Institutional, Legal, and Economic Instruments in Ghana's Environmental Policy

The environmental situation in Ghana is characterized by desertification, land degradation, deforestation, soil erosion, and inadequate water supply in the northern regions of the country. The population as a whole is growing at a rate of 3% per annum, with even greater urban growth rates, due to rural out-migration. Large parts of the coastal zone in the south are rapidly developing to become one large suburbanized area. Water quality is particularly threatened in the urban and industrialized areas, which are mainly located in the southern part of the country. The coastal lagoons and coastal waters are moderately to heavily polluted. Erosion extends along the whole Ghanaian coast with excesses, for example, in the Keta area, where during the last century over 90% of the original buildings have been washed awayby the sea. The obvious environmental consequences of the mining sector are illustrative of the environmental threats caused by a fast growing industry and industrializing agriculture, in a country where environmental policy is only in its formative years. Desertification, food insecurity and coastal erosion all contribute to an increasing number of environmental refugees. Environmental policy in Ghana is a post-Rio phenomenon. Environmental laws, a Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology, an advisory National Committee for the Implementation of Agenda 21, and a fully mandated environmental administration have been established. This administration advocates a progressive attitude towards environmental legislation and points out the specific utility of economic and legal instruments in environmental management in this relatively fast developing country. The choice of instruments for environmental management is increasingly influenced by the specific state of African environmental and technological capacity and by a call for the recognition of the role of traditional customs in nature conservation. This African perspective on environmental management is further intensified by an unmet need for regional, transboundary cooperation in the West African subcontinent. This specific West African context calls for an elaboration of an effective capacity-building program for environmental management in the area.     

Sustainable livelihoods development by utilization of geomorphological resources in the Bai Tu Long Bay,Quang Ninh Province,Vietnam

Located in the humid tropical zone and endowed with carbonate sedimentary formations, Vietnam has unique karst landscapes where caves, limestone, and dolines are common. If well managed, these are valuable geomorphological resources for a sustainable socio-economic development. Although publications on sustainable livelihoods associated with conserving biodiversity and local culture are plentiful, there is still a lack of studies linking livelihood quality with the conservation of geomorphological resources, in particular in karst areas. This study assesses the geomorphological resources in Vietnam’s Bai Tu Long Bay and studies the relationship between livelihood and these resources. The current research area Bai Tu Long Bay is adjacent to the natural World Heritage site of Ha Long Bay in the Vietnamese part of the Gulf of Tonkin. Bai Tu Long is characterized by a karst landscape, which is at the same time similar but also different from Ha Long Bay. A field survey and interviews with 153 households allowed assessing people’s perception of the value of the geomorphological resources and their importance for local income. The results show that Bai Tu Long Bay has abundant, diverse, and unique geomorphological resources, which are valuable for tourism development. However, the local people are unaware of these values likely because they have no direct benefit from them. Further a sustainable development strategy for Bai Tu Long Bay is recommended. The outcome is a proposal for tourism initiatives aiming at realizing more sustainability in the area.     

Energy and environmental challenges: bringing together economics and engineering (ICEE’17)

Agricultural landscapes of the southern Brazilian Amazon are the result of 80 years of governmental policies to install a powerful agricultural sector. Yet, this rapid expansion raised important environmental considerations especially with regard to deforestation. The agricultural frontier is thus now facing a huge challenge: to combine socioeconomic development with environmental conservation in the context of frontier expansion. Based on a conceptual model of the agricultural frontier, we review historical changes in environmental and development policies in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso and emphasize their ambivalent trend to both encourage and control the progress of the frontier. We then extend this model with an integration stage where environmental governance and economic development evolve from competing to complementary concepts. At this stage, the efforts to slow down deforestation are accompanied with programs to promote new agricultural practices and support industrialization. Finally, we put into perspective this recent evolution with regard to the underlying reasons for changing the agricultural model, thus considering the agricultural frontier to be at a tipping point where first positive results need to be confirmed in spite of an unstable economic and political situation.     

Ethical Responsibilities Towards Dogs: An Inquiry into the Dog–Human Relationship

The conditions of life of many companion animals and the rate at which they are surrendered to shelters raise many ethical issues. What duties do we have towards the dogs that live in our society? To suggest answers to these questions, I first give four possible ways of looking at the relationship between man and dog: master–slave, employer–worker, parent–child, and friend–friend. I argue that the morally acceptable relationships are of a different kind but bears family resemblances to the latter three. As dogs are beings with an interest in their wellbeing, society has certain duties towards the dogs, which can be translated in legislation. But human beings also have special responsibilities towards the dogs they take into their care. Such responsibilities entail caring for their emotional and physical welfare, but also ensuring a bond of trust, which should not easily be broken.     

Uncovering causes and effects of desertification using a Leopold matrix in Binh Thuan Province,Vietnam

Vietnam is a coastal country projected to be heavily affected by climate change.Binh Thuan Province is part of the driest region of Vietnam and is prone to desertification.An expert panel participated in developing a Leopold matrix which allowed for identification of desertification impact factors on the province's socioeconomic activities and assessment of the strength of cause-effect relationships in terms of magnitude and importance.Land use planning,surface water,and the length of the dry season are considered the most important causes,with the overall highest scores for both magnitude and importance in the cause-effect relationship.The largest effects of the different factors are perceived on water supply for agriculture and household use.Water availability and land use planning are important remedial action domains,while drought and land cover require monitoring to assess impacts.The indicators of cause and effect can be used in a longer-term general monitoring and assessment framework to combat desertification in the area.     

Legitimate adaptive flood risk governance beyond the dikes: the cases of Hamburg,Helsinki and Rotterdam

It has recently been recommended that a shift from traditional flood prevention to more adaptive strategies is made, focusing on the reduction in and recovery from flood impacts as a means to improve resilience to climate impacts. This shift has had implications for the public–private divide in adaptive flood risk governance. In an urban context, it means that private actors such as developers and residents come into play, necessitating governance arrangements which cross the public–private divide. The division of responsibilities for water safety between the public and private sectors affects the way legitimacy is gained for these arrangements and raises new legitimacy issues. The paper offers an analysis of public and private responsibilities in adaptive flood risk governance arrangements, as well as of the legitimacy of the arrangements in the light of the public–private divide. A comparative case study is presented for three urban regeneration projects in un-embanked areas in Hamburg, Germany, Helsinki, Finland, and Rotterdam, the Netherlands, where adaptive strategies have been applied. The results show that network arrangements with joint public–private responsibilities use direct forms of participation and deliberation, but that these do not necessarily lead to more legitimate arrangements in the eyes of stakeholders as is often suggested in the literature. Both network and more public hierarchical arrangements can be perceived as quite legitimate under certain conditions.     

Comparative study of the urban quality of life in Cuban first-level cities from an objective dimension

The urban quality of life (UQoL) from objective dimension was analyzed in the main Cuban cities. An Urban Quality of Life Index (UQoLI) was developed in collaboration with 60 experts (five in each city). These experts belong to one of two categories: in charge of the planning of the city and members of the Municipal Council of Administration. One hundred and forty-two directors of the Local District Administration also participated in the analysis. The UQoLI includes three dimensions: social services, economic performance, and urban services, the importance of which is weighed according to expert criteria. A Ranking of the studied cities, sorted by the UQoLI, shows a tendency of increase it UQoL in the west even and central regions. This tendency contradicts one of the foundations of the Cuban sustainable development framework, i.e., equity.