Environmental Care in Agriculture: A Social Perspective

At its beginning, the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) did not include measures to guide farmers in preserving ecosystems. At the same time, the social context on the 1960s and 1970s did not encourage environmental care to become a priority. Since the 1980s, new social concern expressed alarm over ecology, recognizing that agriculture can pollute. These social changes moved the CAP to add measures that linked agriculture and environment. In order to study if the EU decision-makers have designed a CAP which responds to a new ethic that incorporates environmental care and social demands, two questions rise: whether the social image of agriculture as a polluting activity has changed; and whether farming performs the environmental functions demanded by society. To answer the previous questions, we have reviewed the environmental aspects added to the CAP, then a poll has been conducted and cluster method and classification tree models have been used to group respondents according to their opinions. The results show that the society ascribes great relevance to the environment for the future sustainability of the region, but they are not satisfied with the role of agriculture in producing environmental outputs.     

Watershed associations in West Virginia: their impact on environmental protection

Grassroots watershed associations have formed as an avenue to facilitate public involvement in protecting watersheds. Growth in the number of watershed associations has created a need to evaluate whether their existence enhances environmental protection by local communities. In this research, environmental protection was measured by the number of watershed protection activities conducted and amount of funding directed towards protecting surface waters by non-profit, volunteer organizations. Regression models were utilized to examine the influence of population demographic and watershed characteristics variables to explain the formation of watershed associations along with watershed protection activities and funding. Regression results showed that the presence of watershed associations had positive impacts on both the number of activities and financial resources acquired. The results confirm that watershed associations enhance the ability of communities to obtain funding and to implement watershed protection actions. Thus, watershed associations serve as an effective institution for promoting environmental protection.     

Dissent and descent: tracing Canada’s environmental governance from regulatory beginnings to dismissal and reversals by the Harper government

Since Confederation in 1867, official Canadian settler government policy on the environment has sought to simultaneously preserve “wilderness” and exploit natural resources for market gain. In the 1960s, the nascent North American modern environmental movement pushed for stronger regulation on pollution and toxics – and a more institutionalised state-led response to environmental problems emerged. Throughout the last five decades, three principal “eras” of federal government reaction have emerged in response to mounting scientific evidence and public pressure to act on environmental issues. The first, from the late-1960s to mid-1980s, saw the development and implementation of early environmental policy and programmes. The second era, from the mid-1980s to mid-2000s co-occurred alongside the rise of the sustainable development paradigm, and is marked by the Canadian government’s attempt at leadership on the global stage. The third era, from the mid-2000s to 2015, demonstrates a shift from environmental regime-building and multilateral collaboration toward rollbacks and obstructionism. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the government of Canada reversed decades of progress and cooperation on the environment and sustainable development through its muzzling of government scientists, superficial co-optation of climate policy, rollbacks of environmental legislation and disparagement of environmental activists. In total, by shifting the federal government from a position of ineffective benevolence on environmental issues to one of contention and antagonism, the Harper government’s approach represents a departure from Canadian environmental governance norms and sought to remake the identity of Canada as an energy superpower inextricably tied to its oil and gas industry.     

What is in a name? Language,framing and environmental justice activism in California's Central Valley

According to the environmental justice (EJ) literature, one important factor in the movement's success is the development of a frame linking inequality to the disproportionate presence of environmental toxins in low-income communities of colour. This article highlights the resonance of this frame among grassroots activists and professional advocates in California's Central Valley. However, through interviews and focus groups with activists and advocates in six Central Valley communities, we found that only the latter identified their work as EJ. Grassroots activists instead identified their work as about health, community development and environmentalism. Moreover, some were unfamiliar with EJ as a concept while others denied its applicability to their work. Theoretically, our findings suggest that frame resonance needs to be delinked conceptually from movement identification; it is possible for a movement's analysis of social problems and solutions to resonate among those who do not identify with the movement itself. Pragmatically speaking, this can prevent some grassroots activists who are directly affected by environmental racism from accessing the resources and networks that the EJ movement has painstakingly built, and suggests that movement leaders may need to increase their outreach to community groups.     

Use of off-road vehicles and mitigation of effects in Alaska permafrost environments: A review

Use of off-road vehicles (ORVs) in permafrost-affected terrain of Alaska has increased sharply over the past two decades. Until the early 1960s, most ORV use was by industry or government, which employed heavy vehicles such as industrial tractors and tracked carriers. Smaller, commercial ORVs became available in the 1960s, with the variety and number in use rapidly increasing. Wheeled and tracked ORVs, many used exclusively for recreation or subsistence harvesting by individuals, are now ubiquitous in Alaska. This increased use has led to concern over the cumulative effects of such vehicles on vegetation, soils, and environmental variables including off-site values. Factors affecting impact and subsequent restoration include specific environmental setting; vegetation; presence and ice content of permafrost; microtopography; vehicle design, weight, and ground pressure; traffic frequency; season of traffic; and individual operator practices. Approaches for mitigating adverse effects of ORVs include regulation and zoning, terrain analysis and sensitivity mapping, route selection, surface protection, and operator training. We regret the untimely death of Gunars Abele on August 27, 1989; he was a valued colleague and good friend.     

Environmental Health Policy: Analytic “Framing” of the Great Lakes Picture

/ The International Joint Commission (IJC) has overseen the implementation of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement between Canada and the United States for 25 years. Part of its mandate has been to facilitate international cooperation among a diversity of stakeholders focusing on the "waters" and the "ecosystem." In the 1970s policy focused on phosphorus reduction and individual contaminants, with some efforts (after 1978) to take an ecosystem (ecological perspectives) approach. In the last 15 years human health effects from (real and perceived) environmental causes have received considerable recognition. By contrast, less concern has been expressed for what is traditionally considered "environment" issues (such as protecting fish species). This shift at the policy level is well illustrated in the manner in which human health is increasingly used as a way for mobilizing environmental agendas. This paper analyzes nine IJC biennial reports to track how the framing of Great Lakes issues has shifted from concern for its waters to concern for human neurobehavior and reproductive systems. Frame analysis is used to conceptualize the controversies that are expressed through the Great Lakes policy documents. The analysis of the reports also reveals a shift in operational frames, used by the IJC to mobilize decision-makers into action.     

The decade of the 80s may be a failure without a decisive effort in environmental education

Summary This paper reviews development in environmental education in the three preceding decades of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. It then sets out the major sets of obstacles which need to be examined. Finally it deals with the 1980s and why this should be the decade of action. Referring to the IUCN World Conservation Strategy it is concerned with speeding up of the awareness of environmental problems in order to beat our race against time.Directeur, Programme Interdisciplinaire du territoire et développement régional, Université Laval. Member of Commission on Education, IUCN.     

Mining taxation issues for the future

During the 1970s and 1980s the main concern of mining policies was to attract investment whilst at the same time balancing the interests of governments and companies. By the turn of the century a new spectrum of challenges faces governments and companies in the mining sector. The need for fiscal regimes to adapt to price cyclicity is to some extent superseded by the requirement that they adapt to a long-term decline of metal prices. The growing importance of environmental and community affairs in the mining sector will force governments to design coherent and comprehensive tax regulations to complement the wide range of initiatives being taken in these fields. Finally, the age-old problem of tax collection continues to raise its head in transition and developing economies.     

The Edge of “Animal Rights”

A central task of environmental ethics, which have been arising since 1960s, is to extend the objects of moral concern beyond the individuals of Homo sapiens. (Here, it involves the issue of the boundary of environmental ethics. In a narrow sense, an environmental ethic must grant moral concern to holistic environmental objects (such as ecosystems). On the other hand, if we broadly define the environmental ethic as an ethic that shows moral concern not limited to Homo sapiens and its individuals only, then, these “generalized” environmental ethics include Peter Singer’s “animal liberation” and Tom Regan’s “animal rights”. In this article, the term “environmental ethic” refers to an environmental ethic in a generalized sense.) All the objects deserving moral concern constitute the moral community. The trajectory and boundary of this extension are different among different schools. Compared to other schools, Tom Regan’s “animal rights” has a relatively smaller moral community, making it more “conservative” at first sight. Meanwhile, the rights view, like other schools, faces the question regarding the edge of moral concern. This question consists of two sub-questions: (1) where is the boundary of the moral community and (2) how ought we to treat the objects of moral concern near the boundary? Given the closeness of Regan’s theory to traditional ethics (regarding the boundary of the moral community), this study is mainly focused on analyzing the edge of moral concern within the framework of the theory of animal rights. Further, I investigate the similarities and differences in the boundary of moral concern among various schools of environmental ethics. The comparative analysis demonstrates a subtle relation between science and moral philosophy, and reveals a similar form of a metaphysical premise adopted by all environmental ethics. This research helps to clarify the moral concern of environmental ethics, which is an essential prerequisite for establishing a new ethic, and therefore helps to consolidate the reference of environmental ethics to environmental management.     

Environmental perception: An odyssey of ideas

Convergent interests paved the way for multidisciplinary research in environmental perception and behavior, in which the Clark Group was an important focus. For me that fruitful conjunction began in the mid-1960s, when I taught at Clark and had just embarked on a large-scale assessment of observer responses to urban milieus. Through the early 1970s the Clark Group helped to catalyze perception insights generally and to guide my own work. Emigration to Britain in 1972 distanced me from that ambience and style of inquiry, but the Clark experience continues to inform by perceptual excursions into images of the past.Specific memories of Clark merge with general judgements about the fortunes of environmental perception research. By the early 1970s it was already clear that various drains on scanty human resources in this new field left insufficient concerted attention for theory and synthesis. The 15 years since have seen little fundamental progress. Much research seems narrow in scope, lifeless in tone, and trivial in its conclusions. Exciting advances can be found along a number of peripheries, but the centre seems devoid of spirit.     

Visitor Evaluations of Management Actions at a Highly Impacted Appalachian Trail Camping Area

Protected area management involves balancing environmental and social objectives. This is particularly difficult at high-use/high-impact recreation sites, because resource protection objectives may require substantial site management or visitor regulation. This study examined visitors’ reactions to both of these types of actions at Annapolis Rocks, Maryland, a popular Appalachian Trail camping area. We surveyed visitors before and after implementation of camping policies that included shifting camping to designated newly constructed campsites and prohibiting campfires. Survey results reveal that visitors were more satisfied with all social and environmental indicators after the changes were enacted. An Importance-Performance analysis also determined that management actions improved conditions for factors of greatest concern to campers prior to the changes. Posttreatment visitors were least satisfied with factors related to reduced freedom and to some characteristics of the constructed campsites. Although there was evidence of visitor displacement, the camping changes met management goals by protecting the camping area’s natural resources and improving social conditions.     

刍论环境保护相邻权制度

传统相邻权在调整不动产所有人和使用人的相互关系中起到了重要的作用，但在调整范围和权利保护范围上存在不足。环境保护相邻权的确立可有效弥补这些缺陷，更好地保护公民的人身、财产和环境权益。环境保护相邻权制度的建立符合社会公共道德的要求，有利于构建和谐社会。最新通过的《物权法》在这方面的规定存有不足，应当明确规定环境保护相邻权。     

矿业环境相邻关系立法初探

矿业环境相邻关系的界定是相应环境产权私人化的途径。由矿业环境相邻权与矿业成员环境权双向对接组成的环境相邻关系,通过法律来约束矿山企业的环境相邻权和激励相邻对方的成员环境权而共同保护矿业环境。矿山企业一方给相邻对方合理施加容忍义务,相邻对方应当容忍非实质性的或当地通行的影响。成员环境权的保护,是基于物权而行使消除危险、排除妨害和恢复原状的请求权,基于债权而行使侵害赔偿请求权。     

The rise and fall of new knowledge interests in the Dutch environmental movement

Summary Since the late 1960s concern about the pollution of our physical environment has grown into a social and political issue. In this process of increasing awareness, environmental activists have played a catalysing role in most Western countries. Moreover the environmentalists formulated an alternative set of ideas and strategies concerning the production and use of knowledge. These new knowledge interests were organised around three dimensions: cosmology, technology, and the organisation of knowledge production. On the basis of a case-study of Dutch environmentalism this paper tries to demonstrate how the articulation of these new knowledge interests of international scope actually occurred in the particular Dutch national setting. The analysis shows that many of the ideas brought forward in the course of time by Dutch environmentalists have been imported from abroad, especially from the United States, Great Britain and West Germany. However, the specific ways in which Dutch environmentalists have defined the content of their own knowledge interests have depended very much on the particularities of the political culture and socio-economic climate of the Netherlands, as well as the internal dynamics within the various environmental groups themselves.Dr Jacqueline Cramer was until very recently a member of staff in the Department of Science Dynamics at the University of Amsterdam. She has now moved to the TNO Centre for Technology and Policy Studies, P.O. Box 541, 7300 AM, Apeldoorn, The Netherlands. This paper forms part of a comparative study of the development of environmentalism in Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands carried out in association with Ron Eyerman and Andrew Jamison of the University of Lund, Sweden.)     

环境法制建设中的科学精神与人文关怀

我国的环境法制建设现状不容乐观。搞好环境法制建设必须提高广大公众特别是环境法制工作者的科学精神,加强环境法制的人文关怀。贯穿科学精神和充满人文关怀的环境法才能成为保护环境资源的有效规范力量。     

关于四川省环保产业发展的几点思考

作者以较长时间关注四川省环保产业,结合主持四川省环保产业"十二五"发展规划的编制,对四川环保产业的目标确定、发展方向和重点领域、产业布局及园区建设、机制体制创新等有关问题进行深入思考的总结。本文提出从新的高度认识发展环保产业的意义,从必要性和可行性两方面考虑制定环保产业发展目标。首次提出了环境差别化的概念,并根据环境差别化和比较优势确定环保产业发展方向和重点领域。本文还剖析了四川环保产业园区建设存在的问题,并提出了破解的办法。本文最后提出了通过机制体制创新、加强科技支撑、完善统计制度、拓宽融资渠道等措施推动四川省环保产业又好又开发展的建议。     

Dismantling Environmental Racism in the USA

A growing body of evidence reveals that people of colour and low-income persons have borne greater environmental and health risks than the society at large in their neighbourhoods, workplaces and playgrounds. Over the past decade or so, grassroots activists have attempted to change the way government implements environmental, health and civil rights laws. A new movement has emerged in opposition to environmental racism and environmental injustice. Over the past two decades or so, grassroots activists have had some success in changing the way the federal government treats communities of colour and their inhabitants. Grassroots groups have also organised, educated and empowered themselves to improve the way health and environmental policies are administered. Environmentalism is now equated with social justice and civil rights.     

Precipitation changes impact stream discharge, nitrate-nitrogen load more than agricultural management changes

Nitrate-N losses to surface waters in the Upper Midwest of the Untied States have increased in recent decades, contributing to hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico. This paper investigates whether increasing nitrate-N export from cropland in the Upper Midwest since the late 1960s results from changes in land use or climate. The Agricultural Drainage and Pesticide Transport (ADAPT) Model simulated current and historical agricultural systems under past and recent wet climate for Seven Mile Creek in Minnesota. Simulations were run with management and climate for three distinctly different periods--namely, 1965 to 1969, 1976 to 1980, and 1999 to 2003 (wettest period). Results showed discharge and nitrate-N losses responded more to changes in climate than management. The wetter period (1999-2003) caused a simulated 70% increase in discharge under 1960s-era management compared with that period's observed climate and a simulated 51% increase in discharge under 1970s-era management compared with the 1976 to 1980 climate. The recent, wetter climate also produced a 62% increase in nitrate-N losses for 1960s-era management compared with the actual climate and a 137% increase in nitrate-N losses for 1978 management conditions compared with actual 1970s climate. Had recent climate been in place and stable since 1965, agricultural changes would have decreased discharge by 6.4% through the late 1970s and then by another 21.1% under modern management but would have increased nitrate-N losses by 184% through the late 1970s and then decreased nitrate-N losses by 13.5% between 1978 and 2001. Management changes that were important drivers included increasing N-fertilizer rates, increases in corn acreage, and increases in crop yield. But the most important factor driving increased nitrate-N losses from agriculture since the 1970s was an increasingly wetter climate.     

将华莺山建设成为川东生态屏障

生态环境保护是环保工作的重要内容,是实地西部大开发的主要工程之一。本文就控制环境污染、保护生物多样性、提高植被覆盖率论述了环境保护与生态环境建设的关系,并依据华蓥山系存在的生态环境问题,阐明了加强环境保护与川东生态屏障建设的基本对策。     

The use of best management practices to respond to externalities from developing shale gas resources

The public is concerned that activities accompanying hydraulic fracturing in the development of shale gas resources are unnecessarily adversely affecting them and the environment and is petitioning elected representatives to take actions to reduce risks. The health risks associated with fracturing chemicals and air pollutants are relatively unknown and constitute the impetus for public concern. An evaluation of state legal and regulatory provisions regarding best management practices discloses that states are not adopting timely regulations to protect people and the environment from activities accompanying hydraulic fracturing. Simultaneously, regulatory policy concerning negative externalities suggests that governments underinvest in the protection of human health and environmental quality. Governments have choices in protecting people from dangers that accompany shale gas development. Due to the risks of injuries and unpaid damages from shale gas development, governmental policies need to evolve to accord people greater health protection.