The Commons in Transition: Agrarian and Environmental Change in Central and Eastern Europe

This paper analyzes institutional dynamics surrounding common-pool resources in postsocialist Central and Eastern Europe. It is conceived in close conjunction with the case studies by Penov, Schleyer, and Wasilewski and Krukowski (this issue). The purpose of this paper is to frame the individual case inquiries, compare their findings, and relate those to broader agrarian and environmental changes in the region.The case studies report a broad shift in resource governance from the previously dominant legal and administrative state hierarchies towards markets. In addition, state power has moved from central towards local authorities. The waning and decentralization of state power has caused the emergence of significant gaps between property legislation and rights-in-practice, which have been particularly stark in fragmented political systems. The discrepancy between legal texts and rights-in-practice leads to the exclusion of wider interests in favor of individual interests in the management of common-pool resources, resulting in resource deterioration and dwindling resource stocks. Thus, the comparative assessment suggests a tentative framework for understanding the effects of postsocialist transformations on governance of the commons and environmental change in Central and Eastern Europe. Its findings indicate an additional dimension to the diversity and distributive conflicts characterizing postsocialist privatization: the distribution of various rights to a resource among different actors. The findings also suggest the need for postsocialist states to take an active role in the governance of common-pool resources, particularly in the enforcement of legal rights. Note: This version was published online in June 2005 with the cover date of August 2004.     

欧盟通过"欧洲有机食品与有机农业行动计划"

2004年6月10日,欧盟委员会通过了“欧洲有机食品与有机农业行动计划”。该计划提出应该在3个主要领域付诸实施21条具体的政策措施。这3个主要领域是:信息与促进、通过农村发展计划提供财政支持、改进标准和进口/检验要求。该计划预计将于2005年正式出台,这将对世界各国有机农业的发展产生很大的影响。“行动计划”强调指出,有机农业有助于实现欧盟共同农业政策2003年改革方案所提出的一个目标,即生产对环境友好、高质量的农产品。“行动计划”强烈建议各成员国要充分利用农村发展计划来支持有机农业的发展。明确有机农业生产方法和对整个有…     

Milk in the Multiple: The Making of Organic Milk in Norway

The current article looks into the development of an organic market segment in Norway by following organic milk and the controversies that have emerged in the trail of this morally infused artefact. In particular focus is the reformatting of organic milk around the turn of the millennium and the following attempts by various actors to make this product more accessible for a larger group of consumers. The approach favored in this undertaking is actor-network theory (ANT), which stresses the distributed nature of moral agency and that human and non-human elements of actor networks should be given equal attention when accounting for societal practices. Economic narratives such as the sovereign consumer are also used to shed light on the constitution of organic milk as a moral object and the positioning of this product relative to products stemming from conventional agriculture.     

The Myth of Efficiency: Technology and Ethics in Industrial Food Production

In this paper, we explore how the application of technological tools has reshaped food production systems in ways that foster large-scale outbreaks of foodborne illness. Outbreaks of foodborne illness have received increasing attention in recent years, resulting in a growing awareness of the negative impacts associated with industrial food production. These trends indicate a need to examine systemic causes of outbreaks and how they are being addressed. In this paper, we analyze outbreaks linked to ground beef and salad greens. These case studies are informed by personal interviews, site visits, and an extensive review of government documents and peer-reviewed literature. To explore these cases, we draw from actor-network theory and political economy to analyze the relationships between technological tools, the design of industrial production systems, and the emergence and spread of pathogenic bacteria. We also examine if current responses to outbreaks represent reflexive change. Lastly, we use the myth of Prometheus to discuss ethical issues regarding the use of technology in food production. Our findings indicate that current tools and systems were designed with a narrow focus on economic efficiency, while overlooking relationships with pathogenic bacteria and negative social impacts. In addition, we find that current responses to outbreaks do not represent reflexive change and a continued reliance on technological fixes to systemic problems may result in greater problems in the future. We argue that much can be learned from the myth of Prometheus. In particular, justice and reverence need to play a more significant role in guiding production decisions.     

Between Ideals and Reality: Development and Implementation of Fairness Standards in the Organic Food Sector

The organic sector is in an ongoing, but somewhat ambiguous, process of differentiation. Continuing growth has also entailed intensified competition and the emergence of conventional structures within the sector. Producers are under pressure to adapt their terms of production to these developments, bearing the risk that the original values and principles of organic farming may become irrelevant. To confront these tendencies and maintain their position on the market, organic producers and processors have launched a number of organic–fair initiatives. As some consumers attach importance to ethical aspects of consumption, these actors sense market opportunities in such quality differentiation. This article presents results of a study on current organic–fair criteria, as formulated by such initiatives. All of them define standards of distributive, procedural and informational fairness, with fair prices for producers and processors and long-term agreements being core standards. We show that distributive and procedural fairness are closely linked. Although organic–fair initiatives and their main protagonists focus on external fairness, such as fair prices for farmers, thus far internal concerns, such as minimum wages or employee involvement, are of less importance. The initiatives exemplify the differentiation of quality-oriented organic food producers in highly competitive markets. They have the potential to revitalise the original values of the sector and contribute significantly to ethical standardization therein. In order to make a substantial contribution to future development of the sector, a critical examination of aspects of internal fairness as well as the formulation of appropriate standards in this field is recommended.     

On Governance, Embedding and Marketing: Reflections on the Construction of Alternative Sustainable Food Networks

Based on the reconstruction of the development of 14 food supply chain initiatives in 7 European countries, we developed a conceptual framework that demonstrates that the process of increasing the sustainability of food supply chains is rooted in strategic choices regarding governance, embedding, and marketing and in the coordination of these three dimensions that are inextricably interrelated. The framework also shows that when seeking to further develop an initiative (e.g., through scaling up or product diversification) these interrelations need continuous rebalancing. We argue that the framework can serve different purposes: it can be used as an analytical tool by researchers studying food supply chain dynamics, as a policy tool by policymakers that want to support the development of sustainable food supply chains, and as a reflexive tool by practitioners and their advisors to help them to position themselves, develop a clear strategy, find the right allies, develop their skills, and build the capacities that they need. In this paper, we elaborate upon the latter function of the framework and illustrate this briefly with empirical evidence from three of the initiatives that we studied.     

Common access tradition and wilderness management in Norway: A paradox for managers

Many European countries, including Norway, have a right of common access tradition toward wildland areas for recreational activity. The “right of any one to move freely over all wildlands except farm fields and gardens” can serve as a paradoxical barrier to managing wildland areas and users for outdoor recreation. This article discusses the apparent paradox between free access and management of wildland recreation, the underlying principles of both concepts, and proposes an integrative basis for how the two concepts can serve the same major goal—freedom of access and use of wildland recreation areas without disturbance to other users or the resource base. A Norwegian field study is presented with campfire data and management strategies to illustrate the integrative nature of common access and wilderness management principles for the managing of wildland recreation opportunities.     

Food Insecurity in Pakistan: Causes and Policy Response

There is evidence of continued food insecurity and malnutrition in Pakistan despite significant progress made in terms of food production in recent years. According to “Vision 2030” of the Planning Commission of Pakistan, about half of the population in the country suffers from absolute to moderate malnutrition, with the most vulnerable being children, women, and elderly among the lowest income group. The Government of Pakistan has been taking a series of policy initiatives and strategic measures to combat food insecurity issues. These range from increasing production to food imports, implementation of poverty reduction strategies, nutritional improvement programs, as well as provision of social safety nets. The article aims to instill some fresh thinking into the debate regarding the challenges of food security. It underscores the limitations of hitherto policy response, and suggests crucial measures to improve the present grim scenario. Policy makers, planners, practitioners, and academicians in countries with comparable socio-political and economic setup can view this discussion as a case study and may apply the findings in their domain accordingly.     

Living in grey areas: Industrial activity and psychological health

The main goal of this paper was to explore the relationship between living in industrial areas and individual’s level of psychological health. Using a quasi-experimental design main findings suggest that, regardless of the type of industry that is operating, there was a significant association between living in industrialized areas and decreased levels of well being, optimism and use of active coping strategies. However, results on anxiety and depression were especially high in areas associated with air pollution. Moreover, there was also a significant association between more subjective meanings of place and psychological health. According to a reality-orientation criterion, evidences showed that when individuals live in industrial areas perceptions of their places as industrial are associated with lower depression, anxiety and psychiatric symptoms.     

Meeting Consumer Concerns for Food Safety in South Korea: The Importance of Food Safety and Ethics in a Globalizing Market

As the issue of food safety became one of the important public agenda, consumer concern for food safety became the general public concern. The Korea U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) completion allowing import of U.S. beef to Korea has turned into a massive public uproar and a series of demonstrations, revealing widespread concerns on the part of Korean producers and consumers about government food safety regulations and mishandling of the beef trade requirement. The mishandling of public concerns for BSE on U.S. beef import by the administrators led to a breakdown of the relationship between the public and the government and a loss of consumer confidence in Korea’s food safety system. The KORUS FTA beef crisis raised the issues of government accountability and the importance of understanding moral and ethical aspects of food safety management that pose perceived risk for BSE by the Korean citizen. The aim of this paper is to address the importance of understanding consumer concerns, food ethics and of appropriate risk communication in dealing with politically and publically sensitive food safety issues. This is achieved by assessing the factors that contributed to the conflict between the Korean government and the Korean public over the KORUS FTA beef agreement.     

The use of the ecological footprint in local politics and administration: results and implications from Norway

Our experiences calculating a local ecological footprint of Oslo form the basis for a discussion of key methodological aspects supporting the use of local sustainability indicators. The footprint's strength is its ability to communicate simply the complexity of global environmental challenges. Initially developed for measuring per capita consumption at the national level, the footprint has been adopted at local and regional levels. We argue for adjustments in the footprint methodology when shifting from a national to a local policy context, to ensure the indicator's applicability in local politics and administration. First, the analysis should be limited to consumption aspects relevant to the local environmental policy agenda. Second, the analysis should integrate as much genuine local data as possible. We argue also that a standardised methodology based on the national footprint approach, with the main purpose of international benchmarking of cities, cannot but reduce the indicator's usefulness for administrative/political guidance, due to the methodology's lack of transparency and inability to identify local variations.     

Tourism in the high north: Management challenges and recreation opportunity spectrum planning in Svalbard,Norway

The Arctic is subject to considerable pressure from a rapidly expanding world tourism industry and increasing demands for oil and gas resources. The archipelago of Svalbard in the Norwegian high arctic contains the most accessible islands in the entire Arctic, but despite extensive use of the resources, they still contain some of the last true wilderness lands in Europe. The growth in tourism with visitors from all parts of the world combined with coal mining and oil and gas exploration call for a coordinated environmental policy. A research-based management plan for tourism and recreation has now been developed. Some management problems were encountered in designing a recreation opportunity spectrum plan for this extremely vulnerable environment. Although Svalbard in many ways is a unique area, the challenges to management are comparable to those found in regions further south.     

Inventories and maps: cognitive ways of framing the nature policies in Europe

Since the Earth Summit in Rio, declining biodiversity has become a subject of general concern for many countries. To counter these negative trends, government nature policies in Europe at least are now thought out primarily in terms of networks. They concern new areas outside nature reserves, new players and new management strategies. Consequently, these policies should themselves become the subject of new public debate. Our study concerns the analysis of the forms used to collect the data required to set up the European Union's Natura 2000 network and maps drawn as part of the Council of Europe's Pan-European Ecological Network strategy. The aim of this article, which takes the perspective developed by the sociology of science, will be to show how the forms and maps used in these new nature policies produce knowledge that precedes policy discussions to search for the best possible socio-political compromises. In other words, the knowledge that is collected in and by means of these documents, forms and maps offers a cognitive way of ‘framing’ the subsequent public debates. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Industrial sustainability in China: practice and prospects for eco-industrial development

China is a large densely populated country undergoing rapid industrialization and is becoming one of the world's biggest consumers of natural resources. This circumstance provides a sharp contrast with other countries. As China is so significant in the global economy, studies of its eco-industrial development are very important. In this study we examined the state of eco-industrial development in China and have drawn conclusions from this analysis about some of the future prospects for sustainable development. In the analysis, we investigated the application of industrial ecology concepts by reference to several case studies. We have therefore described the current environmental situation in China, and have provided an overview of eco-industrial development and its implementation. Constraints to industrial sustainability in China have also been examined. We consider that eco-industrial development in China is in its infancy, and that closed loops involving chains and industrial symbiotic webs are the technological key and core of successful initiatives in the application of industrial ecology. In the case studies, we found that each system has different characteristics and management concerns. Our major conclusion is that even though China's Agenda 21 highlights the principles and sets the directions for eco-industrial development, these have not yet become essential ingredients in the country's industrial policy and practice for implementing Agenda 21.     

Integrity and Rights of Plants: Ethical Notions in Organic Plant Breeding and Propagation

In addition to obviating the use of synthetic agrochemicals and emphasizing farming in accordance with agro-ecological guidelines, organic farming acknowledges the integrity of plants as an essential element of its natural approaches to crop production. For cultivated plants, integrity refers to their inherent nature, wholeness, completeness, species-specific characteristics, and their being in balance with their (organically farmed) environment, while accomplishing their “natural aim.” We argue that this integrity of plants has ethical value, distinguishing integrity of life, plant-typic integrity, genotypic integrity, and phenotypic integrity. We have developed qualitative criteria to ethically evaluate existing practices and have applied these criteria to assess whether current plant breeding and propagation techniques violate the integrity of crop plants. This process has resulted in a design of a holistic, scientific approach of organic plant breeding and seed production. Our evaluation has met considerable criticism from mainstream (crop) scientists. We respond to the following questions: (1). Can ethics be incorporated into objective crop sciences? (2). What is the nature of the intrinsic value of plants in organic farming? We argue that criteria to take integrity into account can only be assessed from a holistic perspective and we show that a holistic approach is needed to design such ethical notions in a consistent way. The ethical notions have been further elaborated by formulating human responsibility and respect towards crop plants. Responsibility and respect can only be shown by providing crop plants the right to be nurtured and to express natural behavior at all levels of integrity.