Getting low-carbon governance right: learning from actors involved in Community Benefits

Interest in Community Benefits (CB) has increased over the past decade mainly due to the growing number of wind farms and related criticism. Because CB are a voluntary gesture by the developer, there is no standard practice or institutionalised approach for good governance of the benefits; every community has a different approach, tailored to local needs and depending on the stakeholders involved. Additionally, since CB are a rapidly emerging practice, little is known about their governance, what actors are involved and how affected communities participate in decision-making on renewable projects. Using the Farr wind farm in Scotland, one of the first to introduce CB, as a case study, this paper sheds light on the governance structures surrounding the set-up, management and allocation of funds. It also contributes to the emerging body of work regarding transparency and community participation in CB, and the extent to which these might facilitate a transition to a low-carbon future.     

Infrastructure in informal settlements: co-production of public services for inclusive governance

Recent studies on urban governance have advanced our understanding of how governance could become inclusive through community-based participation in urban development. However, a concrete process by which participatory public service provision in informal settlements consolidates inclusive governance has not been sufficiently evident in the context of the dynamic urban development witnessed in Africa. Drawing on a case study of the informal sanitation infrastructure known as a bio-centre, which has been introduced by a participatory upgrading programme in Nairobi, Kenya, this article proposes to pay attention to ways that informal settlers experience infrastructure, embed it into their everyday context of place-making and use it in unplanned manners. Inclusive governance that is effective in providing public services in informal settlements requires every development actor to be engaged in deliberating how to deal with such unplanned outcomes and eventually to co-produce services. This article argues that, rather than participation, communities’ capacity to enrol the state actors in the space of deliberation is crucial to make governance genuinely inclusive.     

云南森林生态功能区农户生态补偿支付意愿(WTP)影响因素及差异性分析

生态补偿是协调经济与资源环境和谐发展,化解生态环境与经济增长矛盾的有效手段,对推进生态文明建设意义深远。基于云南省5个州市农户调查数据,运用二元Probit模型,分析了云南森林生态功能区农户生态补偿支付意愿的关键影响因素及其差异性。研究表明:大部分农户愿意为生态补偿付费,影响其支付意愿的主要因素是性别、年龄、是否兼业、家庭人口数、非农收入比重、生态补偿重要性认知、森林经济效益是否比生态效益重要、生态环境满意度、政府是否对生态环境保护宣传、政策执行信任度以及信息获取难易程度;其中年龄、家庭农业劳动力人数和信息获取难易程度对专业户支付意愿有重要影响,而家庭人口数、非农收入比重以及获得政府补偿的情况对兼业户支付意愿有重要影响;是否兼业、非农收入比重、对生态补偿了解程度以及信息获取难易程度对传统散户支付意愿影响较大;对政策执行的信任程度和产业发展程度对种植大户支付意愿有重要影响。基于此,提出了完善政府农村就业服务职能,鼓励农户非农就业、创业;完善生态功能区环境教育体系和宣传制度建设,强化农户环保意识;强化政府职责及其政策推广、执行力度,构建综合、完善的生态补偿宣传媒介;制定并实施差异化的生态补偿措施等具体对策建议。     

Mountain substitutability and peak load pricing of high alpine peaks as a management tool to reduce environmental damage: A contingent valuation study

High alpine peaks throughout the world are under increasing environmental pressure from hikers, trekkers, and climbers. Colorado's “Fourteeners”, peaks with summits above 14,000 feet are no exception. Most of these peaks have no entrance fees, and reach ecological and social carrying capacity on weekends. This paper illustrates how a series of dichotomous choice contingent valuation questions can be used to evaluate substitutability between different alpine peaks and quantify the price responsiveness to an entrance fee. Using this approach, we find that peak load pricing would decrease use of popular Fourteeners in Colorado by 22%. This reduction is due almost entirely to substitution, rather than income effects. There is also price inelastic demand, as 60% of the hikers find no substitution for their specific Fourteener at the varying cost increases posed in the survey. The no substitute group has a mean net benefit of $294 per hiker, per trip, considerably higher than visitor net benefits in most recreational use studies.     

Buying Time: Real and Hypothetical Offers

This article provides the results of a field test of contingent valuation estimates within a willingness to accept framework. Using dichotomous choice questions in telephone–mail–telephone interviews, we compare survey respondents' responses to real and hypothetical offers for the opportunity to spend time in a second set of interviews on an undisclosed topic. Five hundred and forty people were randomly split between the real and hypothetical treatments. Our findings indicate no significant differences between people's choices with real and hypothetical offers. Choice models werenotsignificantly different between real and hypothetical offers.     

The importance of mangrove forest in tsunami disaster mitigation

Tsunamis and storm surges have killed more than one million people and some three billion people currently live with a high risk of these disasters, which are becoming more frequent and devastating worldwide. Effective mitigation of such disasters is possible via healthy coastal forests, which can reduce the energy of tsunamis. In recent years, these natural barriers have declined due to adverse human and natural activities. In the past 20 years, the world has lost almost 50 per cent of its mangrove forests, making them one of the most endangered landscapes. It is essential to recover them and to use them as a shield against a tsunami and as a resource to secure optimal socio-economic, ecological and environmental benefits. This paper examines the emerging scenario facing mangrove forests, discusses protection from tsunamis, and proposes a way to improve the current situation. We hope that practical tips will help communities and agencies to work collectively to achieve a common goal.     

Livelihood change and livelihood sustainability in the uplands of Lembang subwatershed, West Sumatra, Indonesia, in a changing natural resource management context

This paper analyzes livelihood change and livelihood sustainability of households in the upland part of the Lembang subwatershed, West Sumatra, in response to changes in the natural resource management context during the last decade. Using the sustainable livelihood framework (SLF), we measured livelihood changes at two separate points in time, 1996 and 2006, and assessed their environmental, economic, social, and institutional sustainability. We found that people with a low income had less access to capital assets than people from middle- and high-income groups. Our analysis revealed, however, that access to capital assets increased over time, and that poor households experienced economic improvement, indicating an overall increase in economic sustainability. Environmental sustainability, however, is threatened by intensive agricultural practices such as high agrochemical input and intensive soil tillage on steep slopes, leading to pollution and soil erosion. Social sustainability is also a matter of concern: while social exclusion has been reduced, income inequity has increased. Institutional sustainability is likely to remain uncertain, as local institutions for natural resource management are still weak, despite the fact that decentralization has been implemented during the last 8 years. External facilitation is needed to improve the livelihood of upland people while, at the same time, enhancing the sustainability of watershed management. Strengthening local institutions, conserving natural resources, and promoting environmentally sound agricultural practices are the three most important policies to be promoted within the watershed.     

Interdependence with the environment: Commitment,interconnectedness, and environmental behavior

Do individuals’ perceptions of their interdependence with the natural environment affect their environmental behaviors? From the perspective of interdependence theory, we introduce a scale to measure commitment to the natural environment. In Study 1, higher levels of commitment to the environment and greater inclusion of nature in the self separately predicted higher levels of pro-environmental behavior, even when controlling for social desirability and ecological worldview. In Study 2, participants primed to experience high commitment to the environment reported greater levels of pro-environmental behavioral intentions as well as pro-environmental behavior relative to participants primed to experience low commitment to the environment. Commitment to the natural environment is a new theoretical construct that predicts environmental behavior.     

Rural Households’ Attitude and Economic Strategies Toward the Conversion of Cropland to Forest and Grassland Program (CCFG): A Case Study in Qira,China

The Conversion of Cropland to Forest and Grassland Program (CCFG), which was initiated by the Chinese government in 1999, is a cropland retirement program with integrated objectives for ecological preservation and local development. The purpose of this article was to study the influencing factors of attitude and economic strategies in rural households toward the CCFG. Rural households’ knowledge, attitude and economic strategies toward the CCFG were investigated through a questionnaire survey in Qira, China. Influencing factors of attitude and strategies of households were analyzed using a logit model technique. The analysis indicated that household’s income level, environmental knowledge of the program, and program implementation were significant influencing factors in a household’s attitude toward the CCFG, while major influencing factors of household strategies were their regional background and availability of income generation sources. Meaningful association was not found between attitude and strategy choices. Rich households had more strategy choices, while poor households were usually confined to low input strategies with uncertain income. To sustain their livelihood, the poor need extra assistances in marketing, loan granting, employment training, information, and technical services.     

A Standard Lexicon for Biodiversity Conservation: Unified Classifications of Threats and Actions

Abstract: An essential foundation of any science is a standard lexicon. Any given conservation project can be described in terms of the biodiversity targets, direct threats, contributing factors at the project site, and the conservation actions that the project team is employing to change the situation. These common elements can be linked in a causal chain, which represents a theory of change about how the conservation actions are intended to bring about desired project outcomes. If project teams want to describe and share their work and learn from one another, they need a standard and precise lexicon to specifically describe each node along this chain. To date, there have been several independent efforts to develop standard classifications for the direct threats that affect biodiversity and the conservation actions required to counteract these threats. Recognizing that it is far more effective to have only one accepted global scheme, we merged these separate efforts into unified classifications of threats and actions, which we present here. Each classification is a hierarchical listing of terms and associated definitions. The classifications are comprehensive and exclusive at the upper levels of the hierarchy, expandable at the lower levels, and simple, consistent, and scalable at all levels. We tested these classifications by applying them post hoc to 1191 threatened bird species and 737 conservation projects. Almost all threats and actions could be assigned to the new classification systems, save for some cases lacking detailed information. Furthermore, the new classification systems provided an improved way of analyzing and comparing information across projects when compared with earlier systems. We believe that widespread adoption of these classifications will help practitioners more systematically identify threats and appropriate actions, managers to more efficiently set priorities and allocate resources, and most important, facilitate cross‐project learning and the development of a systematic science of conservation.