Strategies for Rebuilding Closer Links between Local Indigenous Communities and Their Customary Fisheries in Aotearoa/New Zealand

There is a growing recognition that knowledge of indigenous communities, based on accumulated observations and experience over time, is significant for sustainable environmental management in collaboration with modern scientific knowledge. A number of innovative policy initiatives are currently being implemented in New Zealand to enable indigenous Maori tribes and sub-tribes to rehabilitate and manage their local fisheries in accordance with customary values and practices. These policies are an important milestone from an historical perspective as they are meant to recognise and empower the role of Maori as Treaty partners. The fisheries management regime in New Zealand now provides for Maori representation at the local level within a co-management framework that enables local Maori communities to exercise their customary rights. These institutional arrangements have been crafted to facilitate Maori input, based on customary values and practices, to complement modern Western management practices for sustainable harvesting of marine resources. Nevertheless, the degree to which these initiatives constitute an adequate response to Maori Treaty aspirations is debatable. A major constraint in this respect is that the government is compelled to recognise the needs of other, economically and politically more dominant, non-Maori user-groups in allocating and managing access to fishery resources and the marine environment.     

Evidence for biodegradation and volatilisation of dissolved petroleum hydrocarbons during in situ air sparging in large laboratory columns

Laboratory column experiments run for up to 13 days compared air sparging of groundwater contaminated by dissolved petroleum hydrocarbons in sterile and non-sterile aquifer sediments as well as uncontaminated sediments and groundwater. Loss of dissolved BTEX compounds in the contaminated columns was very rapid, occurring through volatilisation. The majority of the dissolved total organic carbon (TOC) persisted for much longer periods however. A direct comparison between losses from sterile and non-sterile columns suggested a negligible contribution of biodegradation to the removal of TOC. This was difficult to confirm through examination of O₂ utilisation because oxidation of a small amount of reduced sulphur in the aquifer materials was the dominant sink for O₂. Despite this, it was possible to conclude that less than 22% of the removal of TOC was through biodegradation during the first three days of air sparging.     

State Park Directors' Perceptions of Mountain Biking

/ This study intended to explore the perceptions of mountain bikingmanagement through a mail survey of state park directors in all 50 states.With a 100% response rate, it was found that 47 states permit mountainbiking in their state parks, however, few state parks have formalized plansto manage this outdoor activity. The management policies that do exist arenot followed on a statewide basis but vary within each state and at eachstate park. Many states have worked cooperatively with local mountain bikingclubs to develop and maintain mountain bike trails, promote rider education,and provide volunteer patrols on trails. The issue of user conflict surfacedwith almost three-fourths of the managers responding that conflict existedbetween mountain bikers and other trail users. This preliminary study shouldprompt further research with on-site managers focusing on the use ofmanagement plans for mountain biking, cooperation between managers and usergroups, and user conflict. It is recommended that an Internet-basedinformation clearinghouse or discussion group be made available to landmanagers by a national bicycling organization.KEY WORDS: Mountain biking; State parks; State park directors;Recreation resource management     

ENVIRONMENTAL AUDITING: An Approach for Characterizing Tropospheric Ozone Risk to Forests

/ The risk tropospheric ozone poses to forests in the United States is dependent on the variation in ozone exposure across the distribution of the forests in question and the various environmental and climate factors predominant in the region. All these factors have a spatial nature, and consequently an approach to characterization of ozone risk is presented that places ozone exposure-response functions for species as seedlings and model-simulated tree and stand responses in a spatial context using a geographical information systems (GIS). The GIS is used to aggregate factors considered important in a risk characterization, including: (1) estimated ozone exposures over forested regions, (2) measures of ozone effects on species' and stand growth, and (3) spatially distributed environmental, genetic, and exposure influences on species' response to ozone. The GIS-based risk characterization provides an estimation of the extent and magnitude of the potential ozone impact on forests. A preliminary risk characterization demonstrating this approach considered only the eastern United States and only the limited empirical data quantifying the effect of ozone exposures on forest tree species as seedlings. The area-weighted response of the annual seedling biomass loss formed the basis for a sensitivity ranking: sensitive-aspen and black cherry (14%-33% biomass loss over 50% of their distribution); moderately sensitive-tulip popular, loblolly pine, eastern white pine, and sugar maple (5%-13% biomass loss); insensitive-Virginia pine and red maple (0%-1% loss). In the future, the GIS-based risk characterization will include process-based model simulations of the three- to 5-year growth response of individual species as large trees with relevant environmental interactions and model simulated response of mixed stands. The interactive nature of GIS provides a tool to explore consequences of the range of climate conditions across a species' distribution, forest management practices, changing ozone precursors, regulatory control strategies, and other factors influencing the spatial distribution of ozone over time as more information becomes available.KEY WORDS: Ecological risk assessment; GIS; Ozone; Risk characterization; Forests; Trees     

Integration of Environmental Assessment into the Regional Development Planning Process of the Galilee

/ The Galilee region on the northern edge of Israel constitutes more than 15% of the state's territory, supplies more than half of its drinking water needs, and is an important recreational resource and destination for Israelis. One of the main objectives of the plan for the Galilee was to devise a regional physical and economic development strategy for the years 1992-2007 that would arrest the trend of emigration of its residents, attract newly arrived immigrants to the region, and at the same time protect natural resources and environmental quality. This paper is limited to discussion of the environmental aspects of the plan. It analyzes spatial concepts for distribution of projected population growth, evaluates environmental impacts of alternative plans, and proposes a decision-making framework and tools for minimizing natural resources loss from development at the local level. Assessment of potential environmental impacts generated quantitative data of natural resources areas. Application of the data in the plan evaluation stage showed that the alternative that concentrated most of the new development in central Galilee was the second-best choice environmentally, but was preferred as the best choice for overall qualities. The planning study offers an alternative environmental impact assessment (EIA) process to the one presently used in Israel by incorporating environmental considerations at the initial plan-making stage and not at the plan-approval stage. It demonstrated that in order to be effective, environmental assessment and land-use planning should be seen as one effort that is integrated from the start and in each stage of the plan-making process.KEY WORDS: Environmental assessment; Development planning; Galilee     

Send in the Clones ... Don't Bother, They're Here

The creation of a cloned sheep from mammary tissue has raisedmajor social concern, and much talk about major ethical issuesoccasioned by this technology. It is necessary to separategenuine from spurious ethical issues here, a task made failureto initiate ethical discussion and explanation of new technologyas well as by fear reactions in society. As in geneticengineering of animals, issues about cloning fall into threecategories – suggestions that the technology is inherently wrong,risk emerging from the technology and harm to the creatureengendered. The issues regarding the cloning of humans can beanalyzed using the same categories.     

Evaluation of the california environmental quality act

The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) has evolved from a mini-NEPA, first enacted in 1970, into a procedural act that affects the approval process of all large developments in California. In 1990, California local governments produced over 1600 environmental impact reports and 30,000 initial studies under CEQA. Because of its widespread use, CEQA has periodically drawn the attention of the state legislature, most recently in 1993, when over 60 CEQA reform bills were introduced. This paper describes the CEQA process and evaluates its success at meeting its explicit and implicit goals. The research includes a statewide survey of CEQA practice, sent to the planning departments of all 513 local governments in California in 1991. Survey respondents agreed that CEQA helps in evaluating environmental impacts, reducing impacts, informing the public, and coordinating public agency review. It is effective in reducing the environmental impacts of individual projects, but is not as effective in improving environmental quality on an areawide scale. This research concludes that CEQA has led to positive outcomes and is not as deeply flawed as many of its critics claim. Still, CEQA as currently designed may not be the optimal vehicle for ensuring environmental quality.