Shades of blue: what do competing interpretations of the Blue Economy mean for oceans governance?

The ‘Blue Economy’ is an increasingly popular term in modern marine and ocean governance. The concept seeks to marry ocean-based development opportunities with environmental stewardship and protection. Yet different actors are co-opting this term in competing, and often conflicting ways. Four conceptual interpretations of the Blue Economy are identified, through examination of dominant discourses within international Blue Economy policy documents and key ‘grey’ literature. The way the Blue Economy is enacted is also examined, through an analysis of the Blue Economy ‘in practice’, and the actors involved. Finally, the scope of the Blue Economy is explored, with a particular focus on which particular marine industries are included or excluded from different conceptualizations. This analysis reveals areas of both consensus and conflict. Areas of consensus reflect the growing trend towards commodification and valuation of nature, the designation and delimitation of spatial boundaries in the oceans and increasing securitization of the world's oceans. Areas of conflict exist most notably around a divergence in opinions over the legitimacy of individual sectors as components of the ‘Blue Economy’, in particular, carbon-intensive industries like oil and gas, and the emerging industry of deep seabed mining.     

Mineral reserves: Projected lifetimes and security of supply

This article analyses the lifetimes of reserves of three dozen important minerals. Despite the high rate of their extraction in the past 30 years, the recorded reserves of these non-renewable materials were higher in 1981 than in 1950 and they seem to meet foreseeable demand for a long time to come, as indicated by the estimated static lifetime for each of the minerals covered. The dynamic nature of ‘reserves’ is emphasized: further exploration and scientific and technological advance will add to the present proven reserves, and at a higher price further resources will be ‘upgraded’ into commercially exploitable reserves. Apparent long-term security can be disturbed by natural disasters, political events or other factors, especially in the case of minerals whose reserves and production are highly concentrated in one country. However, any such interruption in the continuity of supply is likely to be short-lived.     

Re‐evaluating the Contribution of Social Capital in Achieving Sustainable Development

The last decade has seen considerable interest in the concept of social capital and there have been a number of publications focused around the concept. A wide range of claims have been made for the analytic potential of social capital leading some to question the concept's continued value. We think that the concept still has considerable value if used in a careful and rigorous way. We further think that the concept has particular value when considering policy for sustainable development. However, just as sustainable development is a multi‐faceted concept, this application requires a multi‐faceted reading of social capital. Having concluded that a clearer typology of social capital is needed, we propose a threefold typology, adding the new category of ‘bracing’ social capital to the more commonly used distinction between ‘bonding’ and ‘bridging’ social capital. We also address the issues of what social capital can do and how it actually works, specifically in the context of policy for sustainable development.     

How Good? Ethical Criteria for a ‘Good Life’ for Farm Animals

The Farm Animal Welfare Council’s concept of a Good Life gives an idea of an animal’s quality of life that is over and above that of a mere life worth living. The concept needs explanation and clarification, in order to be meaningful, particularly for consumers who purchase farm animal produce. The concept could allow assurance schemes to apply the label to assessments of both the potential of each method of production, conceptualised in ways expected to enhance consumers’ engagement such as ‘naturalness’ and ‘freedom’; and the concept of a life worth living as a safeguard threshold below which no animal’s actual welfare should fall, based on each animal’s overall affective states. This may provide a framework for development of the Good Life concept, within scientific and sociological fields, in order to allow reliable and influential use by assessors, consumers and retailers.     

论"生态"一词的使用

“生态”一词是目前使用频率较高的词汇之一,但也是很容易使用混淆的词汇之一。“生态”的含义已经由最初生态学中的基本概念和含义扩展了很多,并在许多行业和领域得到广泛应用。其合理应用使生态理念在各个相关领域得到发展,但在使用的过程中,也不乏对其内涵欠缺深入的理解和考究,使其外延过大,使用混乱,出现泛生态化的趋势。本文从生态学的角度分析了“生态”一词的内涵,并对目前广泛流行的一些用法进行讨论,以规范生态概念的使用。     

The meaning of BATNEEC: interpreting excessive costs in UK industrial pollution regulation

The paper examines how the concept of ‘excessive costs’ has been interpreted in the implementation of industrial pollution control in the UK. Since 1984, industrial air pollution regulation in the EU has been guided by the framework concept of Best Available Technology Not Entailing Excessive Costs (BATNEEC). With the introduction of the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) Directive in 1996, this has been replaced by the concept of Best Available Techniques (BAT). Despite the absence of the NEEC qualification, IPPC BAT includes excessive costs in its definition of ‘available’. Both concepts require interpretation and both devolve potentially controversial decisions to the level of the individual site regulator. A central issue in interpreting ‘excessive costs’ is the relative importance of environmental cost–benefit analysis versus the ability of a sector to ‘afford’ environmental improvements. Also important is how such concepts can be operationalized by regulators who lack resources and depend upon industry for information. The paper provides a historical account of how these issues have been dealt with in the UK and argues that the key difficulties are far from being resolved. The paper concludes by assessing the implications for the future implementation of IPPC. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The (un)common good: diverging justifications for wilderness making in a modified landscape

ABSTRACT

Wilderness is most often conceived as comprising large remote areas where evidence of human influence is slight. Little attention has been afforded to the study of wilderness ‘making’ in smaller landscapes that have been heavily modified by human activity. This paper addresses this knowledge deficit by employing the pragmatic sociology of Boltanski and Thévenot to analyse a case study of wilderness making in the west of Ireland. The application of this framework illustrates how contending positions on ‘why’ wilderness making should occur and ‘how’ it should be conducted reflect ethical frameworks rooted in different conceptions of the ‘common good’ presented by the idea of wilderness. The paper demonstrates the difficulties with developing such a new nature-based concept in the absence of conventional (received) ideas of wilderness by revealing how the diverging justifications used suggest incommensurability in the competing notions of wilderness that are formulated and advanced.     

World supply of non fuel minerals: The geological constraints

The feasibility of trebling production of essential non fuel minerals by AD 2000 is considered in relation to a rise in world population to 6 billion (10⁹). Adequate supplies of common bulk ‘minerals’ like sand and gravel, brick clays and saline deposits, are assured, but mining will place additional strains on local environments. Ores of the metals that can be regarded as available in sufficient quantities include iron, aluminium, chromium, titanium, copper and nickel, and possibly also lead and zinc. In spite of the geological constraints imposed by complexity of geometry and genesis, reasoned resource estimates are possible for these, but they may not be feasible for rarer necessary minerals, such as those of the precious metals, mercury, niobium and flourine. The extraction of even the commonest of the non fuel minerals is conditioned by the availability of abundant energy at economic prices – this should be regarded as the critical factor.     

Animal Abolitionism Revisited: Neo-Colonialism and Morally Unjustified Burdens

Bob Fischer has written a reply to my article ‘Animal Abolitionism and ‘Racism without Racists’’. In this article, Fischer contends that my arguments whereby animal abolitionism engages in acts of racism without racists are mistaken. I wish to reply to Fischer’s objections in this article, through four sets of contentions: (1) Fischer’s arguments reveal some misunderstandings in terms of the concept of racism and, particularly, of ‘racism without racists’; (2) his arguments also underestimate the burdens suffered by individuals who wish to become vegan; (3) Fischer’s views on infantilisation lead to counter-intuitive conclusions; (4) and Fischer’s counter-argument against my neo-colonial critique of abolitionism misunderstands the points made in my previous article.     

Precarious work or sustainable livelihoods? Aligning Prestea's Programme with the development dialogue on artisanal and small‐scale mining

Alternative livelihoods programmes (ALPs) are extensively executed in mining communities, often as models of development dialogue on artisanal and small‐scale mining (ASM). This paper assesses whether Prestea's ALP aligns with the development dialogue on artisanal mining. The conceptual design of ALP in Ghana's Prestea is based on the notions of substitution, homogenous community, and impact scalability. This paper argues that the Prestea ALP is not aligned with the development dialogue on artisanal mining, and therefore it is difficult to understand the role and function of environmentally‐damaging behaviours within livelihood strategies. The paper contends that it would be appropriate to concentrate on improving the existing artisanal miners’ operation of those most susceptible to resource access restrictions. Further, it may be more prudent to utilize livelihood‐centered interventions that create strong connections with sustainable development as a way of creating regular community engagements. Additionally, this paper argues that the term for the intervention programme on artisanal mining should be replaced with the broader term ‘livelihood‐centered intervention’. The replacement of the term ‘ALP’ avoids the tacit belief that ALP can adequately replace artisanal mining operations. Livelihood‐centered intervention should not necessarily utilize alternative livelihoods as direct behavioural change instruments.     

Resolving strategy paradoxes of water loss reduction: A synthesis in Jakarta

This paper intends to serve as a ‘thought’ piece, by opening scope for re-framing the issue of water loss reduction. The paper presents an exploration about what the term ‘strategy’ contributes to water loss reduction, through a literature review. The paper considers 10 strategic paradoxes and uses these to structure a discussion of utilities’ approaches to reducing water losses and the assumptions underlying the development and deployment of strategies to this end. The paper uses a case study of an Indonesian utility (and also draws evidence from other developing countries) to exemplify how strategies and their underlying assumptions may lead to suboptimal approaches to reducing water losses.     

Assigning Degrees of Ease or Difficulty for Pet Animal Maintenance: The EMODE System Concept

Pet animal management is subject to varied husbandry practices and the resulting consequences often impact negatively on animal welfare. The perceptions held by someone who proposes to keep an animal regarding the ease or difficulty with which its biological needs can be provided for in captivity are key factors in whether that animal is acquired and how well or poorly it does. We propose a system to ‘score’ animals and assign them to categories indicating the ease or difficulty with which they can be kept as pets in accordance with welfare and public health and safety considerations. The ‘EMODE’ (‘Easy’, ‘Moderate’, ‘Difficult’, ‘Extreme’) system has two fundamental components: animal welfare—which considers the ‘five freedoms’ principles; and public health and safety—which considers management associated with risks from disease or injury to the keeper and to others. EMODE incorporates two tiers of assessment and guidance, and may offer a reasonable guide for the majority of relevant animals. EMODE Tier 1 provides a primary and general assessment of animals by class or group, and EMODE Tier 2 provides a secondary refined assessment of animals by species or breed. EMODE offers a user-friendly and versatile foundation concept for the future development of guidance for the layperson who may be considering acquiring a pet or for certain personnel when considering assigning species to restrictive lists of suitable animals, for example, ‘positive lists’ as used by governments to control animals in trade and keeping.     

Response to “The Problem of the Question About Animal Ethics” by Michal Piekarski

In this brief article we reply to Michal Piekarski’s response to our article ‘Facing Animals’ published previously in this journal. In our article we criticized the properties approach to defining the moral standing of animals, and in its place proposed a relational and other-oriented concept that is based on a transcendental and phenomenological perspective, mainly inspired by Heidegger, Levinas, and Derrida. In this reply we question and problematize Piekarski’s interpretation of our essay and critically evaluate “the ethics of commitment” that he offers as an alternative.     

Strong Patient Advocacy and the Fundamental Ethical Role of Veterinarians

This essay examines the fundamental role of veterinarians in companion animal practice by developing the idea of veterinarians as strong advocates for their nonhuman animal patients. While the practitioner-patient relationship has been explored extensively in medical ethics, the relation between practitioner and animal patient has received relatively less attention in the expanding but still young field of veterinary ethics. Over recent decades, social and professional ethical perspectives on human-animal relationships have undergone major change. Today, the essential role of veterinarians is not entirely clear. Furthermore, veterinarians routinely face pressure, often insidious, to refrain from pursuing their patients’ vital interests. In exploring the concept of strong patient advocacy, this essay investigates the increasingly common suggestion that veterinarians have ‘primary obligation’ and ‘first allegiance’ to their animal patients rather than to other parties, such as their clients or employers. The related concept of a fiduciary duty, which is sometimes encountered in medical ethics, is similarly explored as it applies to companion animal practice. The resultant idea of a strong patient advocate places companion animal veterinarians conceptually and ethically close to human health professionals, not least pediatricians.     

The ‘new’ economics of iron and steel

The author commences his analysis of the iron and steel industry by examining the historical background of the industry, and discusses its importance for the world economy. He examines the implications for the world industry of the successful development of the steel industry in Japan, and traces the evolution of a commodity cartel in the iron ore market, analysing the price levels of the commodity in the ‘free’ and ‘controlled’ markets. Following a discussion of the role of energy and coking coal supplies in the industry, the author examines the evolution of this industry in the less developed countries, with particular reference to the role of technology in the industry's development. He concludes that there have been important structural changes in the world industry, embraced by the concept of ‘partial demise’.     

Towards a Community Based Ethic: A Phenomenological Account of Environmental Change From the Sundarbans’s Islanders

Rapid changes in the environment are far from being a new phenomenon, especially for vulnerable zones like the Sundarbans, India. In the era of climate change, when these islands are witnessing a lot of initiatives to combat the increasing negative impacts of various environmental changes, this article showcases why it is imperative to study the everyday phenomenological experiences of the islanders to be able to go beyond the climate-affected narratives and generate a deeper understanding of the phenomenon itself—‘environmental change’. This article provides the islanders’ phenomenological accounts of environmental change and borrowing from Heidegger’s concept of ‘Being-in-the-world’ explicates the reason behind the disparity in acknowledging environmental change across individuals. Making this interpretive phenomenological account of environmental change as the ground, this article offers a rubric of community-based ethic which perhaps can prove to be effective in addressing any place-specific environmental change, over and above the prevalent approach of place-based ethic.     

Protecting asset value and driving performance with a dynamic,risk-based contingency fund

We present a risk-based contingency fund management methodology to mitigate the impact of external risks on asset value and performance. Many asset intensive industries, such as water and energy utilities, are significantly affected by external risks such as extreme weather events. We put the case for a centrally held risk-based contingency fund that would mitigate against ‘medium’ impact ‘medium’ probability events that fall outside of large losses covered by insurance and smaller ‘normal’ operating losses. Our risk-based contingency approach is appropriate for short-term business planning (1–5 years) and would complement longer term planning, for example climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies. Our approach offers a risk-based methodology to manage contingency that is explicit and defensible. Critically, our methodology allows contingency to be managed dynamically as risk probabilities and impacts change, creating a mechanism for contingency funds to be periodically released if risk exposure reduces. The long-term benefit of dynamic, risk-based contingency is to reduce the impact of external risks and support long-term sustainability.     

Contesting governance of indigenous forests in New Zealand: The case of the West Coast Forest Accord

This paper uses the concept of ‘governance’ and the related notion of ‘multi-layered’ forest management decision making as an overarching framework for analysis of conflict between different stakeholder groups with contrasting perceptions about ‘appropriate’ use of indigenous forests in a New Zealand case study. In New Zealand, recent institutional reforms inspired by neo-liberal policy agendas have led to substantial conflicts between segments of society over the ‘appropriate’ governance of remnant indigenous forests. This study focuses on the West Coast Forest Accord (WCFA) as an illustration of the attempt to change governance structures of indigenous forest management by re-regulating the indigenous forest industry. It is argued that by seeking to accommodate multiple stakeholder interests, in particular industry, community and environmental groups, the WCFA was doomed to fail, as multiple, and often conflicting, stakeholder agendas focused on the goal of ‘sustainable management’ of indigenous forests could no longer be reconciled. Notwithstanding the shift in emphasis from government towards governance in the recent literature, the study findings confirm a continuing strong role by the state as an actor in the forestry sector in New Zealand.     

The values of biological diversity: a travelogue

Biological diversity is an abstract, scientific concept and both evaluating its condition and, to great extent, justifying its conservation requires expert knowledge. Accordingly, regulating and managing biological diversity presupposes standardisation and methods for managing uncertainty. To be acted on, the concept must be promoted, passing, in this process, through various institutions, such as intergovernmental organisations and national administrations. This paper examines how the principle of biological diversity conservation is defined, focusing on the values of biological diversity and how this notion has ‘travelled the world’. The paper includes a study of how the principle of biological diversity was applied in a specific case of insect control in Sweden.     

The reclamation concept in regulation of gravel mining in California

Mining of gravel for construction aggregate in California is regulated under the concept of ‘reclamation’, borrowed from open‐pit coal mines, which are recontoured and returned to productive use (such as agriculture) after mine closure. The concept works for dry terrace pits and can be adapted to creation of wildlife habitat in wet terrace pits. However, the state's regulatory structure also applies the concept to gravel extraction in the active channel, a dynamic system where the extraction site cannot be isolated from the surrounding environment. In this paper, I review reclamation in terrace and floodplain deposits but question the appropriateness of extending the traditional notion of reclamation to instream mining operations.