Local Environmental Groups Research Articles

Conflicts and competing interests in infrastructure development: A case of N2 toll road project, wild coast, South Africa

The Wild Coast region in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa, is arguably the least developed area, primarily due to its historical marginalisation caused by Apartheid. To counter this underdevelopment, the current government of South Africa plans to implement a 550 km N2 Toll Road Project to link East London in the Eastern Cape with Durban in KwaZulu-Natal. The government envisions that the project will lead to spatial development through improved accessibility to resources. However, it has been criticised by many, including local communities and environmental advocacy groups, who contend that it will result in socio-ecological disasters and conflicts. Against this backdrop, this study explored the differing views and conflicts among stakeholders affected by the N2 Toll Road Project. A qualitative research approach was adopted, involving in-depth interviews and focus group discussions (FGDs) with government officials, local communities, business communities, and environmental advocacy groups. The findings indicate that the N2 Toll Road Project has generated significant controversy, with public opinion sharply divided between those who believe the road will have predominantly positive impacts and those who contend that its effects will be overwhelmingly negative. Concerns regarding the disruption of livelihoods, loss of land, destruction of socio-cultural heritage, and lack of consultation emerged as key sources of conflict among stakeholders. The study recommends the use of inclusive consultation processes and mitigation strategies to minimise conflicting ideologies among stakeholders.

Infrastructure development and environmental risk perceptions in the Wild Coast, South Africa

Government’s proposal to construct the N2 Toll Road in the Wild Coast was lauded for its ‘developmental agenda’ in the historically neglected Wild Coast communities of the Eastern Cape province. This project, the government and business groups envisaged, would open up the coastal communities of the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal provinces to economic development of the region and the nation in general. However, the road project has equally been criticised by several local communities and environmental advocacy groups who associate the road with the controversial plan to mine titanium in the region and its anticipated social and ecological disasters. Using a qualitative research approach that utilised face-to-face interviews, focus group discussions, secondary data review and observations, the study found that different communities associate the project with high risks regarding their environment.Contribution: The study was anchored on the cultural theory of risk perception, which helped in exploring how people’s preferences differ in terms of how life should be organised, their perceptions of risk, and their responses to it.

Conservation and Conflict in the Cockpit Country, Jamaica, 1962-2022.

Cockpit Country in west central Jamaica is a unique karst landscape. Based on a wide range of published and online sources, this article examines threats to the area’s biodiversity and attempts to conserve it, from Jamaica’s independence in 1962 to the declaration of the Cockpit Country Protected Area in 2022. It focusses on several stakeholders – the government, international organisations, environmental groups, and Cockpit communities –, and argues that their interplay made conservation of the area a far from straightforward trajectory. It will show that by the late 1980s, international organisations increasingly used mainstream conservation approaches in their work to protect the Cockpit Country and that local environmental groups gradually also came to embrace mainstream conservation. But it will also highlight that Cockpit communities have had a more ambivalent attitude towards conservation of the area than local environmental groups and international organisations, and that a focus on short-term gain has made the government a reluctant and even obstructive stakeholder in the preservation of the area’s biodiversity.

Revealing influencing factors on global waste distribution via deep-learning based dumpsite detection from satellite imagery

With the advancement of global civilisation, monitoring and managing dumpsites have become essential parts of environmental governance in various countries. Dumpsite locations are difficult to obtain in a timely manner by local government agencies and environmental groups. The World Bank shows that governments need to spend massive labour and economic costs to collect illegal dumpsites to implement management. Here we show that applying novel deep convolutional networks to high-resolution satellite images can provide an effective, efficient, and low-cost method to detect dumpsites. In sampled areas of 28 cities around the world, our model detects nearly 1000 dumpsites that appeared around 2021. This approach reduces the investigation time by more than 96.8% compared with the manual method. With this novel and powerful methodology, it is now capable of analysing the relationship between dumpsites and various social attributes on a global scale, temporally and spatially.

Environmentally Sustainable Practices in the Operating Room: A French Nationwide Cross-Sectional Survey of Anaesthesiologists and Nurse Anaesthesiologists.

In France, healthcare facilities account for 7% of greenhouse gas emissions and 3.5% of total waste generation. Operating rooms generate 30% of hospital waste and hence should be a primary focus of environmental sustainability initiatives. The aim of this study was to evaluate environmentally sustainable anaesthesiology practices in France in 2020 and understand the barriers to their adoption. An anonymous survey of 28 questions was published online. The website did not record participants' IP addresses. The survey's link was sent by email to anaesthesiologist and anaesthesia nurse members of the French Society of Anesthesia and Intensive Care Medecine (SFAR), in February and June 2020. The survey was closed in August 2020. Of the 10 877 recipients, 1092 (10%) responded to the questionnaire. Waste sorting was organized in 69% of respondents' workplaces (691/1007), and 90% (793/879) of respondents stated that they most often followed the instructions. Sixty-five percent (659/1007) of respondents avoided using the most polluting anaesthetic gases. Thirty-nine percent of respondents (417/1064) had already received environmental sustainability training and 73% (705/972) stated that they wanted more training. The main barriers to the adoption of recycling identified by respondents were staff training (by 70% of respondents, 691/993), budget constraints (66%, 652/993), and a lack of administrative support (60%, 602/993). French anaesthesiologists and anaesthesia nurses who responded to the survey are environmentally aware and want to improve sustainable practices in the operating room. More widespread adoption could be achieved by offering training to all healthcare professionals and administrative staff and by creating local environmental focus groups to coordinate actions.

The USA and the energy transition of the 21st century: Measures to overcome dependence on China in critical minerals

Since the middle of 2010s, international community (developed economies primarily) has been paying increasing attention to the reduction of carbon footprint in the environment by means of large-scale deployment of renewable energy, electrification of transport system and sustainable production of goods. Aspiring to become a global leader of energy transition, the United States of America has already taken a set of measures to stimulate technological growth. Such a challenging task cannot be accomplished without a guaranteed access to the so-called critical minerals. However, the US has encountered growing competition from China in this field. From the beginning of 2000s, China has amassed within its territory a dominant share of global production of critical minerals, acquired access to key foreign extraction centers and thus become virtually a monopolist in the markets. Hence the United States government urgently needs to devise measures to overcome the dependence from China in this regard. The author of the article dwells on the factors which have made the issue of critical minerals (as a recent development of international relations) relevant and politically charged. In its turn, it has led to the securitization of the subject in American official discourse during Trump administration which manifested itself in the ‘mineral security’ concept. The article contains comparative analysis of Trump and Biden administration approaches to navigating the country out of the dependence from China for critical minerals; it also identifies key focus areas of the current US mineral strategy. Respective analysis indicates that Trump administration prioritized bolstering domestic extraction capacity, whereas Biden-Harris administration underscores processing and production segments, mostly due to the pressure from local communities and environmental groups. The author stresses that the Unites States, being unable to contest China’s monopoly as producer and supplier of critical minerals with market instruments, tends to employ human rights discourse to compete with its rival. The ultimate expression of such an approach is Energy Resource Governance Initiative which has been designed to foster high ecological and social standards in global extraction sector. Relying on its partners, the United States intends to use the program to challenge China in commodity markets. The author concludes that despite the effort Washington won’t be able to rid itself of the dependence for Chinese imports in the near future. As for the long-term goals, their achievement is complicated due to both China’s production capacity and experience and insufficient government funding of renewable energy projects in the United States.

Managing conflict by mapping stakeholders’ views on ecotourism development using statement and place Q methodology

Ecotourism is proposed as a solution for both tourism development and conservation of ecological resources, but there are many conflicts between these two goals. Accordingly, many studies addressed the conflict concerning ecotourism sites, but there have been limitations, as studies based on interviews and questionnaires had difficulty in linking to specific spatial planning, and natural data-based research and public participation geographic information system had difficulty in identifying microscopic conflicts. The place Q methodology presented as the only alternative took a reserved attitude towards places where there is severe conflict, but did not provide a solution. This study quantified and revealed the difference in opinions between the majority and minority about the places where there is severe conflict by using place Q to identify the place of conflict and the statement Q to suggest the direction of planning. It presented a direction of spatial planning that can satisfy all interests. After analyzing Korea's Siheung Hojobul, public officials and tour guides wanted to establish a tourism plan centered on the river, and local residents and environmental groups wished to implement a conservation plan by farming in the outskirts of the river. Thus, it was possible to find a solution to resolve the conflict of opinion between tourism development and ecological resource conservation in spatial planning. This study is meaningful in that it showed that planners can quantify and present a spatial solution between development and conservation through stakeholder participation. • Using 2 types of Q analyses provides details of ecotourism site's spatial interests. • Local residents and NGOs favored development for agriculture. • Officials and ecology educators favored conservation for ecological functions. • Places where development is favored different than where conservation is favored. • Combined Q methodology can establish a cooperative spatial plan.

Education for Sustainability

This paper proposes an approach to teaching and learning that reflects the idea that to undergo systemic change we need to learn from and with living systems. I reflect on two projects that illustrate small steps towards this emergent practice and draw upon theories that may help to frame this ecological approach. Drawing these frameworks and design education projects together helps to understand education for sustainability as embedded in productive learning relationships, involving thinking reflectively on our messages and actions. According to the UNESCO Policy Brief (2018) Education is a crucial element of a sustainable development agenda and needs to be holistic and transformational. These practices of taking education outside of the classroom are illustrated through examples of project-based learning in a Communication Design degree at Otago Polytechnic in Dunedin New Zealand in partnership with local environmental groups, and aim to be both holistic and potentially transformative. Examining the projects in this way helps to see the requirement for empathy including and beyond human-centred design, an understanding of the systems in which the student projects sit, and acknowledging te Ao Māori, an indigenous worldview unique to New Zealand.

Governance Strategies for Mitigating Microplastic Pollution in the Marine Environment: A Review

Threats emerging from microplastic pollution in the marine environment have received much global attention. This review assessed sources, fate, and impacts of microplastics in marine ecosystems and identified gaps. Most studies document the ubiquity of microplastics and associated environmental effects. Effects include impacts to marine ecosystems, risks to biodiversity, and threats to human health. Microplastic leakage into marine ecosystems arises from plastic waste mismanagement and a lack of effective mitigative strategies. This review identified a scarcity of microplastics’ mitigation strategies from different stakeholders. Lack of community involvement in microplastic monitoring or ecosystem conservation exists due to limited existence of citizen science and stakeholder co-management initiatives. Although some management strategies exist for controlling effects of microplastics (often implemented by local and global environmental groups), a standardized management strategy to mitigate microplastics in coastal areas is urgently required. There is a need to review policy interventions aimed at plastic reduction in or near coastal ecosystems and evaluate their effectiveness. There is also a need to identify focal causes of microplastic pollution in the marine environment through further environmental research and governance approaches. These would extend to creating more effective policies as well as harmonized and extended efforts of educational campaigns and incentives for plastic waste reduction while mandating stringent penalties to help reduce microplastic leakage into the marine environment.

A contingent diffusion model of local climate change policy adoption: Evidence from Southern California cities

Climate change policy is an essential driver of urban sustainability, yet minimal research has examined how they emerge and spread across cities in shared metropolitan areas. While policy diffusion or policy mobility theories could explain the aforesaid, much of the international scholarship have not utilized an amalgamation of these two complementary theoretical perspectives. As a result, we lack a comprehensive understanding of the regional dynamics and spillover effects local governments can generate for urban sustainability. This article proposes a contingent diffusion model to examine the intra-regional adoption of local climate action plans within Southern California from 2000 to 2018. We find that neighboring jurisdictions that adopt climate policy increase the likelihood of a home city's adoption. Yet, neighboring effect is contingent on the home city's existing pro-environmental policy propensity. However, in contrast to conventional wisdom, this study finds no evidence that local environmental advocacy groups play a crucial role in the diffusion of municipal climate initiatives. Altogether, the results suggest that a regional diffusion model of policy innovations is more likely successful when adaptive capacity is in place to facilitate green infrastructure. These findings provide implications for policymakers and planners who want to achieve successful spillovers of urban climate policies across local governments.

A Contingent Diffusion Model of Local Climate Change Policy Adoption: Evidence from Southern California Cities

Climate change policy is an essential driver of sustainability, yet minimal research has examined how they emerge and spread across cities in shared metropolitan areas. While policy diffusion or policy mobility theories could explain the aforesaid, much of the international scholarship have not utilized an amalgamation of these two complementary theoretical perspectives. As a result, we lack a comprehensive understanding of the regional dynamics and spillover effects local governments can generate for urban sustainability. This article proposes a contingent diffusion model to examine the intra-regional adoption of local climate action plans within Southern California from 2000 to 2018. We find that neighboring jurisdictions that adopt climate policy increase the likelihood of a home city’s adoption. Yet, neighboring effect is contingent on the home city’s existing pro-environmental policy propensity. In contrast to conventional wisdom, this study finds no evidence that local environmental advocacy groups play a crucial role in the diffusion of municipal climate initiatives. Altogether, the results suggest that a regional diffusion model of policy innovations is more likely successful when adaptive capacity is in place to facilitate green infrastructure. These findings provide implications for urban policymakers who want to achieve successful spillovers of urban climate policies across local governments.

From field to plate: Agricultural pesticide presence in the guayas estuary (Ecuador) and commercial mangrove crabs

Mangroves are unique coastal ecosystems, located in tropical and subtropical regions. Yet, the functioning of these essential ecosystems is threatened by the presence of pollutants, including pesticides originating from agricultural activities. We investigated pesticide residues in the Guayas estuarine environment, since agricultural activities rapidly increased in the Guayas river basin over the past decades. A multi-residue analysis involving a selection of 88 pesticides was performed on the white meat and the hepatopancreas of the red mangrove crab (Ucides Occidentalis) at 15 sampling sites within the Guayas estuary along with water, sediment, and leaves samples. We found that 35 active compounds were present in the Guayas estuary, of which pyrimethanil was most commonly detected and had the highest concentrations in almost all compartments. Also, cadusafos was present in all studied compartments of the Guayas mangrove system and several prohibited pesticides (including carbendazim, carbofuran, and parathion) were detected. An ecotoxicological and probabilistic consumer risk assessment pointed out that current butachlor, carbendazim, and fludioxonil concentrations can cause adverse effects in aquatic organisms in the long term. Moreover, high potential acute and chronic risks of cadusafos residues on aquatic invertebrates and of diuron on algae in the Guayas wetlands were observed. Still, the exposure results indicated that the health risk for the consumers of the commercial red mangrove crab is low concerning cadusafos, chlorpyrifos, diuron, linuron, and pyrimethanil residues in crab tissues. The findings presented in this research can provide a useful basis for local water managers and environmental conservation groups to act and reduce the usage of pesticides, to avoid threatening aquatic and human health.

Air quality monitoring goes local

On average, people of color in the US live in places with poorer air quality than do White people. More-granular air quality measurement technologies involving ground-based sensor networks and pollution-monitoring satellites can find differences in air quality between neighborhoods. Researchers hope these technologies will allow people who reside in neighborhoods with poor air quality to attach hard numbers to their experiences and help identify and address health inequities. Activists and community leaders plan to use the data from these tools to help persuade policy makers and industry to support targeted pollution mitigation efforts to the neighborhoods that stand to benefit the most from them. When Cesunica Ivey moved to Southern California to start her lab at the University of California, Riverside, in 2018, one of the first things she did was meet with a local environmental advocacy group. An expert in air quality modeling and exposure, Ivey wanted to know

Conservation practice insights from a comparative case study of two shoreline stabilization projects in Boston Harbor, MA

AbstractAs sea levels rise and the frequency of flooding events increases, so do efforts to stabilize coastal shorelines. Nature‐based solutions to shoreline stabilization (“green” solutions, as opposed to traditional “grey” shoreline hardening) have been increasingly adopted in the Gulf of Mexico and mid‐Atlantic regions of the United States, but they are only beginning to be implemented, documented, and understood in the northeastern United States. This case study contrasts two shoreline stabilization projects directly across from each other on the banks of the Mystic River, Boston Harbor, MA. These two projects, one private and one public, employ a spectrum of green‐grey shoreline stabilization techniques. Originally planned as traditional grey shoreline stabilizations, both projects shifted toward greener solutions due to local environmental group advocacy, highlighting the influence of outside groups as advocates for nature‐based solutions. This study documents the evolution of both projects, highlighting common challenges in permitting and vegetation maintenance, as well as critical differences in project goals, funding sources, and biodiversity impacts.

Challenges to the co‐management of biodiversity in a reflexive modernity

AbstractThe marginalisation of people from natural areas has dominated conservation approaches in post‐colonial societies such as Australia. Yet the approach is limited, in part because people are also excluded from co‐managing their local environments, an effect that raises important questions about the future of conservation in a reflexive era where account must also be taken of how to manage risks such as bushfires. To address the complexity of social processes that influence conservation, new forms of co‐management between governments and community stakeholders are evolving but do not always achieve their participatory aims. In this article, discrepancies between perceptions of conservation governance and the responsibilities and activities of the South Australian Government are examined by reference to original research involving a residential survey and a follow‐up focus group discussion with local community and non‐profit environmental organisations. Findings suggest that local environmental groups are knowledge‐rich and strong relationships exist between local conservation actors and government officers, but those partnerships receive only limited support. In addition, opportunities for co‐management between government and non‐governmental environmental organisations are hindered by insufficient acknowledgement within government of the importance of unique, actionable local knowledge; an inability to effectively coordinate activities across and between government and non‐government actors; and an unwillingness to engage with stakeholders in a manner that develops and maintains trust.

Failure to respond to a coral disease epizootic in Florida: causes and consequences

Stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD) was first observed in September 2014 near Virginia Key, Florida. In roughly six years, the disease spread throughout Florida and into the greater Caribbean basin. The high prevalence of SCTLD and high resulting mortality in coral populations, and the large number of susceptible species affected, suggest that this outbreak is one of the most lethal ever recorded. The initial recognition and management response to this catastrophic disease in Florida was slow, which delayed the start of monitoring programs and prevented coordinated research programs by at least two years. The slow management response was a result of several factors that operated concurrently. First, the Port Miami dredging project was ongoing during the coral disease epidemic and dredging rather than SCTLD was blamed by some managers and local environmental groups for the extreme coral losses reported in the project’s compliance monitoring program. Second, this blame was amplified in the media because dredging projects are intuitively assumed to be bad for coral reefs. Third, during this same time State of Florida policy prohibited government employees to acknowledge global warming in their work. This was problematic because ocean warming is a proximal cause of many coral diseases. As a result, the well-known links between warming and coral disease were ignored. A consequence of this policy was that the dredging project provided an easy target to blame for the coral mortality noted in the monitoring program, despite convincing data that suggested otherwise. Specifically, results from the intensive compliance monitoring program, conducted by trained scientific divers, were clear. SCTLD that was killing massive numbers of corals throughout Florida was also killing corals at the dredge site – and in the same proportions and among the same suite of species. While eradication of the disease was never a possibility, early control measures may have slowed its spread or allowed for the rescue of significant numbers of large colonies of iconic species. This coral disease outbreak has similarities to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States and there are lessons learned from both that will improve disease response outcomes in the future, to the benefit of coral reefs and human populations.

Процесс институционализации партии зеленых в ФРГ в 1979–2019 гг.

The present research considers the problem of institutionalization of the Green Party in Germany for the period of 40 years, which was determined by a multi-stage process of the party formation, as well as the innovative approach of “The Greens” in the development of the party's political course. “The Greens” began their activities by creating small local environmental groups, which by the 1980s had formed a single political party and began to actively participate in the political life of the country, which had marked the beginning of “The Greens” institutionalization process. Initially, the party positioned itself as an “alternative” to existing traditional political forces, which was clearly reflected in their proposed initiatives. However, over time, during the institutionalization process, “The Greens” began to move towards a “systemic” integration into the political life of the Federal Republic of Germany, and the status of “marginal opposition” disappeared. During its existence, the party put forward hundreds of various initiatives aimed at improving the environmental situation and the socio-economic system of Germany. These initiatives found receptive audience among the country’s population, which in recent years has had a positive impact on the dynamics of the party's popularity and made it one of the main socio-political forces in the country, finally completing the process of institutionalizing “The Greens”.

The (in)visible victims of disaster: Understanding the vulnerability of undocumented Latino/a and indigenous immigrants

As climate change advances, communities across the United States are adapting to the increased threat of wildfires, drought, heatwaves, and infectious diseases. Such disasters are expected to become more frequent and severe. Now more than ever, it is crucial to understand how these events amplify existing inequalities, and how to lessen the resulting harms. Differences in human vulnerability to disaster stem from a range of social, economic, historical, and political factors. We argue that given their social status, undocumented Latino/a and Indigenous immigrants are particularly vulnerable to disasters and require special consideration in disaster planning. They are disproportionately affected by racial discrimination, exploitation, economic hardships, less English and Spanish proficiency, and fear of deportation in their everyday lives— their pre-disaster marginalized status. In the case of the Thomas Fire in California's Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, we show that emergency response and recovery efforts ignored their needs. Resources were directed toward privileged individuals, leaving local immigrant rights and environmental justice groups to provide essential services such as language access to emergency information in Spanish and Indigenous tongues; labor protections for farmworkers endangered in the fields; and a private disaster relief fund for undocumented immigrants ineligible for federal aid. The article concludes with preliminary participant observations from the COVID-19 pandemic response in the region, indicating how lessons from the fire have informed official actions. As governments grapple with the increasing severity of disasters, understanding the differential impacts on undocumented immigrants can help improve disaster planning to protect the most vulnerable and stigmatized populations.

Expertise, Local Knowledge, and the Construction of the Automobile as an Environmental Risk in Montreal, 1960s–70s

Since its introduction in North America, the automobile has reshaped the economy, transformed the way people travelled around, changed urban landscapes, and been a powerful symbol of freedom, prosperity, and progress. Yet, in the 1960s and 1970s, this symbolism was seriously challenged. This article explores the process by which the car came to be perceived as an environmental risk in Montreal and the responses to manage this risk. It identifies two groups of social actors that were instrumental in shaping perceptions of the automobile as a risk – namely, municipal experts and an ensemble of five local environmental groups. Both actors believed that the environmental risks of the car were real dangers arising from modernity. While the municipal experts narrowly focused on the health risks of automobile pollution, which led to technical and technological solutions to reduce this risk, the environmental groups put forward a much broader critique of the place of the car in our culture, cognizant of the ways it magnified class, gender, and other inequalities. While they tried to transform the ways that we moved through cities, they also attempted to improve participatory democracy mechanisms to ensure the citizen’s right to participate in decisions that affected their environment. Hence, this article argues that the two groups’ vision of this risk and their responses were historically specific, in that each of them was anchored in, and shaped by, the groups’ knowledge, set of values, rationality, objectives, social position, and relation to power.

Is catchment geodiversity a useful surrogate of aquatic plant species richness?

AbstractAimConserving freshwater biodiversity in a rapidly changing world requires updated planning schemes and research efforts. Geodiversity – the diversity of Earth surface forms, materials and processes – and biodiversity are interlinked at a fundamental level. This relationship is being considered in a growing number of studies, yet research from freshwater environments is scarce. We used geodiversity (rock‐type, soil‐type and geomorphological richness), local and climatic variables to explore whether geodiversity can be used as a surrogate for aquatic plant species richness in lakes and rivers.LocationFinland.TaxonAquatic plants.MethodsWe compared geodiversity variables (measured within 1‐km2 grid cells) to well‐studied local (e.g. area, alkalinity) and climate (e.g. growing degree‐days) variables, and examined the patterns between habitat types (lakes and rivers) and among all taxa and major functional groups (helophytes and hydrophytes). We modelled lake (n = 145) and river (n = 146) plant species richness with generalized linear models, and further partitioned variation to measure the independent and shared contributions of the geodiversity, climate and local environmental variable groups. As a complementary analysis, and to identify single important variables explaining variation in aquatic plant species richness, we utilized boosted regression trees.ResultsWe found a positive relationship between aquatic plant species richness and catchment geodiversity variation with recurring patterns across two different freshwater habitat types and two aquatic plant functional groups. Higher variation in geodiversity (measured at landscape scale) supported higher freshwater biodiversity (measured at the local scale) of lakes and rivers.Main conclusionsGeodiversity can be a useful addition to biodiversity modelling, and it should be considered in conservation schemes and monitoring efforts, further supporting the principle of conserving nature's stage. Yet, differences between habitats and functional groups suggest that more habitat‐specific approaches and multiple biodiversity measures should be considered. Our study is an important signpost guiding further studies on the biodiversity–geodiversity relationship in freshwater ecosystems.