Copper: after the boom

Copper demand is expected to turn down in the latter part of 1989 and then dip further in 1990. The slump in demand is expected to be modest, however, much less severe than the post oil shock recessions of the mid-1970s and early 1980s. By 1991 a healthy growth is expected to resume. However, major expansions to production capacity are in track and excessive production is expected to keep the copper market in surplus for the next five years. Thus, prices are expected to decline sharply and remain at quite low levels through the mid-1990s.     

Implementing the UNCCD: Participatory challenges

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) emphasizes the need for public participation in land degradation assessment and rehabilitation. While participatory approaches are supported by a growing body of research and practice, meaningfully involving the people affected by land degradation is far from straightforward. This paper investigates the challenge of using the UNCCD as a guide to influence community participation in policy‐making and practice at national and local levels by analyzing experiences from three southern African countries. We show that the UNCCD represents a useful normative framework for addressing degradation problems, but that the participatory ethos is difficult to enact at the national level. Whilst there is increasing evidence that combining local and scientific knowledge using participatory mechanisms can deliver the benefits that the Convention strives to achieve, communication between researchers and practitioners, and those involved in implementing the UNCCD at the national level needs to be strengthened. Broad lessons and best practices in incorporating participatory practices into policy development are elucidated. Our case studies show that a range of mixed‐method, interdisciplinary approaches can enable policy‐makers and practitioners to meaningfully engage those who are affected by land degradation in its definition, assessment and rehabilitation.     

Experts under the microscope: the Wivenhoe Dam case

Prosecution of experts in the wake of disasters has emerged as common in the context of increasing social intolerance of risk. This paper examines expert blame using as a case study the decisions of engineers who operated Wivenhoe Dam during the Queensland floods in January 2011 and the criticisms of those decisions by the subsequent Commission of Inquiry. Our analysis draws on the literature on organisational safety, organisational learning and expertise to examine the relevance of the criteria against which the engineers were judged, the relevant competence of those who made this assessment and the broader implications of such exercises. Our analysis shows that lay judgements of expert practice can be misleading, as evidenced by the Commission of Inquiry’s misguided focus on procedural adherence. We argue that such inquiries—where the focus is on assigning blame—detract from opportunities to learn from incidents and can negatively impact on professional practices. If the aim is to make future disasters less likely, then inquiries that take this approach may be failing in this endeavour, or at least not maximising their contribution.     

Applying the triple bottom line: Telework and the environment

The “triple bottom line” approach emphasizes not only economic goals, but social and environmental objectives as well. The “telework” option—in which employees work from home or a satellite office rather than from a central location—would appear to advance all three of these aims. But a close look at the specifics of teleworking makes clear that more data are needed to determine its ultimate impact. Moreover, despite its apparent advantages, teleworking is gaining acceptance less quickly than might be expected. For these reasons, telework offers a fascinating case study in the difficulties of applying the triple bottom line concept.© 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Wildlife management: Managing the hunt versus the hunting experience

Deer hunter satisfaction is investigated from two perspectives, (1) satisfaction with the hunt/harvest and (2) satisfaction with the overall hunting trip experience. Regression analysis is used to determine what variables best predict satisfaction with the hunt and the hunting experience. Results indicate that animal population variables (number of deer seen, shot at, bagged) are the best determinants of a quality deer hunt, while environmental (outdoors) and social (crowding and hunter behavior) are the best predictors of a quality hunting trip experience. Wildlife managers and researchers need to realize that deer hunters view the hunt/harvest as different from the hunting trip experience and need to manage for both aspects of hunter satisfaction.     

Protected Areas for the Future: Models from the Past

This paper discusses the complexity of the protected area mosaic that has evolved in the United Kingdom over the past 40 or so years. Experimental matrices have been used to assist in the analysis of the various types of protected areas. The trend has been towards the development of protected areas to serve multiple objectives, although categories of protected area introduced under European legislation are more narrowly defined. There has been a proliferation in the number of categories of protected area in the past ten years; since 1990 six new categories of protected area have been established, two resulting from European directives. Most of the protected areas operate indirectly through the planning system and/or voluntary agreements. However, a distinction is drawn between systems for nature conservation and landscape protection with the former relying more on direct controls (ownership and/or legal force). There is considerable potential overlap of protected areas. New categories of protected area have often been superimposed upon the existing system without consideration of whether they will result in duplication of effort, expenditure etc. We conclude that there is scope for some rationalization of the system. Ideally this would involve replacing existing protected areas with broader based ones but considerable simplification could be obtained in practice by making the powers of the agencies more flexible and changing the administrative arrangements for managing the various protected areas.     

Managing the metropolitan environment: the challenge for European cities

Traditional approaches to metropolitan management have placed stress upon the achievement of physical and economic growth. In recent years attention has turned to environmental concerns and the achievement of sustainable urban development. It is important to define the objectives for the sustainable development of cities and to identify the principles upon which such development can be based.     

The visual environment: Consider the surface

Summary It is the author's view that the visual qualities of an environment depend a great deal upon “minor” characteristics of form. Surface, light, color, materials are the primary sensory factors which affect appearance. While formal systems, if they persist in cities, offer the rational basis for their design, plan or organization, what influences individuality, character or flavor appeals to the senses on intimate scale. In architecture, stylistic differences are read in detailing and material, as well as in size and proportion. Color can define and particularize surface and spaces and seems to be a predominant part of any vernacular environment. The author believes that color sensitivity may be a collective reaction to specific conditions of environmental light, and what may be observed as cultural preferences may have a biological base. Painter-experimentalist, Lois Swirnoff has been observing and utilizing the perceptual effects of color on form. Since her graduate studies with Josef Albers at Yale her work has dealt with problems of value and hue relative to light and shadow, “chiaroscuro for three dimensions”. Paintings on surface reliefs, her work is widely exhibited in the U.S., most recently in Washington, D.C. at the National Academy of Sciences. She teaches her systematic experiments with color's spatial and formal ambiguities, formerly at Harvard University, and at Wellesley and Skidmore Colleges and at the University of California at Los Angeles, where she is currently a member of the faculty of Art, Design and Art History. A fascination with the visual environment began in 1951, when, as a young Fulbright Fellow, the urban landscapes of Italy struck her native New Yorker's eye. Subsequently, recording the facades of cities in her travels, has been an abiding interest.     

Managing Alberta's water: the decision-making process

Land and water are Canada's most valuable renewable natural resources. Canada possesses one-quarter of the world's known volume of fresh water. Fresh water covers 75369000 hectares of 7.1% of the country's surface. This area represents a very substantial number oflakes, rivers, streams, deltas and bays and is perhaps Canada's most vital and strategic resource. Canada has to have ab overall plan of management which provides direction, coordination, and assistance for the management of its water resources at the provincial and regional levels.     

Environmental studies: Managing the disciplinary divide

Summary Environmental studies has developed as an academic activity over the last 25 years. The area usually calls into play interdisciplinarity and the exploration of values. It also calls for inputs across a range of disparate sciences and humanities. Central to binding together these inputs are needs for commitment and communication between the cultures and philosophies involved.Older and more traditional university cultures are not properly structured to permit the level of communication needed. Several models of environmental activities, and particularly their management, are described, together with their strengths and weaknesses. The lifeboat model as used at Griffith University is also described. This model indicates how the levels of communication can be enhanced by both major structural characteristics, as well as by more minor decisions like the allocation of offices.Their initial disciplines were in Mathematics and Computing, Sociology and Education respectively.     

IntergovernmentalEnvironmental Planning: Addressing the Commitment Conundrum

Public policies aimed at environmental problems from improper land use typically work through or with the co-operation of local governments. But local governments sometimes fail to appreciate the importance of the environmental issues or programmes announced by higher level governments. In this paper, we use data on mitigation of natural hazards gathered in Florida in the US and New South Wales in Australia to demonstratethat planning mandates can suffer from gaps in local commitment to the environmental goals of higher level governments. Planning mandates must foster higher quality plans and also build supportivelocal political constituencies if they are to overcome this 'commitment conundrum'. We show that the needed improvements in the quality of plans can be fostered through capacity building. Supportive constituencies can be created through programmesthat enhance public awareness of environmental problems and also through provisions of environmental mandates that require local governments to undertake collaborative planning processes with affected stakeholders.