What are the implications of human rights for minerals taxation?

This article examines the relationship between a state's taxation of mineral revenues and the human rights obligation to use ‘maximum available resources’ to further citizens' welfare. These both have implications for understanding the other but there has been little attention to their interaction.Contemporary (economic and policy) approaches to mineral taxation revolve around economic rent and providing a ‘neutral’ economic environment that does not influence investment decisions. There is no reference to human rights obligations—these are just part of the state's general responsibilities for which it can legitimately raise taxes. Taxation analysis largely ignores whether the state wants money to ensure there is adequate food for the population, or instead to stage the Miss Universe pageant.Human rights has relevance for the state's management of resources. The requirement for states to apply ‘maximum available resources’ to fulfil human rights suggests that mineral extraction (and taxation) should occur as fast as possible to be applied for the human rights of the current population A more considered analysis weighs against such a literal interpretation. Nevertheless, the requirement of using ‘maximum available resources’ to fulfil human rights has important implications for mineral taxation.     

Shared values for the marine environment – developing a culture of practice for marine spatial planning

Though still relatively new, the development of marine spatial planning has been based on the on the premise that as a rational planning process, it can be applied following universal principles and steps informed by land-based inspired theoretical underpinnings. However, within this process, differences between marine and terrestrial environments are being overlooked, potentially affecting the way in which the marine environment is understood and valued, and the development of a culture of practice for, and specific to, marine spatial planning. By framing planning as a cultural construct, this paper aims to explore the extent to which land-based rationales are affecting the development of a marine spatial planning culture of practice, with its own ethos and shared values. A culturalised planning model adapted from [Knieling, J. and Othengrafen, F. (2015). Planning culture—a concept to explain the evolution of planning policies and processes in Europe? European Planning Studies, 23(11), 2133–2147] is used as a framework. Whilst acknowledging the importance of the contributions from land-based planning and the ecological sciences, the findings suggest that those unconscious beliefs and perceptions affecting society’s understanding of the marine environment should contribute to informing shared values for marine spatial planning practice.     

Decision support for adaptive action – assessing the potential of geographic visualization

This study explores the role of geographic visualization for supporting the implementation of climate change adaptation. Interviews and group discussions with planners and decision makers indicate that geographic visualization bears primary potential for communicative purposes. In order to respond to analytical needs a high level of interactivity including the exploration of background data and the ability to link the tools with own databases were some of the key requirements made by the participants. The study concludes that more than better climate predictions, awareness and involvement may be precisely what is needed to narrow the implementation gap in climate change adaptation.     

Are consumers willing to pay for conservation agriculture? The case of white maize in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Throughout the low-income world, agricultural producers have a motivation to slash-and-burn rainforests as they cannot afford inorganic fertilizers. Farmers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), who are predominantly women, are often forced to walk long distances to cultivate more productive lands, when fertility near their villages is reduced. On their way and while working away from home, women become targets for rape. Adopting conservation agriculture (CA) could help mitigate deforestation and potentially create a safer environment for women. Limited knowledge about the benefits of CA across countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has hindered its adoption. Taking these impediments into account, we estimate if consumers in the DRC are willing to pay (WTP) a premium for CA, using maize flour as the medium. By means of a double-bounded dichotomous choice valuation method, 600 consumers in Bukavu, DRC, were surveyed about their willingness-to-pay for CA-produced maize. Our study finds that only those consumers who identify themselves as farmers are WTP a premium. This study indicates that if CA adoption is to spread in the DRC, it will likely need to happen via increased yields or reduced costs before the farm gate and not premiums after the farm gate.     

Shades of blue: what do competing interpretations of the Blue Economy mean for oceans governance?

The ‘Blue Economy’ is an increasingly popular term in modern marine and ocean governance. The concept seeks to marry ocean-based development opportunities with environmental stewardship and protection. Yet different actors are co-opting this term in competing, and often conflicting ways. Four conceptual interpretations of the Blue Economy are identified, through examination of dominant discourses within international Blue Economy policy documents and key ‘grey’ literature. The way the Blue Economy is enacted is also examined, through an analysis of the Blue Economy ‘in practice’, and the actors involved. Finally, the scope of the Blue Economy is explored, with a particular focus on which particular marine industries are included or excluded from different conceptualizations. This analysis reveals areas of both consensus and conflict. Areas of consensus reflect the growing trend towards commodification and valuation of nature, the designation and delimitation of spatial boundaries in the oceans and increasing securitization of the world's oceans. Areas of conflict exist most notably around a divergence in opinions over the legitimacy of individual sectors as components of the ‘Blue Economy’, in particular, carbon-intensive industries like oil and gas, and the emerging industry of deep seabed mining.     

Critical review for the quantification of leachate production: Evaluation example for the “Oum Azza” public landfill in Rabat city,Morocco

The estimation of leachate quantities produced in landfills is necessary to dimension the treatment plants allowing to reduce the polluting load of these effluents and consequently avoid their negative impacts on the environment. Different leachate quantification methods were used in this study to assess the leachate volume produced at the Oum Azza landfill. The water balance method give comparable estimations of leachate production to the Ouled Berjal landfill ratio. The first method showed average values between 487 and 495 m³/day for 2015, 2018, and 2019, and at the same time, the second method gave values between 470 and 477 m³/day for the same years. In contrast, the World Bank ratio showed high values that vary between 2260 and 2295 m³/day for 2015, 2018, and 2019. The on-site data and the statistical analysis showed us that the World Bank ratio is not adapted for the estimation of the leachates produced in Oum Azza landfill, while the water balance and the ratio of Ouled Berjal landfill allowed to give comparable results to reality.     

A Critique of FAWC’s Five Freedoms as a Framework for the Analysis of Animal Welfare

The Brambell Report of 1965 recommended that animals should have the freedom to stand up, lie down, turn around, groom themselves and stretch their limbs. The Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC) developed these into the Five Freedoms, which are a framework for the analysis of animal welfare. The Five Freedoms are well known in farming, policy making and academic circles. They form the basis of much animal welfare legislation, codes of recommendations and farm animal welfare accreditation schemes, and are the foundation of the Welfare Quality^® assessment scheme. The Five Freedoms are also extensively employed for the education of veterinary and animal welfare science students. Hence they have proven to be of great practical utility. In this paper, the Five Freedoms framework is examined in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions for the analysis of animal welfare. Overall, the Five Freedoms are judged to be individually necessary and jointly sufficient as a framework for the analysis of animal welfare. FAWC has recently criticized the Five Freedoms for concentrating on negative aspects of welfare. However, it is shown here how the satisfaction of the Five Freedoms should lead to good welfare, from the animal’s point of view. The Five Freedoms are formulated as ideals of animal welfare. This has significant advantages that have likely contributed to their impact. However, the ideality of the Five Freedoms means that the framework is without power to determine what a satisfactory level of animal welfare is, in an ethical sense.     

Developing decision support systems for integrated coastal management in the tropics: is the ICM decision-making environment too complex for the development of a useable and useful DSS?

Integrated coastal management in the tropics requires the conservation of vulnerable and diverse ecosystems such as coral reefs and mangroves as well as the management of land and marine-based human activities. Decision-making for integrated coastal management involves multiple decision-makers and multiple stakeholders often with conflicting needs and interests. Decision support systems can be developed to improve our understanding of the inter-relationships between the natural and socio-economic variables and hence result in improved decision-making. The question is whether this decision making environment is actually too complex for the development of useful and useable decision support systems. This paper describes the components of the decision making environment and the components of a decision support system. It also explores the various techniques available to deal with different modelling needs, the constraints of inadequate data and the multi-objective decision making environment. In addition, different techniques of developing decision support systems can play important roles within integrated coastal management. Three coastal decision support systems are evaluated in terms of their design and role in integrated coastal management and are used to evaluate the potential to develop decision support systems for integrated coastal management.     

Crop Biotechnology for the Environment?

In public debates, agricultural biotechnology is almost invariably discussed as a potential threat to the environment and to human health. Without downplaying the risks associated with this technology we emphasize that if properly regulated, it can be a forceful tool to solve environmental problems and promote human health. Agricultural biotechnology can reduce environmental problems in at least three ways: it can diminish the need for environmentally damaging agricultural practices such as pesticides, fertilizers, tillage, and irrigation. It can reduce the land area needed for agriculture, thus reducing the CO₂ effect of agriculture and improving biodiversity. It can produce energy in a CO₂-neutral way (especially if new technologies involving the cultivation of microalgae become successful). Furthermore, agricultural biotechnology can have positive effects on human health by decreasing occupational and dietary exposure to pesticides, improving the nutritional value of food, and producing pharmaceuticals more efficiently. We argue that those who wish to give high priority to environmental goals cannot afford any longer to be mere onlookers while others decide the future directions of agricultural biotechnology.     

A tool for building community resilience? A case study of the Lewes Pound

In the last decade, “resilience” has gained increasing recognition as a theoretical framework for understanding and managing change in complex social–ecological systems. Resilience assessments are increasingly used to inform sustainability initiatives, strategies, and policies. The Lewes Pound represents a new complementary currency model in the UK, aiming to build community resilience. However, there have been no empirical studies to date assessing the socio-economic impacts of this model. This article addresses the need to understand how such currencies function by measuring whether the Lewes Pound is capable of building resilience. This is done by developing a novel framework for estimating economic, social, and environmental outcomes, which uses a mixed-methods approach. Findings suggest that complementary currencies can enhance social-ecological resilience through awareness-raising and changes in consumption. Although economic localisation – a key indicator – is lacking, there is evidence that the Lewes Pound has developed social interactions and changed consumption patterns of its users.     

Analysis of the “European Charter on General Principles for Protection of the Environment and Sustainable Development” The Council of Europe Document CO-DBP (2003)2

For almost 50 years, the Council of Europe through a series of documents has been helping to build up a set of rules, principles, and strategies related to culture, environment, ethics, and sustainable development. At the moment, one of the most important aims of the Council of Europe’s agenda deals with the elaboration of the General Principles for the Protection of the Environment and Sustainable Development, as raised in document CO-DBP (2003)2 related to the environmental subject. The intention of the Council of Europe is to encourage national authorities to implement these General Principles into their national environmental policies. These principles should have an important effect, especially in those countries which are new members of the European Union. The primary target of this paper is the study of these principles and the setting of their entailed implications in order to establish a relation between values and policy making. Quite often, the conclusions adopted by the agreements generated within the framework of the European Union are controversial. Therefore, a study aiming to lay the foundations of these principles will make the exchange of ideas easier, providing a wider and more detailed scope in the European environmental policy.     

Evaluating the efficacy of adaptive management approaches: Is there a formula for success?

Within the field of natural-resources management, the application of adaptive management is appropriate for complex problems high in uncertainty. Adaptive management is becoming an increasingly popular management-decision tool within the scientific community and has developed into two primary schools of thought: the Resilience-Experimentalist School (with high emphasis on stakeholder involvement, resilience, and highly complex models) and the Decision-Theoretic School (which results in relatively simple models through emphasizing stakeholder involvement for identifying management objectives). Because of these differences, adaptive management plans implemented under each of these schools may yield varying levels of success. We evaluated peer-reviewed literature focused on incorporation of adaptive management to identify components of successful adaptive management plans. Our evaluation included adaptive management elements such as stakeholder involvement, definitions of management objectives and actions, use and complexity of predictive models, and the sequence in which these elements were applied. We also defined a scale of degrees of success to make comparisons between the two adaptive management schools of thought. Our results include the relationship between the adaptive management process documented in the reviewed literature and our defined continuum of successful outcomes. Our data suggest an increase in the number of published articles with substantive discussion of adaptive management from 2000 to 2009 at a mean rate of annual change of 0.92 (r2 = 0.56). Additionally, our examination of data for temporal patterns related to each school resulted in an increase in acknowledgement of the Decision-Theoretic School of thought at a mean annual rate of change of 0.02 (r2 = 0.6679) and a stable acknowledgement for the Resilience-Experimentalist School of thought (r2 = 0.0042; slope = 0.0013). Identifying the elements of successful adaptive management will be advantageous to natural-resources managers considering adaptive management as a decision tool.     

Nature as an arena for the quality of life: psycho-spiritual values—the next main focus in nature conservation?

The purpose of this article is to discuss the concept of the psycho-spiritual values of nature, to call for increased research and concern, and to address these values as important among the third generation of environmental problems. The loss of biodiversity and the quality of nature harms the basic psychological interests of man: nature contains beauty and wonders, offers a variety of experiences and challenges, acts as a mental anchor, generates insight and wisdom, and represents a part of the identity of every country. To preserve the quality of nature for the benefit of the human mind and spirit, challenges psychologists, biologists, land-use planners and politicians. Nature as an arena for the quality of life is a topic of utmost concern, for it will impact on future generations.     

What's the Moral of the GM Food Story?

This paper is an attempt to examine issues and problemsraised by agricultural biotechnology by drawing on the richnessof contemporary ideas in ethical theory and thereby contribute tothe project of establishing new approaches to these problems. Thefundamental argument is that many of the negative aspects ofagricultural biotechnology are generated at the level of theunderlying conceptual frameworks that shape the technology'sinternal modes of organization, rather than the unintendedeffects of the application of an inherently benevolent set oftechniques. If ``food ethics' is to address the adverse impacts ofagricultural biotechnology, it must ultimately challenge theseconceptual frames, which, I argue, emerge from Enlightenment,liberal, political, and economic theory.The translation of traditional bioethics (focusing on principlessuch as autonomy and rights, justice, and well being) into foodethics does not produce the critical tools that are ableadequately to challenge the harmful legacy of Enlightenmentthinking. What is needed are reorientations of ethics that arecapable of formulating concepts and approaches that to someextent break with the presuppositions that underpin biotechnologyat its foundation. This paper suggests that narrative andfeminist critiques of medical bioethics are a good place to startin this project.     

More than just linking the nodes: civil society actors as intermediaries in the design and implementation of payments for ecosystem services–the case of a blue carbon project in Costa Rica

While in many cases the benefits of ecosystem services (ES) can be enjoyed on different scales, the provision of ES requires engagement and commitment at the local scale. Therefore, the local level becomes important when thinking about compensation schemes or payments for ecosystem services (PES) as an approach to managing ES. The difficult task of bringing together different actors and institutions at different scales for specific conservation projects at the local level often remains in the hands of intermediaries. In this paper, we investigate the role of a civil society organisation (CSO) as an intermediary organisation in a PES scheme, the Community Blue Carbon Project (CBCP) in Costa Rica. To assess the role of intermediaries in a PES scheme, we rely on social network analysis and examine the position and role of the intermediary organisation. Based on Net-Map interviews, which is an interview-based mapping tool that helps people understand, visualise, discuss and improve situations in which many different actors influence outcomes, we find that the intermediary organisation in the CBCP is composed of several institutional and individual intermediaries who create both formal networks for connecting the international to the local level and informal networks for creating trusting relationships among the actors. Different spatial levels are reflected within the CSO’s organisational structure, and the CSO mitigates the distributional, procedural, recognition and contextual aspects of environmental justice.     

Byproduct production of minor metals: Threat or opportunity for the development of clean technologies? The PV sector as an illustration

Today, the fight against global warming and the coming hydrocarbon exhaustion involve a drastic increase of clean energies. These technologies resort to many minor metals which are byproduct of major metals. We will take the definition of Hagelüken and Mesker (2010, Complex Life Cycles of Precious and Special Metals. In: Edition Thomas E. Graedel, Ester van der Voet (Eds.), Strüngmann Forum Report, Linkages of Sustainability, MIT Press) to show precisely what minor metals are: “[they are] metals that have relatively low production or usage, which occur in low ore concentrations, are regarded as rare, or are not traded at major public exchanges”. We will analyze the byproduct status affecting almost each minor metal in order to determine if the link with the metal main product can involve a threat for clean technology development. This paper will also deal with the theory and implications of the relationship between the byproduct and the main-product and then check it with empirical data. Until now, byproduct metal production and its variations seem relatively independent from major metal production thanks to the non-saturation of potential supply. By 2050, photovoltaic solar development should not lead to the saturation of potential supply.     

Managing for biodiversity: Emerging ideas for the electric utility industry—summary statement

The conference entitled Managing for Biodiversity: Emerging Ideas for the Electric Utility Industry was held in Williamsburg, Virginia, USA, during 19–20 March 1996. This paper provides an overview of the key points, conclusions, and recommendations from both the presentations/papers and the discussions throughout the conference.     

An assessment of Spain's Programa AGUA and its implications for sustainable water management in the province of Almería, southeast Spain

Spain's Programa AGUA was proposed in 2004 as a replacement for the Spanish National Hydrological Plan and represented a fundamental policy shift in national water management from large inter-basin water transfers to a commitment to desalination. Twenty-one desalination facilities are planned for six provinces on the Spanish Mediterranean coast to supplement their water needs. These include the province of Almería that for the last 30 years has endured a net water abstraction overdraft leading to serious reservoir depletion and groundwater imbalances. Rising water use is a result of increasing demand to support irrigated agriculture (e.g. greenhouse horticulture) and for domestic needs (e.g. rapid urban growth and tourism development), which has led observers to question Almería's long-term water sustainability. Desalinated water alone is unlikely to be sufficient to make up these water deficits and water-users will have to accept a move to full-price water recovery by 2010 under the European Union (EU) Water Framework Directive of which Spain is a signatory. Anticipated water efficiencies resulting from higher water tariffs, increasing water reuse and water infrastructure improvements (including inter-basin transfers), in conjunction with increasing use of desalinated water, are expected to address the province's current water overdraft. However, Almería will need to balance its planned initiatives against long-term estimates of projected agricultural and domestic development and the environmental consequences of adopting a desalination-supported water future.     

Effects of alkali promoters on the textural and catalytic properties of mesoporous Fe–Al–Cu catalysts for water gas shift reaction

Mesoporous Fe₂O₃–Al₂O₃–CuO catalysts promoted with alkali oxides were synthesized and used in water gas shift reaction (WGSR) at high temperatures for hydrogen purification. These chromium-free catalysts were characterized using nitrogen adsorption/desorption, hydrogen temperature programmed reduction, X-ray diffraction (XRD), and transmission electron microscopy techniques. The synthesized catalysts with narrow single-modal pore size distribution in mesopore region possessed high specific surface area. The catalytic results revealed that except Cs, the addition of other alkali promoters declined the catalytic activity. However, all catalysts showed higher catalytic performance than the conventional commercial catalyst. The results showed an optimum content of Cs promoter (3 wt.%) for the promoted Fe–Al–Cu catalyst (3 wt.% Cs-FAC), which exhibited the highest activity in WGSR at high temperature.