Governance and Standardization in Fish Value Chains: Do They Take Care of Key Animal Welfare Issues?

Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics - Innovation in fisheries is a global development that focuses on a broad range of aims. One example is a project that aims to develop technology...     

Government Regulations of Shechita (Jewish Religious Slaughter) in the Twenty-First Century: Are They Ethical?

Human beings have engaged in animal husbandry and have slaughtered animals for food for thousands of years. During the majority of that time most societies had no animal welfare regulations that governed the care or slaughter of animals. Judaism is a notable exception in that from its earliest days it has included such rules. Among the Jewish dietary laws is a prohibition to consume meat from an animal that dies in any manner other than through the rigorously defined method of slaughter known as shechita. In recent decades more and more attempts have been initiated by governments around the world to either outright ban or to control and modify the practice of shechita. This paper presents the requisite background about shechita and then analyzes the ethics of some of the recent legislation. The analysis includes a rebuttal of the assertion that shechita is an inhumane method of slaughter. It further presents the consequences on the Jewish community of legislation to impose pre-slaughter stunning and explains why such legislation is unethical. The actual effect of labeling laws is discussed and it is shown why such laws are also un-ethical.     

Corporate Environmental Policy Statements in Mainland China: To What Extent Do They Conform to ISO 14000 Documentation?

For decades, industry has been the main source of pollution in China. Determined to make changes, the mainland Chinese authorities have decided to promote mechanisms that incorporate environmental concerns into the internal management of enterprises. This is manifested in the rapid adoption of the ISO14000 standards, including a significant increase in ISO14001 registrations in China. Thus, this study examined the environmental policy statements of 106 certified facilities in mainland China against a strict interpretation of the mandatory requirements of the ISO 14001:1996 standard and the nonmandatory ISO14004 requirements in order to shed some light on the implementation of environmental management systems in an emerging economic giant. It was decided to analyze the environmental policy statement because such a statement is a core element in the ISO system of environmental management of each facility and there are relatively clear and specific requirements on what an environmental policy statement shall include. An analysis of the contents of the environmental policy statements shows that conformance to the relevant requirements of both the mandatory ISO14001 standard and the nonmandatory ISO14004 standard is far from impressive and that the facilities in our sample seldom went beyond the minimum requirements. By using ISO14001 and ISO14004 conformance scores as the dependent variables, we found that conformity to ISO14001 and overall conformance to ISO14000 series can be explained to some extent by the degree of top management commitment, the experience with informal environmental management systems, and the form of ownership of the facilities.     

Environmental preference and restoration: (How) are they related?

Does the widely documented tendency to prefer natural over built environments owe to the perception of greater restorative potential in natural environments? In the present experimental study we tested the mediating role of restoration in environmental preferences. Participants viewed a frightening movie, and then were shown a video of either a natural or a built environment. We used two examples of each type of environment. Participants’ mood ratings were assessed before and after they viewed the frightening movie, and again after viewing the environmental video. Participants also rated the beauty of the environment shown (to indicate preference) and performed a test of concentration after viewing the environmental video. The results indicate that participants perceived the natural environments as more beautiful than the built environments. In addition, viewing natural environments elicited greater improvement in mood and marginally better concentration than viewing built environments. Mediational analyses revealed that affective restoration accounted for a substantial proportion of the preference for the natural over the built environments. Together, these results help substantiate the adaptive function of people's environmental preferences.     

Do Catch-and-Release Guidelines from State and Provincial Fisheries Agencies in North America Conform to Scientifically Based Best Practices?

Many recreational anglers practice catch-and-release angling, where fish are returned to the water with the presumption that they will survive. However, not all fish survive, and those that do often experience sublethal consequences including injury and stress. There is compelling scientific evidence that angler behavior and gear choice can affect the success of catch-and-release as a management and conservation strategy. Because anglers often look to government natural resource agencies for guidance on how to handle and release fish properly, there is a need to assess whether their outreach materials are readily accessible and provide the necessary and correct information on the subject. Therefore, on-line catch-and-release guidelines developed by state and provincial natural resource agencies across North America were evaluated to determine whether their guidelines were consistent with the best available scientific information. This analysis revealed that there was immense variation in the depth and breadth of coverage among jurisdictions. Agency guidelines contradicted one another in several areas including air exposure, angling in deep water, venting trapped gases, and resuscitation. In many cases, the guidelines failed to provide sufficient direction to actually be of use to anglers or provide direction consistent with contemporary scientific literature. This analysis will assist with developing outreach materials that promote sustainable recreational fisheries and in maintaining the welfare status of individual fish.     

How Well Does Brazil's Environmental Law Work in Practice? Environmental Impact Assessment and the Case of the Itapiranga Private Sustainable Logging Plan

/ The Itapiranga Sustainable Logging Plan provides an example of how Brazil's licensing system functions for logging companies in the state of Amazonas. Two questions need to be dealt with: "How sustainable can logging in the Amazon be?" and "What and how effective are existing legal mechanisms to deal with logging projects?" The environmental impact assessment (EIA) and environmental impact statement (EIS, known as the RIMA in Brazil), present relatively detailed accounts of biodiversity and the need to adopt conservation strategies to protect it. However, social and health impacts are only superficially addressed. The economic sustainability of the operation over multiple cycles is not demonstrated. The multidisciplinary teams responsible for the EIA and EIS (RIMA) reports are hired by the project proponent, an arrangement inherently carrying the risk of biasing the result. Logging reduces biodiversity, releases greenhouse gases and inflicts social and health costs. These impacts reduce the ability of Amazonian forests to provide environmental services and to supply food and livelihood security to local populations. The reports inflate positive effects such as employment: the estimated number of jobs was cut by more than half in a revision made after the EIA and EIS (RIMA) had been approved. Not only do the reports need to be more realistic in assessing both positive and negative consequences of proposed projects, but better means are needed to ensure that promised mitigatory measures are enforced in practice. Many of the lessons that can be drawn from the Itapiranga Plan are not unique to logging projects and apply to licensing of development activites generally in Brazil and elsewhere.     

Accidental Bait: Do Deceased Fish Increase Freshwater Turtle Bycatch in Commercial Fyke Nets?

Bycatch of turtles in passive inland fyke net fisheries has been poorly studied, yet bycatch is an important conservation issue given the decline in many freshwater turtle populations. Delayed maturity and low natural adult mortality make turtles particularly susceptible to population declines when faced with additional anthropogenic adult mortality such as bycatch. When turtles are captured in fyke nets, the prolonged submergence can lead to stress and subsequent drowning. Fish die within infrequently checked passive fishing nets and dead fish are a potential food source for many freshwater turtles. Dead fish could thus act as attractants and increase turtle captures in fishing nets. We investigated the attraction of turtles to decomposing fish within fyke nets in eastern Ontario. We set fyke nets with either 1 kg of one-day or five-day decomposed fish, or no decomposed fish in the cod-end of the net. Decomposing fish did not alter the capture rate of turtles or fish, nor did it alter the species composition of the catch. Thus, reducing fish mortality in nets using shorter soak times is unlikely to alter turtle bycatch rates since turtles were not attracted by the dead fish. Interestingly, turtle bycatch rates increased as water temperatures did. Water temperature also influences turtle mortality by affecting the duration turtles can remain submerged. We thus suggest that submerged nets to either not be set or have reduced soak times in warm water conditions (e.g., >20 °C) as turtles tend to be captured more frequently and cannot withstand prolonged submergence.     

Political Economy of Transnational Water Pollution: What Do the LMB Data (1985–2000) Say?

On the basis of the cross-section and time-series data of the Lower Mekong Basin (LMB)—including large sections of Thailand, Lao PDR, Vietnam, and Cambodia, we find little evidence in support of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis. Instead, our regressions support the general views that water pollution had been positively related to income level and that, as a result of the end of the Cold War era, it had been significantly reduced in the 1990s vis-à-vis the 1980s. In most circumstances, water resources were more seriously polluted in the transnational border areas than in the other areas. Specifically, the estimated coefficients on the political boundary dummies show that political influence on transnational water pollution was more significant in areas near the international border along which the river runs (denoted by BORDER2) than in places near the international border across which the river runs (denoted by BORDER1). The estimated coefficients on the ASEAN dummy present some information about the positive role of the Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) membership in the reduction of transnational water pollution. Finally, the country-specific dummies are found to present conflicting information about the transnational differences of water pollution, although Thailand is found to have the least water pollution in the LMB.     

Land-Use Planning in the Chaco Plain (Burruyacú, Argentina): Part 2: Generating a Consensus Plan to Mitigate Land-Use Conflicts and Minimize Land Degradation

The Burruyacú district (Tucumán province, Northwest Argentina) has been traditionally an area with rural activities based on the exploitation of the Chaco forest for timber and livestock browsing. Since the 1960s, local institutions started promoting soybean due to favorable land conditions and good market prices. Soybean extension, as from the 1970s, has resulted in important reduction of the Chaco forest and also caused physical soil degradation, especially soil compaction and erosion. A land-use-planning exercise was carried out using the Land-Use Planning and Information System (LUPIS) as a spatial decision support system. LUPIS facilitates the generation of alternative land-use plans by adjusting the relative importance attributed by multiple stakeholders to preference and avoidance policies. The system leads to the allocation of competing land uses to land map units in accordance with their preferred resource requirements, conditional upon the resource base of the area and the stakeholders' demands. After generating a land use plan for each stakeholder category identified in the study area, including commercial farmers, conservative/conventional farmers, and conservationists, a consensus plan was established to address the land-use conflicts between mechanized agriculture, traditional agriculture and forest conservation, and to mitigate soil degradation caused by extensive dry-farming. Although the planning exercise did not directly involve the stakeholders, the results are sufficiently practical and realistic to suggest that the approach could be extended to the entire Chaco plain region.     

A System Method for the Assessment of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) in Mountain Watershed Areas: The Case of the “Giffre” Watershed (France)

In the last fifty years, many mountain watersheds in temperate countries have known a progressive change from self-standing agro-silvo-pastoral systems to leisure dominated areas characterized by a concentration of tourist accommodations, leading to a drinking water peak during the winter tourist season, when the water level is lowest in rivers and sources. The concentration of water uses increases the pressure on “aquatic habitats” and competition between uses themselves. Consequently, a new concept was developed following the international conferences in Dublin (International Conference on Water and the Environment – ICWE) and Rio de Janeiro (UN Conference on Environment and Development), both in 1992, and was broadly acknowledged through international and European policies. It is the concept of Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM). It meets the requirements of different uses of water and aquatic zones whilst preserving the natural functions of such areas and ensuring a satisfactory economic and social development. This paper seeks to evaluate a local water resources management system in order to implement it using IWRM in mountain watersheds. The assessment method is based on the systemic approach to take into account all components influencing a water resources management system at the watershed scale. A geographic information system was built to look into interactions between water resources, land uses, and water uses. This paper deals specifically with a spatial comparison between hydrologically sensitive areas and land uses. The method is applied to a French Alps watershed: the Giffre watershed (a tributary of the Arve in Haute-Savoie). The results emphasize both the needs and the gaps in implementing IWRM in vulnerable mountain regions.     

How Can We Make Progress with Decision Support Systems in Landscape and River Basin Management? Lessons Learned from a Comparative Analysis of Four Different Decision Support Systems

This article analyses the benefits and shortcomings of the recently developed decision support systems (DSS) FLUMAGIS, Elbe-DSS, CatchMODS, and MedAction. The analysis elaborates on the following aspects: (i) application area/decision problem, (ii) stakeholder interaction/users involved, (iii) structure of DSS/model structure, (iv) usage of the DSS, and finally (v) most important shortcomings. On the basis of this analysis, we formulate four criteria that we consider essential for the successful use of DSS in landscape and river basin management. The criteria relate to (i) system quality, (ii) user support and user training, (iii) perceived usefulness and (iv) user satisfaction. We can show that the availability of tools and technologies for DSS in landscape and river basin management is good to excellent. However, our investigations indicate that several problems have to be tackled. First of all, data availability and homogenisation, uncertainty analysis and uncertainty propagation and problems with model integration require further attention. Furthermore, the appropriate and methodological stakeholder interaction and the definition of ‘what end-users really need and want’ have been documented as general shortcomings of all four examples of DSS. Thus, we propose an iterative development process that enables social learning of the different groups involved in the development process, because it is easier to design a DSS for a group of stakeholders who actively participate in an iterative process. We also identify two important lines of further development in DSS: the use of interactive visualization tools and the methodology of optimization to inform scenario elaboration and evaluate trade-offs among environmental measures and management alternatives.     

The Achievement of a Decentralized Water Management Through Stakeholder Participation: An Example from the Drôme River Catchment Area in France (1981–2008)

Different water Acts (e.g., the European Water Framework Directive) and stakeholders involved in aquatic affairs have promoted integrated river basin management over recent decades. However, few studies have provided feedback on these policies. The aim of the current article is to fill this gap by exploring how local newspapers reflect the implementation of a broad public participation within a catchment of France known for its innovation with regard to this domain. The media coverage of a water management strategy in the Drôme watershed from 1981 to 2008 was investigated using a content analysis and a geographic information system. We sought to determine what public participation and decentralized decision-making can be in practice. The results showed that this policy was integrated because of its social perspective, the high number of involved stakeholders, the willingness to handle water issues, and the local scale suitable for participation. We emphasized the prominence of the watershed scale guaranteed by the local water authority. This area was also characterized by compromise, arrangements, and power dynamics on a fine scale. We examined the most politically engaged writings regarding water management, which topics of each group emphasized, and how the groups agreed and disagreed on issues based on their values and context. The temporal pattern of participation implementation was progressive but worked by fits and starts.     

How can public–private partnerships contribute to security and human rights policy and practice in the extractive industries? A case study of The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)

Across sub-Saharan Africa, the presence of foreign large-scale mining companies is increasing. This is in part a result of depleting resources in countries such as Canada, United States and Australia, and in part from a more favorable national mine investment climate in several mineral-rich African countries. Their increased presence raises important questions around the potential role and function of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the sector. In post-conflict and/or fragile states, CSR has further implications for conflict and risk mitigation strategies to ensure the protection of human rights. One CSR approach increasingly being considered is the public–private partnership, whereby companies, public donors, and development agencies leverage their relationships for mutual benefit. There is merit in exploring its function in post-conflict fragile states, where socio-economic needs are high and the capacity of the state to respond to a variety of mine governance challenges is limited. Two case studies from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are presented, and their policy implications, discussed.     

Sediment amendment with Phoslock® in Clatto Reservoir (Dundee, UK): Investigating changes in sediment elemental composition and phosphorus fractionation

Lanthanum-modified bentonite clay (Phoslock(?) is a lake remediation tool designed to strip dissolved phosphorus (P) from the water column and increase the sediment P-sorption capacity. This study investigated short term alterations in sediment elemental composition and sediment P-fractions based on sediment cores taken 2 days before and 28 days following the application of 24 t of Phoslock? to a 9 ha, man-made reservoir. Following the application, sediment lanthanum (La) content increased significantly (p < 0.05; n = 4) in the top 8 cm of the sediment, thereby theoretically increasing sediment P-binding capacity on the whole reservoir scale by 250 kg. Mass balance calculations were used to estimate the theoretical binding of release-sensitive P (P(mobile); sum of 'labile P', 'reductant-soluble P' and 'organic P' fraction) by La across the top 4 cm and 10 cm depth of sediment. The amended mass of La in the sediment had the potential to bind 42% of P(mobile) present in the top 4 cm or 17% of P(mobile) present in the top 10 cm. However, with the exception of a significant increase (p<0.05; n=4) in the 'residual P' fraction in the top 2 cm, sediment P-fractions, including P(mobile,) did not differ significantly following the Phoslock? application. Experimental P-adsorption studies indicated P-saturation values for Phoslock? of 21,670 mg P kg?1 Phoslock?. Sequential extraction of P from saturated Phoslock? under laboratory conditions indicated that around 21% of P bound by Phoslock? was release-sensitive, while around 79% of bound P was unlikely to be released under reducing or common pH (5-9) conditions in shallow lakes. Applying Phoslock? is, therefore, likely to increase the P-sorption capacity of sediments under reducing conditions.     

The nexus between eco-friendly technology and environmental degradation in India: Does the N or inverted N-shape load capacity curve(LCC) hypothesis hold?

This study aims to investigate the impact of eco-friendly technology on environmental degradation indicated using the load capacity factor (LCF) with the framework of the Load Capacity Curve (LCC) hypothesis. In this regard, an environmental degradation function is formed and analyzed using the Augmented Autoregressive Distributed Lag (AARDL) approach during the period spanning from 1975 to 2021 for India. The outcome indicates that eco-friendly technology reduces the LCF, thereby fostering environmental degradation in the long run, but the relationship is not significant in the short run. Further, an N-shaped LCC hypothesis has been observed in both long and short runs. Besides, energy consumption exhibits a LCF reducing or environmental degradation boosting role in the short run and long run. These findings are consistent with other models that are used to check the robustness of AARDL-based results. Thus, the study recommends policies for promoting eco-friendly technology, judicious economic growth, and cautious energy consumption to attain sustainable development by increasing the LCF in India.     

A contribution for the evaluation of the territorial impact of transport infrastructures in the early stages of the EIA: application to the Huelva (Spain)–Faro (Portugal) rail link

The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) procedure should predict and identify the major impacts of a project development that may cause specific spatial and temporal effects. Early in the EIA, the scoping stage provides all the relevant information on the impacts of the project alternatives. In particular, potential effects on the territorial network such as habitat connectivity loss and accessibility improvements should be taken into account in the various proposed layout alternatives when evaluating transport infrastructure projects. However, several authors have identified deficiencies in practice. The aim of this article is to provide a methodology for the assessment of these territorial impacts using adequate indicators in the early stages of the EIA procedure.

The proposed method is based on a comparison of a range of alternative layouts for a railway line linking two population centres, using indicators calculated with geographic information systems. The methodology was applied to a case study – the rail link between Huelva (Spain) and Faro (Portugal) – and the high speed rail (HSR) and conventional rail were evaluated in different layouts. The method was effective in spatially identifying significant impacts on accessibility improvements, which occurred closer to the cross border area. The conventional railway alternatives have similar accessibility values to the HSR. The results also reveal that connectivity loss is not limited to the area around the infrastructure, but extends throughout the territory. The results are at variance with the initiative proposed by Spanish and Portuguese transport decision-makers, and raise the possibility of selecting a conventional railway option. An adequate territorial evaluation methodology enables the new action to be correctly assessed, and supplies the information required to propose the most suitable alternative from a socio-economic and environmental standpoint, regardless of whether this proposal was initially included in the transport policy.