to implement similar simplification approaches.

In this paper, how changes to environmental aspects considered in strategic environmental assessment (SEA) can affect human health is explored, based on a comprehensive and systematic literature review. Whilst health is a key aspect for consideration in SEA, how it should be approached has remained subject to discussion. There is agreement, though, that at a minimum, health impacts from bio-physical environmental changes need be assessed. What this means is elaborated on in this paper. Challenges to and opportunities for an effective consideration of health in SEA are briefly outlined.

The Pendjari National Park, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in northern Bénin, West Africa, constitutes one of the last refuges for African megafauna in the region. It is threatened by many factors, such as ecosystem degradation, insecurity and poaching. Getting insights into the perceptions of all stakeholders having an interest for and/or an influence on the park is key to inform an effective management of the protected area and its unique biodiversity. We therefore identified priority conservation and management measures through a participatory approach adopting elements of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis. A structured priority-setting exercise involving scientists, local authorities, park managers and representatives of local communities led to the formulation of over 70 conservation and management measures addressing prioritized threats on three priority ecosystem services provided by the Pendjari ecosystem: food supply, water supply and tourism. A group consensus was reached on measures implying more organic farming in the area (both to preserve food and to secure water supply), improved land use planning, soil fertility improvement practices, reinforcement of water supply through pumps, maintenance of tracks, advocacy towards private lodges, and promotional communication. The study concludes that conservation outcomes can be enhanced through stronger local stakeholder ownership and the implementation of practical measures based on the long-term provision of a diverse set of ecosystem services. It also highlights the multiple benefits of participatory decision-making in the context of a UNESCO Biosphere reserve, which serves as living laboratory to foster sustainable human-nature relationships.

Rapid increases in urban sprawl in many cities across the planet pose a challenge that needs to be addressed urgently. This study proposes targets, limits, and warning values to urban sprawl as a quantitative reference framework for exploring potential future pathways and to provide guidance for future land management. The reference framework serves to evaluate the effectiveness of potential urban growth management strategies and to assess a set of greenbelt scenarios as potential strategies to mitigate urban sprawl. Using Montreal as a case study, seven urban development scenarios until 2070 are compared, of which only one is assessed as sustainable. Valuable natural and semi-natural areas and agricultural lands surrounding the city provide an opportunity to establish a greenbelt. As an example of a growth management strategy, we evaluate four greenbelt scenarios regarding their potential to reach the proposed targets and limits. At Montreal’s broader city scale (Census Metropolitan Area, CMA), the results reveal that the greenbelt scenarios would significantly reduce sprawl compared to current trends. However, they would remain insufficient to achieve the proposed target and limit to urban sprawl for Montreal. At the level of municipalities (census subdivisions, CSDs), the greenbelt scenarios would significantly benefit some of them, with one CSD projected to meet its target, while urban sprawl in several others would fall within the range between their limits and warning values. The findings demonstrate the use of targets and limits to serve as benchmarks in land-use management. The results reveal a high potential of greenbelts to positively influence urban development towards sustainability, even if the greenbelt proposals currently under discussion would not achieve the recommended targets and limits corresponding to sustainability.

The degradation and mismanagement of rangeland ecosystems continue to threaten environmental sustainability and livestock-based livelihoods in arid and semi-arid regions. Market-based environmental conservation instruments, such as payment for ecosystem services (PES) and willingness to pay (WTP), serve as effective mechanisms for promoting sustainable land management. This study investigates the WTP of smallholder cattle producers for rangeland restoration in South Africa’s North West Province, integrating socioeconomic and ecological dimensions to inform policy and practice. A double-bounded contingent valuation method was applied to data from 101 smallholder cattle producers, revealing that over 70% of them were willing to pay a higher bid of USD 11.50 ha⁻¹ year⁻¹, with a mean WTP of USD 17.00 ha⁻¹ year⁻¹. Logistic regression analysis revealed that education level (p = 0.012), preferred cattle breed (p = 0.039), farming experience (p = 0.026), goat ownership (p = 0.022), ecoregion (p = 0.079), and cattle-derived income (p = 0.048) were significant predictors of WTP. These findings strongly support rangeland restoration and management within smallholder systems and reflect how socioeconomic and ecological factors shape land-use management choices. This study provides evidence to inform the development of participatory, equity-sensitive conservation frameworks and support the development of incentive-based PES programmes, aligning with sustainable land management policies and resilience-building in pastoral systems.

Protected areas are considered a critical antidote to global biodiversity loss. Yet, protected areas have not effectively preserved freshwater biodiversity compared to other taxonomic groups, in part because they are not designed or managed with freshwater ecosystems in mind. Additionally, historical and current human activities have degraded freshwater biodiversity, and climate driven transformation constrains the ability of protected areas to preserve freshwater biodiversity into the future. Management intervention is an important tool to ensure protected areas support current and future ecological, socio-cultural, and economic values surrounding freshwater biodiversity. Yet applying interventions is challenging because many protected areas limit human manipulation and control. The Resist-Accept-Direct (RAD) framework is a tool for weighing management approaches in an expanded decision space. As such, the RAD framework may help identify the most appropriate approaches to address ecological transformation while balancing the mandates and values of a given protected area. In this paper, we review federally protected areas of the United States and their varied ability to support freshwater biodiversity. We then recast past management approaches through a RAD lens, examining how they resist, accept, or direct freshwater biodiversity loss in these protected areas. This illustrates how elements of the RAD framework are already being applied and provides a foundation for managers to more formally resist, accept, or direct freshwater biodiversity loss in protected areas moving forward. We conclude with considerations for applying the RAD framework at the intersection of freshwater biodiversity and protected areas to benefit values of current and future generations.

Habitat ownership in the U.S. is primarily private, complicating management of public trust wildlife. Under this configuration, the rights and interests of private landowners can be at odds with those of trust beneficiaries. Recent wildlife scholarship has incorporated private landownership into analyses, but limited data accessibility and analysis tools have precluded landscape-wide assessments of landownership patterns and trends. Here, we present novel methods for analyzing cadastral data and the resulting assessment of private landownership characteristics in the large U.S. state of Montana from 2004 to 2023. Results showed 63% of private land/habitat in the state is owned by 3500 landowners who each control at least 3600 acres; a growing majority of landowners are legal entities (e.g., LLCs), rather than individuals or families; and substantial parcelization has occurred. We discuss implications of these trends, including advantages for wildlife, benefits to landowners, and complications for public trust wildlife management.

Mining-induced land degradation (MILD) is unavoidable but it can be sustainably managed when social, economic, political and, environmental imperatives are holistically considered in decision-making processes. Therefore, this study examines MILD in Mhondongori Ward 5 and Mapirimira Ward 6 in Zvishavane District of Zimbabwe, using geographic information systems (GIS) and remote sensing (RS) with conventional methods. This is to provide scientific evidence that supports informed decision-making for sustainable management of the mining industry and its potential to cause MILD. It seeks to determine the extent of biophysical landscape fragmentation and its management to develop a sustainability-oriented framework for effective MILD management. Landsat imagery analysis using the supervised image classification method over a 24-year period (2000–2024) revealed that mining land expanded from 0.2 km² (2000) to 1.8 km² (2024) while natural forests declined from 20.6 km² to 12.6 km², bareland decreased from 31.9 km² to 26.8 km² and communal cultivation increased from 18.7 km² to 29.8 km². The land use structure indicates that local livelihoods are heavily dependent on nature-based resources and ecosystem services necessitating revised land use planning that balances mineral extraction with sustainable land allocation to safeguard food security, biodiversity, and community resilience. Community perceptions attribute land degradation mainly to Chinese operators (97.8%) and artisanal miners (59%). Despite existing legal frameworks, weak institutional coordination, limited community participation, and corruption undermine effective management. The co-developed framework offers multi-stakeholder collaboration, legal reform, geospatial monitoring, environmental education, and engineered rehabilitation for supporting Zimbabwe’s National Development Strategy 1, AU Agenda 2063, and global SDGs.

Environmental conservation efforts on different scales, from species to ecosystems, are mostly centered on regulating human behaviours (activities) through rules governing resource access and use. However, local resource users do not always respond positively to rules. Non-compliance with conservation rules renders them ineffective, which undermines the achievement of ecological and development goals in environmental management. Therefore the factors that determine compliance with conservation rules require thorough consideration in environmental conservation planning. While a substantial literature explores the factors influencing rule compliance in the context of formal protected areas that rely mostly on enforcement of legislation by regulatory authorities, less is known about such dynamics in Community-Based Conservation (CBC) that rely mostly on conformity with local collective decisions. Taking a qualitative case study approach, this paper examines the determinants of compliance with livestock grazing rules for a particular CBC model, namely the community conservancies of Maasai Mara in southwestern Kenya, which continue to struggle with livestock encroachment. The findings highlight the drivers and barriers to compliance with livestock grazing rules by conservancy members (landowners), offering key lessons into how conducive factors can be leveraged for behavioural changes critical for progress towards sustainability of conservancies. Overall, economic benefits, deterrence (enforcement and sanctions), and normative incentives (social and personal norms) came out as key motivating factors, reinforced by high dependence on natural resources. Recommended policy actions include strengthening and diversifying revenue streams, improving conservancy governance structures, enhancing enforcement capacity, and raising conservation awareness.