Part Of Environmental Policy Research Articles

Desenvolvimento socioeconômico e desmatamento controlado são importantes para a sustentabilidade da Reserva Extrativista Rio Cajari?

The inhabitants of the Extractive Reserve (RESEX) in Rio Cajari need investments from the state to strengthen public policies for education, health, basic sanitation , and incentives for extractivism activities, agriculture, and animal husbandry. This study evaluated the institutional public policies, survival conditions of the inhabitants, and their relations with the forest. Additionally, variables of the environmental, economic, social, and institutional groups were evaluated with 101 interviewees in 23 of the 31 communities of RESEX Rio Cajari. Here, we highlight the mistake of maintaining extract ivism as an attribute, without knowing the arket orces, lack of technology, technical assistance, improving social capital, and, more importantly, greater engagement with theextractivists themselves in seeking solutions rather than relying on the government. Deforestation must be part of environmental policy, especially when considering small producers.

Adaptability in Environmental Policy at the Commune Level Carried Out in Poland Based on the Example of the Urban Plan of Adaptation to Climate Changes

Abstract The effects of the observed climate changes constitute a real problem in the surrounding environment due to the scale and frequency of natural catastrophic events. This state of affairs prompts various types of entities, including institutions, to undertake adaptation measures as part of environmental policy, both at the international and local levels. In Poland, the entities responsible for the implementation of this policy at the local level are, inter alia, the voivodeship, the poviat and the commune authorities. The authors present the Urban Adaptation Plans (MPA for short) prepared in 44 Polish cities, which can be an example of a document where the main goal is to increase the adaptability of cities to a changing climate. On the basis of the identified list of types of adaptation measures provided for in all prepared Urban Adaptation Plans, the pragmatic nature of the implemented adaptation measures has been demonstrated, which will not cause any changes to basic attributes of the social and ecological system of cities. Thus, 44 cities in Poland will manage the process of gradual adaptation up to 2024, i.e., until when the Urban Adaptation Plans will require updating.

Program and economic assessment of environmental protection on the example of the Irkutsk region

The state policy in the field of environmental management is part of environmental policy. One of the national priorities designated by the Russian government is the rational and competent use of natural resources, i.e. improving the system for monitoring the quality of air, soil and water, as well as the formation of a high environmental culture in society. One of the most important socio-economic tasks, as we see, is to study the state of the natural environment, predict changes in its conditions, both in natural conditions and under the influence of anthropogenic factors, in order to predict possible risks. The study of the problem of assessing the state of the environment in combination with the use of information technologies is very promising, including when analyzing the impact of toxicants on the environment

The Green Economy in Market-Oriented Countries: The Case of Kazakhstan

A social market economy is predicated on the principle that sustainable development is possible only if there is a solid focus on key economic, social, and environmental issues. The purpose of the research reported in this paper is to explore the outcomes of market reforms related to the shift to a green economy in the Republic of Kazakhstan.
 The findings from the authors’ study indicate that today the Kazakh economy is one of the world’s most energy-intensive economies, which is due to the use of outmoded infrastructure, technology, and standards, most of which were inherited from as early as the Soviet period. As a result of its market reforms, Kazakhstan has experienced tangible economic growth, but the nation’s environmental indicators remain a serious concern in relation to the health of its citizens. In the Environmental Performance Index (EPI), Kazakhstan has fallen far behind not only most developed market-oriented countries but some of the developing nations that used to be part of the former Soviet Union as well, like Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Turkmenistan, and others.
 To galvanize the process of shifting to a “green” economy in the Republic of Kazakhstan, it may help to implement some of the new instruments that have been employed as part of environmental policy in certain market-oriented countries and have proven to be efficient. These instruments and approaches include environmental taxes and levies, permit trading systems, deposit return systems, environmentally motivated subsidies, and organizations and enterprises displaying a willing, voluntary attitude toward improving their environmental performance.

Bringing Ethics to Wild Lives: Shaping Public Policy for Barred and Northern Spotted Owls

Abstract Ethics reviews are not part of environmental policy or wildlife management in the United States. This changed when, for the first time, the US Fish and Wildlife Service conducted such a review with respect to the barred and northern spotted owls. Spotted owls are endangered throughout their range by a variety of anthropogenic and natural forces. The interspecific competition between barred and spotted owls is a key factor second only to habitat destruction. A proposed lethal experiment to remove barred owls raised ethical concerns among wildlife agencies, citizens, and advocacy groups. Seeking to better understand these concerns, the Service created the Barred Owl Stakeholder Group. Using an innovative method and instrument in the form of an ethics-based policy dialogue and an ethics brief, the stakeholder group explored the ethical dimensions of the removal experiment. This process holds lessons for how public policy can bring ethics to bear on wild lives.

Ecological-and-Social Responsibility of Coal Mining Companies

Developing a modern view of social and environmental responsibility as a part of environmental policy and taking into account the specifics of coal industry, the article describes the obstacles on the way to its implementation in practice, the main reason of which is the weakness of ecologically oriented thinking. The study shows that Russian enterprises of the coal industry, despite their importance for the economy, are still not fully aware of the need to take into account the factors of their own impact on the environment. The environmental peculiarities of the coal industry enterprises of are determined. The styles of thinking of the management of coal companies during Soviet times and at the end of the twentieth century are traced, when Western standards of mineral resource extracting have not completely adopted yet. Ecological-and-social responsibility is understood by the authors as the highest level of environmental obligation to solve the primary ecological problems. In conclusion, the directions of implementing environmental initiatives are noted.

Issues on Financing Sources of Environmental Fund In Romania

Abstract Environmental taxation has been developing for decades and it started to gain its importance, especially with the European Union extending. The usage of taxes as a part of environmental policy has been known for some time in Romania and developments in this area continued year by year. The present paper explores the current system of environmental taxes in Romania. It highlights the importance of car pollution tax in financing Environmental Fund and the existence of many tax liabilities irrelevant as financial importance.

“Green grabbing,” pastoralism and environmental dynamics in Northern Kenya. An assessment of conservation models and practices in Marsabit County

In Northern Kenya, the history of protected areas reflects the debates that have shaped the world of conservation and environmental concerns. For a long time colonial assumptions about pastoralist uses of natural resources have been part of environmental policies and legitimized appropriation of nature. How does the implementation of natural resources management projects interact with pastoralists’ natural heritage and their future economies in the context of socio-ecological transition? This paper questions the relations between conservation practices and the regional environmental dynamics of five protected areas in the broader Chalbi desert. It describes models ranging from conservationist models used for large areas to more recent experiments and socio-technical choices implemented on smaller scale-fenced parcels. Through two central water places located in North Horr and Kalacha, we also describe the impacts of natural protected areas on pastoralist livelihood in the Chalbi desert. This situation, therefore, prompts for suggestions to discuss the split between environmental conservation and development and to better integrate research on socio-ecological dynamics in environmental policies.

Statistical classification of terrestrial and marine ecosystems for environmental planning

Environmental planning is an instrument for the operationalisation of the precautionary principle in environmental law and, to this end, must rely on maps depicting the spatial patterns of ecological attributes of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems and of environmental change effects, respectively. In this context, different mapping techniques are presented by example of three case studies covering terrestrial, coastal and marine environments. The first case study was selected to demonstrate how to compute an ecological land classification of Germany by means of CART. The resulting ecoregions were mapped by GIS. This CARTography enables to regionalise metal bioaccumulation data in terms of 21 ecological land categories and to prove the specifity of emission control measures as being part of environmental policies. The second investigation was chosen to apply for the first time in Germany the regionalisation approach to the research of climate change effects in terms of past, recent and potential future incidences of Anopheles sp. and malaria in Lower Saxony. To investigate whether malaria might be transmitted due to increasing air temperatures, data sets on past and future air temperatures were used to spatially model malaria risk areas. The third example demonstrates the transfer of the CARTography approach presented in the first case study from terrestrial to marine environments. We analysed the statistical relations between data on benthic communities and physical properties of their marine environments by means of CART and applied these rules to geodata which only describe physical characteristics of the benthic habitats. By this, those parts of the sea ground could be predicted where certain benthic communities might occur.

Economic Growth and Biodiversity Loss in an Age of Tradable Permits

Tradable permits are increasingly becoming part of environmental policy and conservation programs. The efficacy of tradable permit schemes in addressing the root cause of environmental decline-economic growth--will not be achieved unless the schemes cap economic activity based on ecological thresholds. Lessons can be learned from the largest tradable permit scheme to date, emissions trading now being implemented with the Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol caps neither greenhouse gas emissions at a level that will achieve climate stability nor economic growth. If patterned after the Kyoto Protocol, cap-and-trade schemes for conservation will not ameliorate biodiversity loss either because they will not address economic growth. In response to these failures to cap economic growth, professional organizations concerned about biodiversity conservation should release position statements on economic growth and ecological thresholds. The statements can then be used by policy makers to infuse these positions into the local, national, and international environmental science-policy process when these schemes are being developed. Infusing language into the science-policy process that calls for capping economic activity based on ecological thresholds represents sound conservation science. Most importantly, position statements have a greater potential to ameliorate biodiversity loss if they are created and released than if this information remains within professional organizations because there is the potential for these ideas to be enacted into law and policy.

Evaluation of fusion study from socio-economic aspects

A fusion research project was evaluated from the aspects of socio-economics and its possible economic benefit. Research project itself has large economic impacts and it appears in a different way in different time. Four categories were identified as such mechanisms; direct economic effect by purchase and employment, the growth of local community and its economy, an improvement of technical capability of the industry stimulated by the development, and fusion energy supply under environmental constraints. Industrial effects were analysed from actual R&D program and found to yield considerable economic outcome, although contribution by the research itself is far smaller than that required for industry before actual commercial products can be produced. Economic value of fusion energy could be huge, but appears several decades future, and should be reduced by discount rate and success probability. Its value is more important as a part of environmental policy. Value of the fusion research at present age cannot be estimated as actual benefit, but as the effectiveness in the policy, or benefit for public that is now regarded as a kind of Externality.