Towards implementation and achievement of sustainable biofuel development in Africa

Although sustainable bioenergy development in Africa is critically debated, if projects are developed within a credible framework, opportunities for sustainability arguably can arise. This paper presents research on the characteristics of sustainable biofuel projects as provided in the literature and according to expert opinions obtained by way of a survey involving thirty-eight international experts. Participants were selected for their expertise in the fields of environmental, social and economic sustainability relating to biofuels in Africa. The survey results suggest that projects which display a high degree of transparency, incorporate local stakeholder involvement, and ideally include local villagers as partners are more likely to achieve sustainable biofuel production. Experts also indicated that reconciling diverse stakeholder objectives alongside the principles of sustainable development remains an ongoing challenge. A process is recommended for sustainable biofuel development, which attempts to harmonise efficiency, stakeholder interaction and the integration of diverse stakeholder perspectives. To support the process, it is recommended that an advisory/mediating body that acts according to best practice principles would be of great assistance. Such an advisory/mediating body would be conversant with local land, social, economic and environmental conditions, project sustainability and administration, and also advise on biofuel framework educational needs.     

Climate change: an amplifier of existing health risks in developing countries

Global warming is perceived as one of the biggest global health risks of the twenty-first century and a threat to the achievement of sustainable (economic) development; especially in developing countries, climate change is believed to further exacerbate existing vulnerability to disease and food security risks, because their populations are, for example, more reliant on agriculture and more vulnerable to droughts and have a lower adaptive capacity. Furthermore, the health-related impacts of climate change are threatening to undo decades of development policies. The interactions between climate and non-climate factors are of vital importance in shaping human vulnerability to global warming. Climate change cannot be seen as ‘a stand-alone risk factor,’ but rather as an amplifier of existing health and food security risks and an additional strain on institutional infrastructures. In order to avoid a multiplication of health risks in the developing world, there is a need to better understand the multifaceted and complex linkages involved. This is further illustrated for two important climate change–induced health risks, namely malnutrition and malaria. As the amplification of existing and emerging health risks in the developing world might become the greatest tragedy of climate change, adaptation ranks high on developing countries’ agendas. Of particular importance are the discussions about the ‘Green Climate Fund,’ which aims to administer billions of dollars for mitigation and adaptation. Of course, making funds for adaptation available is an important first step, but we also need to ask ourselves the question how such adaptation policies and projects should take shape. This paper demonstrates that an adequate response to climate change health risks should take a systems approach toward adaptation, acknowledging the importance of the local context of the most vulnerable.     

Higher education for today and tomorrow: university appraisal for diversity, innovation and change towards sustainable development

This article serves as a position paper of a consortium of universities in the Asia–Pacific region working to address challenges of sustainable development and rapidly changing social, economic and natural environments. Member universities of ProSPER.Net (Promotion of Sustainability in Postgraduate Education and Research Network) have embarked on a project to develop an alternative university appraisal system that would potentially become a viable alternative to the existing higher education ranking and assessment systems perceived as constraining, yet, powerful. The article discusses the changing landscape for knowledge creation and the need for universities to assume new roles in a new kind of modernity—variously termed as “liquid modernity” (Z. Bauman), “reflexive modernization” (U. Beck) or other neologisms. It recognises that the mainstream ranking and assessment systems are powerful guiding systems for higher education institutions (HEIs) and, if modified, could be a significant force for transformation towards a more sustainable future. Recognising the need for HEIs to address societal challenges and needs, the Alternative University Appraisal (AUA) project of ProSPER.Net starts by reviewing existing models of recognition and appraisal of various aspects of HEIs’ work and aims at creating space for individual and collective reflection on HEI practices and outcomes. In addition to extensive consultations among ProSPER.Net members, as well as with other higher education actors and international organisations addressing higher education for sustainability, cross-sectoral consultations, assessments of the uncertainties and pertinent trends, and engagement with policy-making processes would be required for the AUA system to become a guiding force that shapes higher education of today and tomorrow.     

Ecological problems and the methodology of solving them in a developing technocratic society

The general methodological approach to the conservation of Earth’s natural biota in a developing civilization based on mineral resources of the lithosphere is substantiated. The principles of interaction between the technosphere and biosphere that ensure their combined development are formulated on the basis of the concept of coevolution of antagonistic systems.     

Social cost of environmental pollution and application of counter measures through clean development mechanism: in the context of developing countries

The developing countries i.e., the non-Annex-I countries (parties to the Kyoto Protocol but not responsible to any reduction target yet) in the Kyoto Protocol whose economies are in transition are also allowed to reduce GHG emissions. Among these, the countries that have accepted the Kyoto Protocol may be benefited from CDM projects to promote sustainable development. The developed countries i.e., the Annex-I countries (that have signed the Kyoto Protocol & are responsible to have specific GHG emission reduction target) or the investing countries, in return, have privilege to purchase CER credits (in units equivalent to one tonne of CO₂ gas emission reduction) to meet the emission target as specified in the Kyoto Protocol. The key step in understanding about CDM is to grasp the concept of “baseline” and “additionality”. The “Baseline” is the emissions level that would have existed if a CDM project had not happened. The feature of an approved CDM project is that the planned reductions would not occur without the additional incentive provided by emission reduction credits; this concept is known as “Additionality”. According to environmental additionality concept, baseline emission minus project emission is equal to emissions reduction. “Investment Additionality,” ultimately rejected during negotiation of the “Marrakech Accords” and “Financial Additionality,” are the two important concepts. The concept of trading of CER matches to the idea of Pigovian tax (equal to the negative externality and which is considered one of the “traditional” means of bringing a modicum of market forces) in Economics, making pollution more costly to the polluter, as the polluters have negative cost since they save money by polluting; hence, there are supposed negative externalities associated with the market activity. Economic theory predicts that in an economy where the cost of reaching mutual agreement between parties is high and where pollution is diffuse, Pigovian tax will be an efficient way to promote the public interest and will lead to an improvement of the quality of life measured by the Genuine Progress Indicator and other human economic indicators, as well as higher gross domestic product growth. We can seek a level of pollution such that the marginal savings (MS) to one polluting unit from pollution (−MC) is equal to marginal damage (MD) from pollution over the entire population, since pollution is a public bad i.e., MS (x*) = ∑MD_i (x*) where ∑D_i (x) is the total damage. Though the responsibility of reduction in emission does not lie on the non-Annex-I countries, still effort of maintaining global emission balance can be expected equally from developed and developing countries. The responsibilities of Kyoto Protocol are (a) to reduce global GHG emissions, (b) to bring about sustainable development in the developing countries lie on above two groups since its effect on February 16, 2005. Different polluters have different costs of pollution control. The least costly way of controlling pollution from various sources that reflects different costs of pollution control making the set of environmental regulations to achieve the emission target at the lowest cost makes the regulation cost-effective. Though efficiency is not attainable for many regulations, cost-effectiveness is attainable.     

Measuring sustainable development knowledge,attitudes, and behaviors: evidence from university students in Mexico

Environment, Development and Sustainability - Current trends such as imminent overpopulation and the take-make-waste economic model are largely responsible for the planet’s dire situation....     

Community engagement in the sustainable management of rivers: Barekese catchment,Kumasi, Ghana

The Barekese Reservoir is a facility for reserving water for treatment and subsequent consumption by the populace of the Kumasi conurbation and its environs. The reservoir provides over 80% of the total public water supply to the Kumasi locale and is plagued by persistent degradation through human activities throughout the catchment. This situation raises concern on the regional deterioration of water quality and quantity. We present the attitudes of local communities towards their involvement in river water management and the sustainable exploitation of natural resources. We administered both open ended and closed structured questionnaires in seven communities in the reservoir catchment. The results revealed that individual residents in these communities have not been involved in the management of the reservoir, adversely affecting goals of sustainable management. Our study concludes with direct policy recommendations and applications in four specific areas to arrive at sustainable management of the facility by involving affected communities through their inclusion in: ongoing and proposed project development as shareholders; the review of existing environmental legislation; adopting of indigenous knowledge in management institutions; and the re-introduction of norms and traditions within the communities.     

Environmental, cultural, economic and socio-community sustainability: a framework for sustainable tourism in resort destinations

This paper utilizes an inclusive community based sustainability framework with a focus on a resort destination in providing a potential model for more inclusive long-range destination planning and implementation. Four diverse, but interrelated areas of sustainable tourism were specified in this framework for a more comprehensive process including ecological, cultural, economic and socio-community sustainability. In addition a strategic community driven structure, which provides direction, information and practices, serves the purpose of integrating and implementing the framework. The unique tourism destination, Noosa in Australia is used as an example of embracing sustainable tourism as a community and as part of a larger focus on the four key components of sustainability. By viewing sustainable community attributes as assets, all of which are important to manage, enhance and/or conserve, it is expected that the resort community will continue to attract visitors to feel connected and committed to experiencing its lifestyle, sense-of-community and natural features while also contributing to community sustainable stewardship and a strong tourism economy. Readers should send their comments on this paper to: BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue. Dr. Richins is Chair of the Graduate Program within the School of Travel Industry Management at University of Hawaii. He holds a Ph.D. from James Cook University in Australia and a B.S. and M.S. from University of Oregon. Previously he held leadership positions for over 15 years in Australian and New Zealand including Waikato University, University of Newcastle and University of the Sunshine Coast. He was also Chair of the Resort Management program at Sierra Nevada College in Nevada.     

Moving towards urban sustainability in Kenya: a framework for integration of environmental,economic, social and governance dimensions

Global urban development is increasingly becoming an aspect of focus as nations fight sustainability challenges. A review of the current literature on urban sustainability suggests that research on development of cities, in both developed and developing countries, is growing fast, with an emphasis on sustainable development. However, very little of this research contains an integrated framework to systematically identify and examine the various dimensions of urban sustainability and to measure and evaluate them appropriately. Cities are more than the sum of their sectors, and are complex and interdependent systems on whose dynamics the quality of life of millions of human beings and a good part of the economy depend. Environmental, economic, social and governance problems can create formidable barriers to urban sustainability. Governance remains a critically important dimension of urban sustainability, especially when discussing urbanization in developing countries, given rapid population movements and imbalances in socio-economic development. Understanding how cities function is fundamental to resolving these imbalances. The aim of this paper is to provide a review and analysis of the concept of urban sustainability and to propose the development of a holistic framework through integration of environmental, economic, social, and governance dimensions of sustainability. Such a review would make it possible to understand the complex dynamics of the four dimensions and to assess the progress and challenges in moving towards urban sustainability, taking the case of Nairobi, Kenya, as an example. The paper argues that, for urban sustainability in developing countries, more emphasis should be placed on the governance dimension, because this is where the biggest challenge exists, with increasing needs for immediate management of rapid urbanization.     

Simulation and multicriteria analysis in sustainable coastal planning: the case of aquaculture in Thermaikos Gulf, Greece

Mussel aquaculture in Thermaikos Gulf is facing a great challenge to tackle both institutional and production planning aspects. Local stakeholders are concerned about the future design of an efficient and equitable legal planning framework for the aquaculture, as well as about the improvement of production planning in order to optimize the total economic outcome of mussel activity in the area. The present paper focuses on the assessment of alternative production planning decisions, under the assumption that an efficient and socially acceptable institutional framework is already established. To this end, a case-specific decision-making tool is designed aiming to combine simulation modelling and multicriteria analysis. The main interactions between the environmental and cultivation conditions and the socio-economic parameters of the local aquaculture are specified according to a previous modelling effort concerning the long-line mussel farms of the study area. These interactions are then incorporated into a multicriteria model, which is formulated to handle the decision-making problem of selecting the best alternative planning decisions. This is actually a problem of evaluating and choosing the most promising policy options in terms of local society preferences. An integrated approach is followed, by means of an analytic hierarchy process, aiming at analysing the preferences of local community by determining the weights for a specific set of (sustainability) criteria. The relative importance of these criteria is determined through a questionnaire survey among the local stakeholders. The results from this application show that future planning policies should focus on production techniques, which are likely to enhance the quality of mussel production and, at the same time, to minimize the economic risk associated with the local occurrence of Harmful Algal Bloom events.     

Blood cadmium,mercury, and lead in children: An international comparison of cities in six European countries,and China,Ecuador, and Morocco

Children's blood-lead concentration (B-Pb) is well studied, but little is known about cadmium (B-Cd) and mercury (B-Hg), in particular for central Europe. Such information is necessary for risk assessment and management. Therefore, we here describe and compare B-Pb, B-Cd and B-Hg in children in six European, and three non-European cities, and identify determinants of these exposures. About 50 school children (7–14 years) from each city were recruited (totally 433) in 2007–2008. Interview and questionnaire data were obtained. A blood sample was analyzed: only two laboratories with strict quality control were used. The European cities showed only minor differences for B-Cd (geometric means 0.11–0.17 μg/L) and B-Pb (14–20 μg/L), but larger for B-Hg (0.12–0.94 μg/L). Corresponding means for the non-European countries were 0.21–0.26, 32–71, and 0.3–3.2 μg/L, respectively. For B-Cd in European samples, traffic intensity close to home was a statistically significant determinant, for B-Hg fish consumption and amalgam fillings, and for B-Pb sex (boys higher). This study shows that European city children's B-Cd and B-Pb vary only little between countries; B-Hg differs considerably, due to varying tooth restoration practices and fish intake. Traffic intensity seemed to be a determinant for B-Cd. The metal concentrations were low from a risk perspective but the chosen non-European cities showed higher concentrations than the cities in Europe.     

Envisioning sustainable water futures in a transdisciplinary learning process: combining normative,explorative, and participatory scenario approaches

Competing water demands for household consumption as well as the production of food, energy, and other uses pose challenges for water supply and sustainable development in many parts of the world. Designing creative strategies and learning processes for sustainable water governance is thus of prime importance. While this need is uncontested, suitable approaches still have to be found. In this article we present and evaluate a conceptual approach to scenario building aimed at transdisciplinary learning for sustainable water governance. The approach combines normative, explorative, and participatory scenario elements. This combination allows for adequate consideration of stakeholders’ and scientists’ systems, target, and transformation knowledge. Application of the approach in the MontanAqua project in the Swiss Alps confirmed its high potential for co-producing new knowledge and establishing a meaningful and deliberative dialogue between all actors involved. The iterative and combined approach ensured that stakeholders’ knowledge was adequately captured, fed into scientific analysis, and brought back to stakeholders in several cycles, thereby facilitating learning and co-production of new knowledge relevant for both stakeholders and scientists. However, the approach also revealed a number of constraints, including the enormous flexibility required of stakeholders and scientists in order for them to truly engage in the co-production of new knowledge. Overall, the study showed that shifts from strategic to communicative action are possible in an environment of mutual trust. This ultimately depends on creating conditions of interaction that place scientists’ and stakeholders’ knowledge on an equal footing.     

Elites, climate change and agency in a developing society: the Chilean case

Faced with global climate change, local elites are confronted with the main dilemma of a developing country: development requires economic growth, but this effort also requires consideration of environmental factors and sustainable patterns of production and consumption. Based on empirical evidence from qualitative research on businesses and political elites in Chile—a paradigmatic South American middle-income country—this paper explores the extent to which local elites are aware of the severity of challenges posed by global climate change and identify main climate change concerns in their discourse. The degree to which domestic elites are aware of the paradigm shift they must assume toward clean industrial production is a key issue of environmental governance that involves private non-governmental actors. This paper gives clues to a better understanding of what is happening with strategic actors in developing nations and their understanding of their decision-making capacity concerning environmental policy and investments for facing global climate change. The main conclusion of the research is that awareness of climate change in local elites’ discourse is relative. It is not accompanied by a full acceptance of their agency and is not leading to a paradigm shift toward a clean model of development because of domestic elites’ position within globalization processes.     

Water markets in federal countries: comparing coordination institutions in Australia,Spain and the Western USA

Regional Environmental Change - Water markets are a prime example of decentralised resource allocation, yet their success often depends on strong coordination institutions, particularly as water is...     

Modeling normativity in sustainability: a comparison of the sustainable development goals,the Paris agreement,and the papal encyclical

The idea of sustainability is intrinsically normative. Thus, understanding the role of normativity in sustainability discourses is crucial for further developing sustainability science. In this article, we analyze three important documents that aim to advance sustainability and explore how they organize norms in relation to sustainability. The three documents are: the Pope’s Encyclical Laudato Si’, the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement. We show that understanding the role of different types of norms in the three documents can help understand normative features of both scientific and non-scientific sustainability discourses. We present the diverse system of norms in a model that interrelates three different levels: macro, meso, and micro. Our model highlights how several processes affect the normative orientation of nations and societies at the meso-level in different ways. For instance, individual ethical norms at the micro-level, such as personal responsibility, may help decelerate unsustainable consumerism at the aggregate meso-level. We also show that techno-scientific norms at the macro-level representing global indicators for sustainability may accelerate innovations. We suggest that our model can help better organize normative features of sustainability discourses and, therefore, to contribute to the further development of sustainability science.     

Grazing,forest density,and carbon storage: towards a more sustainable land use in Caatinga dry forests of Brazil

Grazing is the main land use in semi-arid regions of the world, and sustainable management practices are urgently needed to prevent their degradation. However, how different grazing intensities affect forest density and ecosystem functions is often not sufficiently understood to allow for management adaptations that safeguard the ecosystems and their functions in the long run. We assessed the aboveground carbon stocks and plant densities along a grazing gradient in the semi-arid seasonally dry tropical forest of north-eastern Brazil (Caatinga). On 45 study plots, we analysed the aboveground carbon stocks of the vegetation and determined forest density and recruitment as well as the population structure of the most abundant tree species. Grazing intensity was accounted for based on the weight of livestock droppings and classified as low, intermediate, or high. Mean aboveground carbon stock was 15.74?±?1.92 Mg ha^?1 with trees and shrubs accounting for 89% of the total amount. Grazing at high intensities significantly reduced aboveground carbon stocks of herbs but not of other plant functional types. Instead, aboveground carbon stocks of trees and shrubs were negatively related to altitude above sea level, which is a proxy for reduced water availability along with lower anthropogenic impact. The population structure of the most common tree species was characterised by abundant recruitment, irrespective of grazing, whereas the recruitment of less frequent woody species was negatively affected by grazing. Overall, our data imply that grazing and forage management need to be adapted, including the reduction of free-roaming livestock and storage of fodder, to maintain carbon storage and forest density.