Making nature conservation modern: an analysis of developments in nature conservation policy in relation to macro-social changes—the Netherlands as a case study

It is often said that we live in the ecological era. It is also often said that society has entered a new phase, which—depending on the theoretical orientation—is called post-modern, post-industrial or risk society. This article analyses to what extent the presupposed shift to a phase beyond modernity is reflected in nature conservation policy. To do so, an analysis is first made of whether the basic perception and appreciation of nature in latter-day society differs essentially from perceptions and appreciations that were dominant during the heyday of modernity. When this turns out not to be the case, the development of nature conservation policy in the Netherlands during the last decades of the twentieth century is investigated to establish if conservation policy—that is, the way in which society deals with nature—has fundamentally changed. The conclusion is that Dutch policy with regard to nature has been undergoing a process of belated modernization in the sense that it is striving towards a firmer base in science and a more objective and quantifiable process of policy development. This can be seen as removing a pre-modern relic from modern society. At the same time, there is a late-modern drive towards consensus building and communication, which cannot be reconciled entirely with the stronger orientation towards science as the sole basis for deciding which kind of nature and how nature should be protected. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

“The right to food is nature too”: food justice and everyday environmental expertise in the Salvadoran permaculture movement

In El Salvador a growing permaculture movement attunes small-scale farming activities to principles of ecological observation. The premise is twofold: close-grained appreciation of already-interacting biophysical processes allows for the design of complementary social and agricultural systems requiring minimum energy inputs. Secondly, the insistence on campesino smallholders as actors in the design of sustainable food systems directly addresses decades of “top-down” developmental interventions, from Green Revolution experiments in the 1960s and 1970s to international food security programmes in the 1990s. Permaculture connects food insecurity to the delegitimisation of smallholder innovation and insists that, through sharing simple techniques, campesino farmers can contribute towards future-oriented questions of environmental sustainability. This repositioning is brought about through the mobilisation of pedagogical techniques that legitimise the experiences and expertise of small-scale farmers, while standardising experimental methods for testing, evaluating and sharing agroecological practices. Like food sovereignty and food justice movements, Salvadoran permaculture links hunger with longer histories of (uneven) capital accumulation and dispossession and renders campesino farmers its protagonists. By modelling a form of expertise premised in intimate involvement with specific environments, permaculture goes still further, seeking to dislodge a pervasive knowledge politics that situates some as knowers and innovators, and others as passive recipients. This grounds human rights in an ethos of caring for the “more-than-human” world and places emphasis on a corollary right as part of food justice, increasingly being demanded “from below”: the right to know.     

Wistful wilderness: communication about ‘new’ nature in the Netherlands

Based on in-depth interviews, this article presents findings of a study centred on public communication regarding Tiengemeten, a Dutch island previously occupied by farmers. An answer is sought to the question of how visitors to Tiengemeten evaluate, according to their own experiences, the discourse of people involved in Tiengemeten from a policy and communication perspective. This study showed that visitors’ experiences do not always match the emotions appealed to in public communication materials. It is also suggested that people involved from a policy and communication perspective should refrain from using ‘heavily value-laden’ phraseology. For reasons of trust, this article suggests aligning public communication with genuine experiences of visitors. This is also necessary for avoiding scepticism of visitors as policy makers and communication professionals run a risk that public communication regarding nature becomes counterproductive.     

Private–public partnership: An exceptional solution in nature conservation in Norway

Abstract

In Norway, traditional nature conservation by government declaration is still the dominant way of protecting nature areas of national and international interest. This article presents some results from a case study of one exceptional case of private–public partnership in nature conservation. Strong opposition among local actors resulted in conservation by legal contracts between public and private actors. Discussing some possible explanations, the authors argue that a rather special network among the local community and central government and a rather creative combination of environmental and agricultural policy instruments were essential for this particular outcome.     

“In common nature”: an ethnography of climate adaptation in the Lesotho Highlands

In Lesotho, climate change adaptation funding is being managed and distributed by the same mechanisms which have traditionally operationalised humanitarian aid and international development assistance in the country. Lessons from the HIV/AIDS disaster, along with insights into the value of participatory approaches foregrounding the expertise of indigenous communities, must be heeded in order to ensure that those most affected by climate change have a say in how adaptation is carried out. This paper proposes that indigenous people have developed and actively maintained resilience strategies, encoded in social practices and farming techniques, designed out of long experience with climatic variability. Through case studies, indigenous resilience strategies are explored, with emphasis on the anarchistic, improvisational nature of traditional ecological knowledge. Future directions for policy-makers and practitioners dealing with climate change adaptation are suggested, namely the need to foreground indigenous knowledge and the experiences of frontlines experts in key policy arenas.     

Can zoning resolve nature use conflicts? The case of the Numto Nature Park in the Russian Arctic

In the Russian Arctic, nature protection is important to preserve valuable ecosystems and indigenous lifestyles against the rapidly expanding oil and gas activities. In this regard, zoning legitimately balances influential stakeholders versus weak ones, and can leverage stakeholders to exercise their rights. This study explores how various stakeholders employ zoning in the Numto Nature Park in the oil-rich Russian Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug–Yugra to advance their interests and how they use scientific information to achieve this. Through stakeholder interviews, analysis of electronic media and literature review, we conclude that a participatory and science-based zoning exercise stimulates the necessary deliberation. However, legal ambiguity, deficient law implementation and informal practices limit the zoning's potential to balance stakeholders’ interests. All the stakeholders calculatingly used scientific information to legitimize their own ambitions, activities and claims. Hence, zoning and the underlying information claims should be interpreted as both a resource and a battleground in nature-use conflicts.     

Managing Plantation Forests to Provide Short- to Long-Term Supplies of Wood to Streams: A Simulation Study Using New Zealand’s Pine Plantations

Riparian functions such as the recruitment of wood to streams take decades to recover after a clear-fell harvest to the stream edge. The implications of two sets of riparian management scenarios on the short- and long-term recruitment of wood to a hypothetical stream (central North Island, New Zealand) were compared through simulation modeling. In the first set (native forest buffer), a designated treeless riparian buffer was colonized by native forest species after a pine crop (Pinus radiata) had been harvested to the stream bank. In the second set (pine to native forest buffer), native forest species were allowed to establish under the pine canopy in a designated riparian buffer. In general, the volume of wood was greater in streams with wider buffers (5-m to 50-m) and this effect increased with forest age (800 years). The pine to native forest buffer supplied more wood to the stream more quickly, and matched the long-term supply to the stream from the native forest buffer. For the native forest buffer, total wood volume was minimal for the first 70 years and then increased uniformly for the remainder of the simulation. In contrast, the pine to native forest buffer produced a bimodal response in total wood volume with the initial sharp peak at year 100 attributed to pine recruitment and a second more gradual peak lasting for the rest of the simulation, which was similar to levels in the native forest simulations. These results suggest that existing plantations could be an important source of wood to the stream during the first 100+ years of native forest development.     

Using participation to create resilience: how to involve citizens in designing a hospital system?

Decisions on health-related risks affect many people personally. The public debate on hospital planning is therefore especially emotional and conflict-ridden. Due to the aging population and the high costs of constantly improving medical care, the question arises in many German rural areas as to which hospitals can be kept and developed further and which ones should be closed. The new approach of the present state government of Baden-Württemberg in Germany, in collaboration with the University of Stuttgart and the State Health Office Baden-Württemberg, is to apply citizen participation to prepare this type of decision. The design of this type of public participation process is based on the criteria of mediation (including open decision-making scope, opportunity for discussion in the protected context of the working group, as well as disclosure of all information and transparency of the results toward the public). This approach has proven useful for conducting dialogs in areas with potential conflict. Based on the experiences from this hospital participation process, further recommendations for an effective, efficient and fair participation processes could be derived. The case demonstrates that adequate and structured involvement processes are capable of delivering sustainably acceptable results even in difficult decision-making processes.     

From disaster management to adaptive governance? Governance challenges to achieving resilient food systems in Australia

Building resilient food systems in the context of climate change and increased natural disasters depends on governance being more ‘adaptive’. Through a case study of events surrounding the extensive flooding that occurred in Queensland, Australia, in 2011, this paper examines how governance settings and processes affected food system actors’ engagement with three aspects of adaptive governance – responsibility, participation and collaboration – as those actors sought to ensure food availability and access during the crisis. We found that, despite the existence of formal governance instruments committed to disaster management, food security and resilience at local, state and national levels, responsibilities for ensuring food supply during a disaster were not clearly articulated. Responsibility was largely assumed by supermarkets, who in turn increased the influence of retailer–government coalitions. The participation of non-supermarket food system actors in governance was low, and there was limited collaboration between local, and other, levels of governance. The policy challenge is to ensure that responsibility, participation and collaboration become a stronger foci for adaptive governance during and after a disaster such as flooding.     

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.     

The incidence of electromagnetic pollution on wild mammals: A new “poison” with a slow effect on nature?

A review on the effects of radiofrequency radiation from wireless telecommunications on living organisms and its possible impact on wild mammals are presented. Physical and technological characteristics of mobile telephone and phone masts, the scientific discoveries that are of interest in the study of their effects on the wildlife, action mechanisms on biological systems and experimental difficulties are described. Keeping in mind that electromagnetic pollution (in the microwave and radiofrequency range) is a possible source for decline of some mammal populations, it is of great importance to carry out studies on the effects of this new pollutant to wildlife. Some research types that could be useful to determine adverse health effects are proposed.     

Spatial and temporal distribution of illegal dumping sites in the nature protected area: the Ojców National Park,Poland

The existence of illegal dumping continues to be a worldwide problem, even in nature protected areas, and its distribution is not random. An understanding of the distribution of illegal dumping sites is crucial for the enhancement of effective waste management systems. Therefore, this study aims at a better understanding of spatial and temporal changes to illegal dumping sites in a nature protected area (the Ojców National Park) from 1994 to 2016. The most important spatial factors that control the distribution of illegal dumping sites were the distance from roads and from the field-forest edge. In the last two decades, the number of small dumping sites has increased, whereas the number of large illegal dumping sites has decreased. Moreover, this study presents a model of the potential occurrence of illegal dumping sites, which indicates places that should be under the control of the national park and of local authorities.     

Do the poor have what they need to adapt to climate change? A case study of Nepal

Nepal's geographical landscape of plains, hills, and mountains exposes it to severe climatic conditions. Out of the three regions, the plain, also called Terai, has the greatest risk of flooding, especially during the monsoon season when heavy precipitation coincides with snow and glacier melting from the mountains and hills. In recent years, greater water availability has increased the frequency of flooding, destroying farms, livestock, and infrastructure, hence, reducing agricultural productivity and disrupting economic activities. What makes Nepal a unique case study for climate change is its richness in water resources, propensity to flood, the percentage of poor people living in the flood prone region, and their dependency on natural resources. The lessons drawn can help when formulating pro-poor adaptation policies for other Asian and many developing countries that are as diverse, poor, and agrarian as Nepal. Using data collected through survey interviews, the study examines the ability of the poor to adapt to climate change. The study also explores the adaptive capacity of communities in the Koshi Tappu area, by examining whether or not they have the required capital assets (human, social, natural, physical, and financial capital) to remain resilient in the face of continuous climate events impacts.     

How to Apply Ethical Principles to the Biotechnological Production of Food – The Case of Bovine Growth Hormone

Ben Mepham has proposed that a ``matrix' beused in the analysis of ethical problems in foodproduction and elsewhere. In particular cases, thismatrix would ideally cross the most important moralprinciples involved, and the individuals and groupsaffected by the decisions. In the following, Mepham'smodel is assessed in the case of geneticallyengineered bovine growth hormone. My argument is thata more straightforwardly ``consequentialist' analysiscan draw attention to the problems of using thehormone better than Mepham's original proposal. It ispossible, however, that some nuances will be lost inthe process. I do not, therefore, argue for theoverall superiority of my suggestion – it is merelya slightly different, and perhaps sometimes a morepromising, way to analyze the ethical dimensions offood production and marketing.     

Social forestry projects—an approach to evaluation

This paper aims to evaluate social forestry projects with explicit distribution, management and design considerations built into the analysis. This approach eliminates the need for giving weights to parts of the output accruing to different sections of society. Attention is focused on the evolution of institutions that ensure that project output/input shall accrue to different social groups. For the specific project analysed, rates of return to the project authority and to society are calculated. It is found that a divergence of interests between the two may exist. This can be minimized by correct selection of design and a system of cost sharing based on people's participation.     

Are leaves that fall from imidacloprid-treated maple trees to control Asian longhorned beetles toxic to non-target decomposer organisms?

The systemic insecticide imidacloprid may be applied to deciduous trees for control of the Asian longhorned beetle, an invasive wood-boring insect. Senescent leaves falling from systemically treated trees contain imidacloprid concentrations that could pose a risk to natural decomposer organisms. We examined the effects of foliar imidacloprid concentrations on decomposer organisms by adding leaves from imidacloprid-treated sugar maple trees to aquatic and terrestrial microcosms under controlled laboratory conditions. Imidacloprid in maple leaves at realistic field concentrations (3-11 mg kg(-1)) did not affect survival of aquatic leaf-shredding insects or litter-dwelling earthworms. However, adverse sublethal effects at these concentrations were detected. Feeding rates by aquatic insects and earthworms were reduced, leaf decomposition (mass loss) was decreased, measurable weight losses occurred among earthworms, and aquatic and terrestrial microbial decomposition activity was significantly inhibited. Results of this study suggest that sugar maple trees systemically treated with imidacloprid to control Asian longhorned beetles may yield senescent leaves with residue levels sufficient to reduce natural decomposition processes in aquatic and terrestrial environments through adverse effects on non-target decomposer organisms.     

Calibrating a model to 30 years of data to capture the accumulation of chloride from winter deicers in a shallow aquifer

Winter deicers are a major source of chloride contamination to shallow aquifers in northern latitudes. In the greater Chicago area of northeast Illinois, chloride has been accumulating for decades and in many places now exceeds the United States Environmental Protection Agency secondary standard of 250 mg/L. MODFLOW-NWT and MT3D-USGS were used to simulate the accumulation of chloride with 30 years of data in the shallow aquifer of Will County in northeast Illinois. This aquifer is composed of unconsolidated sediments, largely from glacial deposits, overlying a fractured dolomite bedrock. To calibrate to observed heads and chloride, the model needed refined geologic features, higher chloride concentrations on cells representing commercial or industrial lands, lower chloride concentrations on cells representing roads, and point source areas to speed chloride's emergence in the aquifer. These point sources are locally significant and could represent different anthropogenic or geologic features, such as municipal stormwater infrastructure. Future simulations indicate that chloride is not at steady state in the shallow aquifer and wells are at risk of exceeding the secondary standard if winter deicing applications are not reduced. It may take decades for the full impacts of reduced deicing rates to be observed in wells, owing to the long residence time of water in the aquifer. This transient model calibration was possible because of the 30-year dataset collected by communities and government agencies.