Contesting neoliberal knowledge politics in restoration governance: the restorationist’s dilemma

ABSTRACT

The success of ecological restoration efforts is tightly coupled with the effectiveness of many U.S. environmental policies. Yet scholars have raised questions about the ability of restoration to produce intended results. We use a case study of tidal wetland restoration planning in Oregon to examine how neoliberal environmental governance exercises influence through a set of knowledge politics that produces subpar outcomes. We present three main findings: (1) restoration policies produce a restoration economy based on a conception of wetland as commodity (2) practitioners in this restoration economy exhibit competitive behavior resulting in a piecemeal rather than a landscape approach to restoration; and (3) limited monitoring prevents changes to existing policies. Practitioners offer insight into the challenge of treating wetlands as a commodity and call for more monitoring to challenge the assumptions of hegemonic knowledge practices that reinforce a neoliberal environmental governance regime. The divergent ideas of reflexive practitioners, though not yet manifest as action, show where changes to restoration governance might be possible.     

Economic and employment impacts of offshore wind for Ireland: A value chain analysis

ABSTRACT

The imminent development of a number of offshore wind farms in the Republic of Ireland presents a sizable opportunity to stimulate the Irish economy through the growth of an indigenous and globally competitive offshore wind supply chain. This study uses a value chain analysis to evaluate the economic and employment potential of the offshore wind sector for Ireland. The analysis is based on the expenditure on products and services required to develop an offshore wind farm, the planned capacity of projects in the pipeline, and the ability of Irish companies to supply the sector. Results suggest that by 2030, 2.5–4.5GW of domestic offshore wind development could create between 11,424 and 20,563 supply chain jobs and generate between €763 m and €1.4bn in gross value added. This is the first study to estimate domestic GVA potential for the sector.     

REVIVING URBAN STREAMS: LAND USE,HYDROLOGY, BIOLOGY,AND HUMAN BEHAVIOR1

ABSTRACT: Successful stream rehabilitation requires a shift from narrow analysis and management to integrated understanding of the links between human actions and changing river health. At study sites in the Puget Sound lowlands of western Washington State, landscape, hydrological, and biological conditions were evaluated for streams flowing through watersheds with varying levels of urban development. At all spatial scales, stream biological condition measured by the benthic index of biological integrity (B‐IBI) declined as impervious area increased. Impervious area alone, however, is a flawed surrogate of river health. Hydrologic metrics that reflect chronic altered streamflows, for example, provide a direct mechanistic link between the changes associated with urban development and declines in stream biological condition. These measures provide a more sensitive understanding of stream basin response to urban development than do treatment of each increment of impervious area equally. Land use in residential backyards adjacent to streams also heavily influences stream condition. Successful stream rehabilitation thus requires coordinated diagnosis of the causes of degradation and integrative management to treat the range of ecological stressors within each urban area, and it depends on remedies appropriate at scales from backyards to regional storm water systems.     

Subject Index

Subject Index

Subject Index     

Cesium migration in Hanford sediment: a multisite cation exchange model based on laboratory transport experiments

Cs+ transport experiments carried out in columns packed with uncontaminated Hanford formation sediment from the SX tank farm provide strong support for the use of a multisite, multicomponent cation exchange model to describe Cs+ migration in the Hanford vadose zone. The experimental results indicate a strong dependence of the effective Cs+ Kd on the concentrations of other cations, including Na+ that is present at high to extremely high concentrations in fluids leaking from the Hanford SX tanks. A strong dependence of the Cs+ Kd on the aqueous Cs+ concentration is also apparent, with retardation of Cs+ increasing from a value of 41 at a Cs+ concentration of 10(-4) M in the feed solution to as much as 282 at a Cs+ concentration of 5x10(-7) M, all in a background of 1 M NaNO3. The total cation exchange capacity (CEC) of the Hanford sediment was determined using 22Na isotopic equilibrium exchange in a flow-through column experiment. The value for the CEC of 120 microeq/g determined with this method is compatible with a value of 121.9 microeq/g determined by multi-cation elution. While two distinct exchange sites were proposed by Zachara et al. [Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 66 (2002) 193] based on binary batch exchange experiments, a third site is proposed in this study to improve the fit of the Cs+-Na+ and Cs+-Ca+ exchange data and to capture self-sharpened Cs+ breakthrough curves at low concentrations of Cs+. Two of the proposed exchange sites represent frayed edge sites (FES) on weathered micas and constitute 0.02% and 0.22% of the total CEC. Both of the FES show a very strong selectivity for Cs+ over Na+ (K(Na-Cs)=10(7.22) and 10(4.93), respectively). The third site, accounting for over 99% of the total CEC, is associated with planar sites on expansible clays and shows a smaller Na+-Cs+ selectivity coefficient of 10(1.99). Parameters derived from a fit of binary batch experiments alone tend to under predict Cs+ retardation in the column experiments. The transport experiments indicate 72-90% of the Cs+ sorbed in experiments targeting exchange on FES was desorbed over a 10- and 24-day period, respectively. At high Cs+ concentrations, where sorption is controlled primarily by exchange on planar sites, 95% of the Cs+ desorption was desorbed. Most of the difficulty in desorbing Cs+ from FES is a result of the extremely high selectivity of these sites for Cs+, although truly irreversible sorption as high as 23% was suggested in one experiment. The conclusion that Cs+ exchange is largely reversible in a thermodynamic sense is supported by the ability to match Cs+ desorption curves almost quantitatively with an equilibrium reactive transport simulation. The model for Cs+ retardation developed here qualitatively explains the behavior of Cs+ in the Hanford vadose zone underneath a variety of leaking tanks with differing salt concentrations. The high selectivity of FES for Cs+ implies that future desorption and migration is very unlikely to occur under natural recharge conditions.     

Procedures for ensuring community involvement in multijurisdictional river basins: a comparison of the Murray-Darling and Mekong river basins

Community involvement is fundamental to the management of multijurisdictional river basins but, in practice, is very difficult to achieve. The Murray-Darling basin, in Australia, and the Mekong River basin in Southeast Asia are both cooperatively managed multijurisdictional river basins where the management authorities have expressed an aim of community involvement. In the Murray-Darling basin vigorous efforts have promoted a culture of community consultation throughout each of the state jurisdictions involved, although true participation has not necessarily been achieved. In the Mekong basin the community is much more diverse and the successes so far have been largely at the local level, involving action in subsections of the basin. These case studies suggest that community involvement in the form of community consultation across large multijurisdictional river basins is achievable, but more comprehensive participation is not necessarily possible.     

Data Sharing – a Case of Shared Databases and Community Use of On-Line GIS Support Systems

Data management is becoming increasingly simple and complex at the same time. The challenge is to effectively use the increasing number of tools available to manage increasing amounts of environmental information for purposes of data capture, analysis, display, sharing and storage. Government is no longer the main collector and provider of data. Community groups possess vast amounts of data collected through daily work of monitoring the environment in their local community. The chief concerns are data access, sharing, integrity and comparability. The capacity of groups to sustain data management is the key to making the sharing possible. The Southeast Environmental Association has been working with Environment Canada to develop a community, on-line database that will be linked to other geo-spatial data sets to allow instant access to geo-referenced data.     

Documenting lemming population change in the Arctic: Can we detect trends?

Lemmings are a key component of tundra food webs and changes in their dynamics can affect the whole ecosystem. We present a comprehensive overview of lemming monitoring and research activities, and assess recent trends in lemming abundance across the circumpolar Arctic. Since 2000, lemmings have been monitored at 49 sites of which 38 are still active. The sites were not evenly distributed with notably Russia and high Arctic Canada underrepresented. Abundance was monitored at all sites, but methods and levels of precision varied greatly. Other important attributes such as health, genetic diversity and potential drivers of population change, were often not monitored. There was no evidence that lemming populations were decreasing in general, although a negative trend was detected for low arctic populations sympatric with voles. To keep the pace of arctic change, we recommend maintaining long-term programmes while harmonizing methods, improving spatial coverage and integrating an ecosystem perspective.     

Accidental Bait: Do Deceased Fish Increase Freshwater Turtle Bycatch in Commercial Fyke Nets?

Bycatch of turtles in passive inland fyke net fisheries has been poorly studied, yet bycatch is an important conservation issue given the decline in many freshwater turtle populations. Delayed maturity and low natural adult mortality make turtles particularly susceptible to population declines when faced with additional anthropogenic adult mortality such as bycatch. When turtles are captured in fyke nets, the prolonged submergence can lead to stress and subsequent drowning. Fish die within infrequently checked passive fishing nets and dead fish are a potential food source for many freshwater turtles. Dead fish could thus act as attractants and increase turtle captures in fishing nets. We investigated the attraction of turtles to decomposing fish within fyke nets in eastern Ontario. We set fyke nets with either 1 kg of one-day or five-day decomposed fish, or no decomposed fish in the cod-end of the net. Decomposing fish did not alter the capture rate of turtles or fish, nor did it alter the species composition of the catch. Thus, reducing fish mortality in nets using shorter soak times is unlikely to alter turtle bycatch rates since turtles were not attracted by the dead fish. Interestingly, turtle bycatch rates increased as water temperatures did. Water temperature also influences turtle mortality by affecting the duration turtles can remain submerged. We thus suggest that submerged nets to either not be set or have reduced soak times in warm water conditions (e.g., >20 °C) as turtles tend to be captured more frequently and cannot withstand prolonged submergence.