Environmental Action Programme Research Articles

Participatory approach for integrated development and management of North African marginal zones: demonstrative plan to fight desertification in Morocco and Tunisia

A demonstrative and participatory development project on desertification mitigation and rural development has been launched in Northern Africa under SMAP Programme (Short and Medium-term priority environmental Action Programme) financed by the European Union. The project, which title is Demonstration Project on Strategies to Combat Desertification in Arid Lands with Direct Involvement of Local Agro-pastoral Communities in North Africa, is carried out in sensitive regions of Morocco and Tunisia with the coordination of the Nucleo Ricerca sulla Desertificazione (NRD, Desertification Research Center) of the University of Sassari (Italy) and the partnership of Morocco and Tunisia Agriculture Ministries. The areas concerned are located in regions characterised by rural poverty, food dependency and land abandoning where urgent measures are needed to promote optimisation of resource availability and management for a sustainable development. The project involves direct desertification mitigation by vegetation cover restoration, with drought resistant perennial forage species ( Opuntia ficus-indica , Atriplex nummularia and Acacia saligna ) in highly degraded rangelands in order to mitigate desertification processes while improving rangelands productivity; and adopts measures for local population technical capacities building through training sessions related to all project activities, and making it a concrete demonstration supported by the direct involvement of local communities. Successful actions already carried out in this field by the participants of the project as well as by other Mediterranean countries, has been taken into account, re-elaborated and exploited, thus promoting south/south co-operation and exchange of knowledge. Participation of all actors and especially of local communities is the key point in all phases of the project and is strengthened by means of dissemination and sensitisation campaigns and by training courses. At the end of the project, all actors own/share all choices made and the technology used participating thus to the intervention sustainability.

3. European Union (EU)

According to the presidency of Denmark, green growth was to be a high Union priority in 2012, not in spite of, but because of, the present economic crisis, which was at the centre of attention of the EU’s institutions. Indeed the newly proposed seventh Environmental Action Programme aims to transition the EU towards a green economy in 2020. A number of environmental policy documents and legislation were indeed proposed or adopted in 2012 (and 2011) to achieve the goals for Europe 2020 and beyond. Although all of the environmental topics were addressed by the European legislator, the focus of the presidencies of both years was in particular on energy and resource efficiency, with water policy as the specific hobbyhorse of Hungary and Cyprus. Resource efficiency was also on the EU’s working program for 2011, as part of sustainable growth, to be approached via innovative integrated Union policy making by building progressively a framework thereon. Indeed, the sustainable use of resources was at the heart of green reform of the common agriculture policy and the common fisheries policy.

The legal protection of the marine environment: The Marine Strategy Framework Directive and its implementation in Spain

Marine ecosystems are open systems with complex interactions within and among them. Impacts on or alterations to one ecosystem in one site of the marine environment will influence other sites, i.e: human activities, conducted in the coastal zone can have significant impacts on the offshore environment, and vice-versa. Within the European Union, bathed by two oceans (the Atlantic and the Arctic) and four seas (the Baltic, Black, Mediterranean and North seas) and with 22 coastal states, the Sixth Environmental Action Programme of the European Community set the process to establish an Integrated Maritime Policy (IMP) when it proposed the development of a strategy for marine protection identifying marine protection as one of its priority areas. The IMP was adopted in 2007. The environmental dimension of the IMP is the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). Its aim is to protect more effectively the marine environment across Europe through the achievement of good environmental status of the EU's marine waters by 2020 and to protect the resource base upon which marine-related economic and social activities depend. The purpose of this article is to analyse the main elements of the MSFD and to examine how Spain, as an EU country with 8000 km of coastal fringe, ist complying with it and will review its marine governance framework.

I. ENVIRONMENT

The period since the last survey published in this journal has been marked by much activity, but also some frustration, in the area of EU environmental policy.1 The present survey comes as the EU nears the end of its Sixth Environmental Action Programme (EAP) setting out the EU's environmental policy directions from 2002 to 2012, where it identified four priority areas for this period: climate change; nature and biodiversity; environment and health; and natural resources and waste.2 While progress has been made in each of these fields, significant setbacks have also occurred and, in a number of important areas, the state of the EU environment continues to deteriorate.

Environmental Action as Context for Youth Development

This study explored the practices of teachers, nonformal science educators, community organizers, youth program managers, and other educators facilitating youth participation in local environmental action, as well as the experiences of some of the youth involved. We conducted narrative interviews with 33 educators facilitating youth environmental action in communities throughout the United States and group interviews with 46 youth participating in nine environmental action programs in New York State. Through interpretation of educators' stories and youths' reflections, we discovered strong parallels with theory and empirical research in the youth development literature suggesting environmental action is a valuable context for positive youth development.

Antiflooding prevention, protection, strategic environmental planning of aquatic resources and water purification: The case of Thessalian basin, in Greece

In the E.U. following the old 5th Environmental Action Program (EAP) of 1994 and the new 6th EAP for the sustainable development in 2001, we confront the strategic management problem of aquatic resources at the regional and watershed level. What should be the goals for a new strategic management of natural and aquatic resources in a Region of Greece such as Thessaly? The present paper is concerned with the protection, prevention and strategic environmental planning of aquatic resources and water purification in the Thessaly basin as well as the protection of these resources from the pollution and depletion, which might result from various national water resource programs and plans which are already in operation. The aforementioned aim is a product of research on the goals, actions and proposals, which depict the problem of aquatic resource management related to pollution, the link with agricultural activities and the overall problem of water. Primarily, a general profile of the water situation and problems is presented for the Thessaly basin, including water pollution and the problems related to the rational management and protection of aquatic resources. Also, the prevention of natural water-involved disasters is explored which in turn points to the need for a new strategic scheme for environmental management of aquatic resources and purification and to the institution of new water policy actions and measures for the Thessaly basin in central Greece.

THE RELATION BETWEEN THE BIOLOGICAL ACTIVITY AND THE LAND SURFACE TEMPERATURE IN BUDAPEST

The aim of our investigation was to study in detail the relationship between the spatial structure of the urban green surface and land surface temperatures. The research was carried out to support the elaboration of the Environmental Action Programme of Budapest (Hungary) focusing on city planning as well. The ultimate goal was the utilization of the findings to provide planning guidance for the city, on how vegetation could contribute to the mitigation of the negative effects of urban heat island in more effective ways.

Linking analyses and environmental Kuznets curves for aggregated material flows in the EU

The relationship between economy and environmental impacts has been an essential topic in the discussion on environmental problems for a long time. From the 1990s, this relationship has gained a position in environmental policy as well. De-coupling the use of natural resources from economic growth has been set as one of the policy goals in the sixth Environmental Action Programme by the European Commission. In the scientific discussion, the concept of environmental Kuznets curve deals closely with the de-coupling or de-linking phenomenon. Aggregated material flows, on the other hand, have often been considered as a macro-level proxy of environmental degradation. Different methods or approaches have been designed for “sustainability” or “carrying capacity” evaluation as well. The objective of this article is (i) to discuss the possibilities and limitations of using environmental and economic indicators in the sustainability analysis at the macro level, (ii) to present a theoretical framework for the linking analysis including a classification of the degrees of de-linking/re-linking environmental impacts from/to economic growth, and (iii) to give an empirical example by using indicators of direct material flows as a proxy of environmental degradation and by applying the framework into the European Union and its 15 member countries. The results show that the trend in the European Union is a weak de-linking of material flows from economic growth during the years 1980–2000. In other words, material intensity of the economy has generally decreased due to increased efficiency, but the absolute amount of material use has increased, although at a lower rate of increase than economic growth. On the other hand, there is a quite large variation between different EU member countries. However, absolute decrease in the use of materials cannot be found as a continuous trend between the years 1980 and 2000 in any of the studied EU member countries.

What are the possibilities for graphical presentation of decoupling? An example of economy-wide material flow indicators in the Czech Republic

Abstract The relationship between the environmental and economic domains has attracted researchers and politicians for at least several decades [Boulding, K., 1966. The economics of the coming spaceship earth. In: Boulding. K., et al. (Eds.), Environmental Quality in Growing Economy. Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Marylang; Meadows, D.H., Meadows, D.L., Randers, J., Behrens, W.W., 1972. The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome's Project on the Predicament of Mankind. Universe Books, New York; Schmidt-Bleek, F., 1994. Wieviel Umwelt Braucht der Mensch? MIPS—Das Mass fur Okologisches Wirtschaften. Birkhauser-Verlag, Berlin, Basel, Boston]. The overall goal of sustainable economies is to reach a state where the general quality of life is growing while the environmental pressures go down [EC, 2001. A Sustainable Europe for a Better World: A European union Strategy for Sustainable Development. Commission of the European Communites, Brussels; EC, 2002. The Sixth Community Environment Action Programme. Commission of the European Communities, Brussels; EC, 2003a. 2003 Environmental Policy Review. Commission of the European Communities, Brussels; EC, 2003b. Towards a thematic strategy on the sustainable use of natural resources. Commission of the European Communities. Brussels; UN, 2002. Plan of Implementation of the World Sunnit on Sustainable Development. United Nations, New York.]. This phenomenon is called decoupling. To express decoupling, one usually aims to capture the mutual relation between an indicator of economic driving forces (most commonly Gross Domestic Product/GDP/, which is usually taken as a proxy of quality of life here) and an indicator of environmental pressure. When analysing decoupling, it is not quite clear how to proceed in terms of both selection of appropriate pressure indicators and presentation of decoupling. In this article, we focus on the issue of graphical presentation of decoupling analysis, particularly using economy-wide material flow indicators (EW-MFI) [Eurostat, 2001. Economy-Wide Material Flow Accounts And Derived Indicators: A Methodological Guide. Eurostat, Luxembourg]. One of the most commonly used methods for graphical presentation of decoupling by EW-MFI is to plot time series of indexed values of these indicators and GDP in a single chart. Here, however, it is difficult or even impossible to analyse causes of the different decoupling for particular indicators—to do this we propose to analyse time series of their components. To show the contribution of the components to the overall decoupling of an indicator, we suggest expressing the weighted share of particular components in overall indicator decoupling. For that we have tested the direct material input indicator (DMI), which is also recommended by OECD for decoupling analysis [OECD, 2002. Indicators to Measure Decoupling of Environmental Pressures from Economic Growth. OECD, Paris]. The expression of the weighted share of the indicator components in indicator decoupling has proved to be especially transparent in the case of this indicator, because the DMI belongs to the least aggregated material flow indicators. Nevertheless, the proposed method of expression can also be applied to other material flow indicators, as exemplified by the domestic material consumption indicator (DMC).

Milestones of Soil I Protection in EU Environmental Law

AbstractThe current legal situation in the European Union does not provide a sufficiently effective framework to protect our soils against damages. The existing legislation covers some aspects of chemical and biological soil protection, e.g. in the sewage sludge directive, the Water Framework Directive, the IPPC Directive, the Habitats Directive as well as in waste management law, but it remains fragmented and focuses on safeguarding the soils as side effects. Furthermore, the requirements for the prevention of soil compaction, erosion, sealing and other physical threats of the soil are hardly considered by EU law. A turning point was marked by the 6th Environmental Action Programme with the intention to develop a specific EU strategy for soil protection (which is due to be published soon). According to reflections de lege ferenda (which could have a stimulating effect in this process), principles and instruments of EU soil protection law could be developed as elements of a targeted policy. The combination of regulative and non-regulative instruments, particularly consisting of those of planning, of direct and indirect behaviour control, of company organisation and of private law, could lead to a more effective protection of the soils. A closer look at these possible EU instruments might be interesting for the development of legal regimes of soil protection at the national and international level as well. These general considerations should be evaluated with regard to the EU competences and the principle of subsidiarity.

Overview of the Development of EU Soil Policy: towards a EU Thematic Strategy for Soil I Protection

AbstractThe European Commission is at the last stages of preparing a strategy to ensure that Europe's soils remain healthy and capable of supporting human activities and ecosystems. Soil is essential to our economic activities as it provides us with food, drinking water, biomass and raw materials - and all our human activities are somehow related to soil. But soil degradation is accelerating across the EU, with negative effects on human health, ecosystems and climate change - and on our economic prosperity and quality of life. To reverse this trend, the Commission's strategy will set a common EU framework for action to preserve, protect and restore soil, but leaving Member States flexibility to implement it in a way which fits local situations best. The Thematic Strategy on soil protection will comprise a Communication and a legislative proposal which might require Member States to tackle threats such as landslides, contamination, erosion, organic matter decline, compaction, salinisation and sealing wherever they occur, or threaten to occur, on their national territories. The Soils Strategy is number six of seven Thematic Strategies that the Commission is presenting, in accordance with the 6th Environmental Action Programme.

The Equator Principles: The Voluntary Approach to Environmentally Sustainable Finance

This article considers the Equator Principles, a voluntary code for environmentally responsible project financing by commercial and investment banks. The value of voluntary environmental approaches is increasingly recognised in the European Union, and in its Sixth Environment Action Programme, the European Commission advocated a voluntary initiative with the financial sector to promote harmonised standards for green lending and investing. The article begins by explaining the broader relevance of financial institutions to sustainable development. The nature and effectiveness of voluntary environmental measures to engage the private sector is canvassed before looking at the Equator Principles in detail. The article explains what the Principles demand of lenders, assesses their implementation, and makes some observations on their adequacy for the promotion of environmentally sustainable finance.

Industrial waste minimization - experience from Lithuania

Waste represents the loss of both material and energy resources. Because excessive waste generation is a symptom of inefficient production processes, low durability of goods and unsustainable consumption patterns, waste quantities can be considered as an indicator of how efficiently society uses raw materials. Therefore, good waste management begins with preventing waste from being generated. The objective of this paper is to present the work related to waste minimization in Lithuania by introducing successful examples from industry, to bring ideas and inspiration to authorities, companies, and others working in the field of waste minimization. The paper is supporting EU waste policy manifested in the EU waste strategy and the proposed Sixth Environmental Action Programme. Many enterprises are still unaware of the full costs of waste management. Therefore, by applying the methodology presented in the paper, companies could make substantial reductions in their waste, and therefore, disposal costs. Waste minimization (WM) often results in substantial savings through reduced purchasing costs and more efficient practices. It also has wide environmental benefits such as reduced energy consumption and less environmental pollution, conservation of natural resources and extension of valuable landfill capacity. Therefore, waste prevention should have the highest priority in waste strategies, as this is the only way to stop the growth of the amount of waste and reduce the loss of resources (EUC Bulletin 12, 1996).

Doing the groundwork? transferring a UK environmental planning approach to Japan

The paper examines the transfer and operation of the UK Groundwork (GW) model in Japan and sets out the development of GW in the UK since the early 1980s. The study discusses two case study areas in Japan and explores the wider cultural and political issues that face the transfer of environmental action programmes. It was found that Japanese groups have been developing their own approaches using the Groundwork label, yet for GW ideas and practices to become understood and accepted in Japan, as has been the case in the UK, a longer timeframe and better support is needed. It is concluded that while there may be benefit in using the GW label there are also significant barriers to the successful adoption of Groundwork in Japan, including a different socio-political context for the spread of community-based schemes. There is also an opportunity, however, through GW and similar transformative planning efforts to help strengthen civil society and partnership working in Japan. While some of the difficulties have been acknowledged in Japan it is argued that national governmental support will be necessary for GW Japan to emulate its UK parent.

European Abatement of Surface Ozone in a Global Perspective

EU's programme Clean Air for Europe (CAFE) is presently revising the policy on air quality which will lead to the adoption of a thematic strategy on air pollution under the Sixth Environmental Action Programme by mid-2005. For the abatement of surface ozone it is becoming evident that processes outside European control will be crucial for meeting long-term aims and air quality guidelines in Europe in the future. Measurements and modelling results indicate that there is a strong link between climate change and surface ozone. A warmer and dryer European climate is very likely to lead to increased ozone concentrations. Furthermore, increased anthropogenic emissions in developing economies in Asia are likely to raise the hemispheric background level of ozone. A significant increase in the background concentration of ozone has been observed at several sites in Northern Europe although the underlying causes are not settled. The photochemical formation of tropospheric ozone from increased concentrations of methane and CO may also lead to a higher ozone level on a global scale. Gradually, these effects may outweigh the effect of the reduced European ozone precursor emissions. This calls for a global or hemispheric perspective in the revision of the European air quality policy for ozone.

Revising the Waste Framework Directive Basic Deficiencies of European Waste Law and Proposals for Reform

AbstractFor years, there has been criticism that there are substantial ambiguities in European waste law and that, in particular, crucial legal terms, such as waste, disposal and recovery, have not yet been defined sufficiently clearly. Such ambiguities hamper transposition into national law, complicate implementation by the national authorities and thus give rise to considerable economic and environmental problems in the waste management sector. Prompted by the Sixth Environmental Action Programme, the European Commission has finally initiated a revision of the general legal framework for European waste management. Amendments to the Waste Shipment Regulation have already been approved at a political level and are likely to be adopted this year. Revision of the basic terms, principles and provisions of the Waste Framework Directive (WFD), however, is still at a rather early stage. Against this background, we hope to show by the following that the ambiguities in EC waste law are not just a consequence of a lack of definitions but also the result of uncertainty surrounding basic regulatory and strategic issues which must be addressed first (Part I). We will therefore submit recommendations as to how these strategic questions should be answered in the light of both the environmental risks currently faced by the waste sector and the specific potential of waste-law approaches to reduce these risks (Part II). Finally, we will show how these strategic solutions could be converted into specific provisions and amendments to the WFD (Parts III and IV). The recommendations and suggestions presented below have been generated by a study conducted by the authors at the request of the German Ministry of the Environment1.

Towards Good Environmental Governance in Europe

Summary: This article is about good governance, as presented in the 2001 EC White Paper, in relation to environmental legal policy making in Europe. First a concise analysis is made of the concept of good governance. Then, in a ``tour d’horizon’’, environmental policy programmes, legal cornerstones and instruments are described on the basis of the five main principles of good governance: openness; participation; accountability; effectiveness; and coherence. This overview illustrates the move toward good governance, fitting with the wording of the fifth Environmental Action Programme of 1993: ``Whereas previous environmental measures tended to be prescriptive in character with an emphasis on the `thou shalt not’ approach, the new strategy leans more towards a `let’s work together’ approach.’’ However, much is yet to be done, if a true shift in governance is to be brought about. A further analysis is therefore made of the possibilities of enhancing the concept of good environmental governance under the future European Constitution. Major improvements are within grasp if there is a willingness to place a ``clean’’ Europe for citizens before the single market, introduce basic citizens’ rights on basic environmental standards, further support for environmental NGO’s and allow for more competition between Member States.

Raising awareness of environmental risks

This paper presents a study of the effects of an abandoned mining site on the environment and human health and discusses possible mechanisms to raise public awareness of the risks posed by mining sites, and environmental risks in general. The case study reported concerns the Campo de Jales mining site located in the northern part of Portugal, which is currently being sealed. The action taken and outlined in this paper is based on the lines of action established by the Sixth Environmental Action Programme.

Polis—the Portuguese programme on urban environment. A contribution to the discussion on European Urban Policy

In recent years the urban question in the European Union has been a matter of deep focus and intensive debate, contributing to the European Community environmental, spatial and sustainability policies approach, however not entirely reflected in the current version of the 6th European Environmental Action Programme. The POLIS programme, initiated in Portugal at the time of the last Portuguese Presidency of the European Union (January–June 2000), illustrates the Portuguese urban environmental policy approach in that period, in response to contemporary trends and priorities regarding the improvement of urban life and governance. This article describes the POLIS programme, its current status and how it meets current challenges. The expetience acquired so far with the POLIS programme may be useful in the broader context of the discussion of an European urban policy.

Old wine in new bottles? The Commission and the use of environmental policy instruments

In this article, we address two main questions. First, we ask whether the alleged shift in the Commission's environmental ‘policy style’ from a traditional regulatory style towards a new style based on less impositional, more market‐based and co‐operative instruments has actually occurred in practice. We seek to answer this question (a) by employing content analysis to assess the policy instruments propagated by the Commission in both the Fourth and Fifth Environmental Action Programmes (EAP); and (b) by analysing legislative proposals introduced by the Commission in designated environmental policy fields (atmospheric pollution, waste, water). On the basis of the findings we argue that there is a discrepancy between what the Commission declares in the EAPs and what it proposes in practice. Moreover, in a second step, we highlight the factors which might make any major shift in the Commission's policy style difficult to achieve in order to account for this discrepancy.