Power,responsibility and justice: a review of local stakeholder participation in European flood risk management

Over the past few decades, there has been an increasing interest in the active involvement of local stakeholders in the management of floods in Europe. Such involvement is seen as necessary as the management of floods becomes more complex. Management approaches now seek to include a range of potential measures to reduce risk (e.g. structural defence, spatial planning and property-level protection measures). Local stakeholder involvement is seen to be important because governments lack the capacities such as knowledge and funding required to deliver all these measures alone. This paper focuses on the implications that more participative approaches have on the fairness of European flood risk management (FRM). Studies of environmental justice are well placed to address this question because they are interested in who is included and excluded from decisions related to the distribution of environmental goods (resources) and bads (risks). Existing literature suggests that fair decision-making processes (procedural justice) can lead to fair distribution or resources and risks (distributive justice). This literature review of 30 peer-reviewed papers provides an analysis of justice and FRM by assessing practices of participation which are presented in the recent literature on local stakeholder involvement in FRM in England, Germany and the Netherlands. It was found that participation in practice generally focuses on transferring responsibility to the local level at the expense of power. This paper discusses the implications that this finding has for justice and synthesises potential ways forward based on recommendations of the reviewed literature.     

Combating environmental irresponsibility of transnational corporations in Africa: an empirical analysis

Environmental irresponsibility is one of the most prominent issues confronting host communities of transnational corporations (TNCs) engaged in the production of economic goods and, sometimes, services. Drawing mainly on stakeholder theory, combined with legitimacy theory, this article addresses how host communities in Africa combat the challenge of environmental irresponsibility of TNCs. To illustrate the dimensions and dynamics of the challenge, this paper examines the experience of despoliation of Ogoniland by the oil giant Shell in Nigeria. The analysis draws attention to the significance of the role of individuals and civil society groups in securing accountability of one of the most formidable fronts of economic globalisation. The analysis is particularly relevant to the experience of environmental irresponsibility in the context of weak governance structures.     

Recentralisation through regionalisation in the implementation of Rural Development Policy in Scotland

In environmental policy, good governance is pertinent when inclusive decision making is recurrently associated with effective outcomes. This paper explores the European Union's good governance principles and the extent to which these have been adopted in the Rural Development Policy in Scotland. For the programme period 2007–2013 Scotland's Rural Priorities scheme has moved towards decentralisation by introducing regional decision-making committees. This study assesses the impact of this scheme on multi-level stakeholder relationships and the implications on policy outcomes. To do so, the study adopts a mixed method approach, applying a stakeholder mapping technique, to quantify perceptions of influence and interest and triangulate with data from in-depth semi-structured interviews. Results indicate that the attempts to widen decision making has resulted in a number of stakeholders perceiving themselves as less empowered. This analytical approach can provide the baseline against which governance improvements can be measured in the formulation of future policies.     

Coming to the table: collaborative governance and groundwater decision-making in coastal California

Collaborative governance is on the rise in the United States. This management approach brings together state and non-state actors for environmental decision-making, and it is frequently used in California for decisions regarding local groundwater management. This study examines groundwater decision-making groups and practices in a central California coastal community to understand whether groups meet specific collaborative governance criteria and whether and why certain subsets of the population are excluded from groundwater decision-making practices. It also identifies actions for better group inclusion. We find that small farmers, the Hispanic/Latino community, and the general public are often excluded from groundwater decision-making groups and practices due to unawareness, mistrust, and insufficient resources. Education and awareness as well as incentives could help increase inclusion. This study provides insights into more equitable groundwater decision-making groups and practices, and also calls for more critical examination of the current stakeholder approach to decision-making.     

Evaluating Adaptive Governance Approaches to Sustainable Water Management in North-West Thailand

Adaptive governance is advanced as a potent means of addressing institutional fit of natural resource systems with prevailing modes of political–administrative management. Its advocates also argue that it enhances participatory and learning opportunities for stakeholders over time. Yet an increasing number of studies demonstrate real difficulties in implementing adaptive governance ‘solutions’. This paper builds on these debates by examining the introduction of adaptive governance to water management in Chiang Mai province, north-west Thailand. The paper considers, first, the limitations of current water governance modes at the provincial scale, and the rationale for implementation of an adaptive approach. The new approach is then critically examined, with its initial performance and likely future success evaluated by (i) analysis of water stakeholders’ opinions of its first year of operation; and (ii) comparison of its governance attributes against recent empirical accounts of implementation difficulty and failure of adaptive governance of natural resource management more generally. The analysis confirms the potentially significant role that the new approach can play in brokering and resolving the underlying differences in stakeholder representation and knowledge construction at the heart of the prevailing water governance modes in north-west Thailand.     

从协调到协同：跨区域环境治理中的监管体制改革与路径——基于万达开川渝统筹发展示范区视角

区域环境协同治理理论可为跨区域环境监管体制改革提供重要理论支撑。在政策和法律法规的推动下,近年来我国跨区域环境治理取得了一定成效,但是仍存在中央与地方权责划分不明,跨区域环境监管缺乏权威性,环境监管垂管制度改革不彻底等问题。现有机制无法有效支撑地方政府开展跨区域环境监管和深层次的环境协同高效治理。为进一步突破现有的制约障碍,提高跨区域环境协同治理效率,应当进一步加快中央层面的跨区域统一立法和地方层面的跨区域协同立法,以法律保障跨区域环境监管体制改革向纵深推进,将中央与地方政府环境保护的权责在法律中进行明确和细化,中央政府成立专门的跨区域环境治理机构,地方层面成立跨区域环境治理协同机构,理顺跨区域环境治理中的纵向和横向关系,进而推进我国生态文明体制建设。     

Heterogeneous and unconventional coalitions around global food risks: integrating Brazil into the debates

Current debates about food-borne risks (GMOs and BSE) have not only deepened public concern about how food is produced on farms, processed in factories, and transported, stored and traded. More importantly, these debates have exposed a crisis related to central social issues, such as the role of science, politics and business corporations in the decision-making processes for determining which risks societies should, or are prepared to, assume. In this article, I discuss how cultural and social constructivist studies of environmental and health risks and Ulrich Beck's theory of world risk society can contribute to the analysis of how to deal with these conflicts. The criticism of quantitative methods of risk analysis has resulted in a certain idealization of the lay knowledge of risks as being intuitively more correct than the scientific one. One consequence of this polarization between expert and lay knowledge—idealizing the latter—is a disappointing vagueness when looking for alternatives on how to deal practically with risks that have important consequences. A key obstacle to the implementation of some of the suggestions presented by the critical risk analysis approach is that, for example, in the current global dynamics of food-borne risks we can find heterogeneous alliances for and against GMOs allying lay people and experts, as well as conventional and unconventional social actors, in a complicated manner, at the regional, national and international levels. Since a significant part of the analysis of manufactured risks focuses on the situation of highly industrialized countries, a more complex perspective of these lay and scientific alliances can be obtained from a more extensive study of the reactions surrounding GMOs and BSE in less-industrialized countries, such as Brazil. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

在我国实施自愿协议式工业环境管理的可行性探讨

本文扼要综述了自愿协议式环境管理的发展、特点及其成因，并且简要介绍了这种新的环境管理方式在欧盟国家的应用情况。该管理方法在欧盟国家的成功，证明它是一个非常有效的环境管理方法，这种方式对解决政府“命令式”管理失灵起到十分有益的补充作用。在我国实施自愿协议式工业环境管理机遇大于风险，学习、改造并引进自愿协议式工业环境管理方法，可以提高我国工业环境管理水平，为实施可持续发展战略服务。     

Scenario-based stakeholder engagement: incorporating stakeholders preferences into coastal planning for climate change

Climate change poses many challenges for ecosystem and resource management. In particular, coastal planners are struggling to find ways to prepare for the potential impacts of future climate change while dealing with immediate pressures. Decisions on how to respond to future risks are complicated by the long time horizons and the uncertainty associated with the distribution of impacts. Existing coastal zone management approaches in the UK either do not adequately incorporate changing stakeholder preferences, or effectively ensure that stakeholders are aware of the trade-offs inherent in any coastal management decision. Using a novel method, scenario-based stakeholder engagement, which brings together stakeholder analysis, climate change management scenarios and deliberative techniques, the necessary trade-offs associated with long term coastal planning are explored. The method is applied to two case studies of coastal planning in Christchurch Bay on the south coast of England and the Orkney Islands off the north coast of Scotland. A range of conflicting preferences exist on the ideal governance structure to manage the coast under different climate change scenarios. In addition, the results show that public understanding of the trade-offs that have to be made is critical in gaining some degree of public support for long term coastal decision-making. We conclude that scenario-based stakeholder engagement is a useful tool to facilitate coastal management planning that takes into account the complexities and challenges of climate change, and could be used in conjunction with existing approaches such as the Shoreline Management Planning process.     

“一带一路”视域下环境保护问题的战略定位与治理体系

环境保护是"一带一路"建设的重要议题,它所面临的挑战更多源于沿线国家和地区经济发展任务繁重与生态环境先天脆弱之间的矛盾。仅仅依靠单个政府部门或某一政策,或者仅仅依靠单个国家或地区的某一倡议与行动,均不足以应对"一带一路"建设中的跨国环境风险,这将倒逼国内与国际社会提升环境保护的战略地位,构建新型环境治理体系。"一带一路"沿线的各地政府不仅要发挥生态环保的示范作用,还要建立横向若干部门和纵向各级政府的协同治理机制,完善环境保护跨国合作制度,鼓励企业、NGO组织与民间力量、智库共同参与环境治理。     

The supervision of environmental risk: The case of HCB waste or Botany/Randwick?

The governance activities of capital and the state include attempts to control the timing and spacing of social activities such as the production of environmental risks and settlement of different social groups. The supervisory activities that have shaped the environmental and social history of the Botany/Randwick area are identified here, to examine how the HCB waste risk developed in that community. The analysis shows that multiple environmental risks and an ethnically diverse, working class community have been brought together in space to create environmental injustice. Analysing the governance of one environmental risk like hexachlorobenzene (HCB) waste may not increase understanding about communities facing multiple environmental risks or the supervisory processes that lead to the unfair accumulation of risks for particular places or social groups. Lessons from the environmental justice movement suggest that reframing problems like HCB waste management at Botany/Randwick as distributive justice issues may contribute to governance arrangements that better manage multiple risks and pollution sources in space affecting marginalised communities.     

Case study: Sonoco's materials reclamation improves environmental performance through quality-based management

Multinational corporations are facing increasing pressures and finding stronger incentives to integrate environmental management into their overall business strategies. National and local environmental regulations are becoming more stringent in Europe, Japan, East and Southeast Asia, Latin America, and many developing countries, and international voluntary standards of environmental management are being endorsed by a growing number of governments. Multinational firms are embracing these standards not only to assure the public of their concern for environmental protection, but also to enhance their competitiveness in international markets. The British Standard 7750, the European Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS), and the ISO 14000 series are setting new guidelines for effective corporate environmental management. Beyond complying with local and national laws, corporations now have wider latitude in how they adapt their business practices to these emerging environmental management standards. In order to capitalize on that creative latitude, companies must have corporate cultures and internal management systems that allow them to respond quickly and effectively to changing environmental requirements. Exemplary corporate environmental performance is usually related to strong and progressive leadership, a culture that recognizes the importance of environmental protection, and the willingness to operate by quality-based management principles. This article describes how one international corporation, Sonoco, in responding successfully to changing environmental pressures to reclaim and recycle its products in the wake of the solid waste crisis in the United States and more stringent environmental regulations in Europe, used its management competencies and corporate culture to turn what could have been serious barriers to expansion of its core businesses into new opportunities. By adopting a bold materials reclamation program, Sonoco was able to overcome potential limitations on its operations in the United States and abroad and to develop new business segments that benefited the company and the environment.     

Common Core Themes in Geomorphic, Ecological, and Social Systems

Core themes of geomorphology include: open systems and connectivity; feedbacks and complexity; spatial differentiation of dominant physical processes within a landscape; and legacy effects of historical human use of resources. Core themes of ecology include: open systems and connectivity; hierarchical, heterogeneous, dynamic, and context-dependent characteristics of ecological patterns and processes; nonlinearity, thresholds, hysteresis, and resilience within ecosystems; and human effects. Core themes of environmental governance include: architecture of institutions and decision-making; agency, or ability of actors to prescribe behavior of people in relation to the environment; adaptiveness of social groups to environmental change; accountability and legitimacy of systems of governance; allocation of and access to resources; and thresholds and feedback loops within environmental policy. Core themes common to these disciplines include connectivity, feedbacks, tipping points or thresholds, and resiliency. Emphasizing these points of disciplinary overlap can facilitate interdisciplinary understanding of complex systems, as well as more effective management of landscapes and ecosystems by highlighting drivers of change within systems. We use a previously published conceptual framework to examine how these core themes can be integrated into interdisciplinary research for human–landscape systems via the example of a river.     

比利时环境治理典型经验分析——以弗拉芒大区为例

作为欧盟的核心成员国之一,近年来比利时在环境治理方面成效显著。尤其是弗拉芒大区,逐渐形成了以"土地证书"为标志的土壤污染治理、"从摇篮到坟墓"的废弃物治理和以"许可证制度"为核心的空气污染治理等一系列特点鲜明的环境治理措施和方法。本文着重分析弗拉芒大区环境治理的机构设置和目标,以及其土地污染治理中的"土地证书"和土地交易管理,空气污治理中的工业污染源和交通污染源治理,废弃物治理中的法律、经济与自愿工具使用三个方面的典型经验。结合比利时弗拉芒大区的典型经验和现阶段我国环境政策体系存在的主要问题,建议我国环境政策体系的改进和完善,应更加注重实现污染外部性的内部化、利用市场手段来实现土壤保护和开发新的环境政策工具。     

Contesting governance of indigenous forests in New Zealand: The case of the West Coast Forest Accord

This paper uses the concept of ‘governance’ and the related notion of ‘multi-layered’ forest management decision making as an overarching framework for analysis of conflict between different stakeholder groups with contrasting perceptions about ‘appropriate’ use of indigenous forests in a New Zealand case study. In New Zealand, recent institutional reforms inspired by neo-liberal policy agendas have led to substantial conflicts between segments of society over the ‘appropriate’ governance of remnant indigenous forests. This study focuses on the West Coast Forest Accord (WCFA) as an illustration of the attempt to change governance structures of indigenous forest management by re-regulating the indigenous forest industry. It is argued that by seeking to accommodate multiple stakeholder interests, in particular industry, community and environmental groups, the WCFA was doomed to fail, as multiple, and often conflicting, stakeholder agendas focused on the goal of ‘sustainable management’ of indigenous forests could no longer be reconciled. Notwithstanding the shift in emphasis from government towards governance in the recent literature, the study findings confirm a continuing strong role by the state as an actor in the forestry sector in New Zealand.     

Conflict on the Coast: Using Geographic Information Systems to Map Potential Environmental Disputes in Matagorda Bay,Texas

The sustainable management of coastal natural resources inevitably involves identifying stakeholder conflicts and developing planning processes that prevent these conflicts from becoming intractable disputes. This study links environmental conflict to specific areas within a large ecological system. Specifically, we use Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to map potentially competing stakeholder values associated with establishing protected areas in Matagorda Bay, Texas. By overlaying multiple values associated with a range of stakeholders across space, we are able to identify hotspots of potential conflict as well as areas of opportunity for maximizing joint gains. Mapping stakeholder conflict is an approach to proactively locate potential controversy in response to a specific environmental management proposal and guide decision makers in crafting planning processes that mitigate the possibility of intractable disputes and facilitate the implementation of sustainable coastal policies. Results indicate that under different management scenarios, protected area proposals will generate more conflict in specific areas. Most notably, regulated uses would produce the greatest degree of conflict on or near shore, particularly at the mouth of the Colorado River. Additionally, of all the management scenarios evaluated, the prohibition of coastal structural development would generate the overall highest level of conflict within the Bay. Based on the results, we discuss the policy implications for environmental managers and provide guidance for future research on location-based conflict management within the coastal margin.     

提高土壤环境管理成效:推进三大环境要素协同治理

经过长期的大气污染和水污染治理实践,各地积累了一定的技术、工程和管理经验,但随着土壤污染问题的日益凸显,三大环境要素质量如何整体提升、确保区域生态系统服务功能稳定持续发挥、满足人民群众对环境产品的需求,成为各级政府推进环境基本公共服务均等化过程中需要正视和亟待破解的一个难题。本文在系统分析当前环境污染以单要素为主线实施治理的总体思路所面临困境的基础上,基于生态系统整体性和区域统筹考量,从治理主体、治理手段、治理过程三个方面,提出推进土壤环境-水环境-大气环境协同治理的基本路径,为国家出台土壤环境管理相关政策措施、促进城镇化过程中区域环境质量整体改善提供参考。     

The effectiveness of market-based conservation in the tropics: forest certification in Ecuador and Bolivia

During the last decade, forest certification has gained momentum as a market-based conservation strategy in tropical forest countries. Certification has been promoted to enhance forest management in countries where governance capacities are insufficient to adequately manage natural resources and enforce pertinent regulations, given that certification relies largely on non-governmental organisations and private businesses. However, at present there are few tropical countries with large areas of certified forests. In this study, we conducted semi-structured stakeholder interviews in Ecuador and Bolivia to identify key framework conditions that influence the costs and benefits for companies to switch from conventional to certified forestry operations. Bolivia has a much greater relative area under certified forest management than Ecuador and also significantly more certified producers. The difference in the success of certification between both countries is particularly notable because Bolivia is a poorer country with more widespread corruption, and is landlocked with less access to export routes. Despite these factors, several characteristics of the Bolivian forest industry contribute to lower additional costs of certified forest management compared to Ecuador. Bolivia has stronger government enforcement of forestry regulations a fact that increases the cost of illegal logging, management units are larger, and vertical integration in the process chain from timber extraction to markets is higher. Moreover, forestry laws in Bolivia are highly compatible with certification requirements, and the government provides significant tax benefits to certified producers. Results from this study suggest that certification can be successful in countries where governments have limited governance capacity. However, the economic incentives for certification do not only arise from favourable market conditions. Certification is likely to be more successful where governments enforce forestry laws, provide financial incentives for certified forestry, and provide land tenure security, and where large-scale and vertically integrated forestry operations are commercially feasible. For this reason, at present, there are few developing countries where forest certification is likely to achieve widespread success.     

Fair fracking? Ethics and environmental justice in United Kingdom shale gas policy and planning

The exploitation of shale gas resources is a significant issue of environmental justice. Uneven distributions of risks and social impacts to local site communities must be balanced against the economic benefits to gas users and developers; and unequal decision-making powers must be negotiated between local and central governments, communities and fracking site developers. These distributive and procedural elements are addressed in relation to UK policy, planning, regulatory and industry development. I adopt an explicitly normative framework of policy evaluation, addressing a research gap on the ethics of shale gas by operationalising Shrader-Frechette’s Principle of Prima Facie Political Equality. I conclude that UK fracking policy reveals inherent contradictions of environmental justice in relation to the Conservative Government’s localist and planning reform agendas. Early fracking policy protected communities from harm in the wake of seismic risk events, but these were quickly replaced with pro-industry economic stimulation and planning legislation that curtailed community empowerment in fracking decision-making, increased environmental risks to communities, transferred powers from local to central government and created the conditions of distributive injustices in the management of community benefit provisions. I argue that only by “re-localising” the scale of fracking governance can political equality be ensured and the distributive and procedural environmental injustices be ameliorated.     

Revealing inadvertent elitism in stakeholder models of environmental governance: assessing procedural justice in sustainability organizations

Consensus-based multi-stakeholder forms of environmental governance involving government, private and civil society actors, have become popular for advancing sustainability, but have been criticized for failing to achieve procedural justice objectives including recognition, participation and strengthening capabilities. Yet, how such models have functioned within non-governmental organizations dedicated to advancing sustainability has been underexplored. This paper assesses the procedural elements of consensus-based multi-stakeholder models used within Canadian biosphere reserves and model forests, two organizations working to address environment and sustainability issues. We draw on strategic documents and semi-structured interviews from five organizations in Canada to analyze their governance structures and processes against a framework for procedural justice. We find the organizational structure reproduces elitism and professionalism associated with stakeholder models more generally and reproduces challenges associated with recognition, participation and building capabilities found in other stakeholder approaches. Meeting broader sustainability challenges requires organizations to address procedural justice issues in addition to their traditional environmental concerns.