Structural challenges that contributed to the decline of the communities for climate protection programme

In 2004 New Zealand's (NZ) Labour-led government launched the Communities for Climate Protection – NZ (CCP-NZ) programme. Following a shift in Government leadership in 2008, from Clark's Labour-led to Key's National-led government, the CCP-NZ programme was discontinued. Through the narratives of managers charged with the implementation and delivery of the CCP-NZ programme, this paper explores the structural challenges that contributed to the initiative's decline in NZ local government. This research contributes to the academic literature by shedding light on the outworking of a local government carbon management strategy. Additionally, this study provides policy makers and managers seeking to embark on organisational carbon mitigation the opportunity to glean insight from the experience of public sector managers responsible for the CCP-NZ programme.     

农村环境治理中的政府责任再论析:元治理视域

当前,我国农村环境问题日益突出。如何实现农村环境的有效治理,学者从不同角度进行了探讨。无论学者如何强调PPP模式的意义、如何强调社会公众以及社会组织的作用,研究最后基本都会指向政府责任。本论文的创新之处就在于重新强调农村环境治理中的政府责任,特别是将其置于元治理视域下进行论析。元治理即治理的治理,元治理并不排斥治理主体的多元化,但更加重视和强调政府在社会治理中的重要性。根据元治理理论,政府在农村环境治理中的责任可以界定为:农村环境治理成本的承担者和多元治理体系的构建者,PPP模式的设计和监督者,社会组织参与治理的支持者和农民参与治理的引导者。当前,农村环境治理中政府责任担当存在的主要问题包括,政府农村环境治理投入不足和治理体系不完善、PPP模式中政府监督责任弱化、对社会组织参与治理的支持不足以及对农民参与治理的引导不够。元治理视域下农村环境治理中政府责任的实现,不仅需要政府承担起最主要治理主体责任,而且需要政府积极引领其他主体参与到农村环境治理中来,形成治理合力。具体而言,应以财政投入增加和多元治理体系构建实现政府最主要主体责任,同时,政府应以监督责任强化为重点保障PPP模式实施,以发展能力提升积极支持社会组织参与,以环境意识和制度信任水平提高等引导农民参与。     

国家公园领域财政事权划分改革研究

随着自然保护地的整合优化和财政体制改革的深入推进,对国家公园领域财政事权和支出责任进行明确划分、界定,对于建立健全国家公园领域资金保障机制具有重要意义,有助于建立政府间权责明晰、协同有序的国家公园治理体系。本文在梳理我国国家公园领域财政事权清单、分析财政支出责任划分现状及存在问题的基础上,根据中央有关国家公园事权的文件以及部门机构职责、中央和地方财政关系的制度特点,提出我国国家公园领域政府间财政事权和支出责任划分的总体思路与政策建议,为建立以国家公园为主体的自然保护地体系提供决策参考。     

Physiological and behavioral aspects of Calanus euxinus females (Copepoda: Calanoida) during vertical migration across temperature and oxygen gradients

 In the Black Sea, during summer stratification, Calanus euxinus (Hulsemann) undertakes diel vertical migrations with an amplitude of about 117 m from oxygenated, warm (18 °C) surface layers to hypoxic (∼0.8 mg O₂ l⁻¹) zones with lower temperature (7.9 °C). When such changes in temperature and oxygen concentration are reproduced in the laboratory, total metabolism, basal metabolism and scope of activity of copepods decrease 7.2, 7.8 and 6.7 times, respectively, while the frequency of locomotory acts and mechanical power decline 3.4- and 9.5-fold, respectively. These changes allowed the copepods to conserve a significant portion of food consumed near the surface for transformation to lipid reserves. Diel respiratory oxygen consumption of migrating individuals, calculated so as to include actual duration of residence in layers with different temperature and oxygen concentrations, is estimated at 17.87 μg O₂ ind⁻¹. The net energy cost of vertical migration made up only 11.6% of the total. Copepods expend 78.6% of diel energy losses during approximately 10 h in the surface layers, while about 5.4% is required during about 9 h at depth. Hypoxia is shown to have a significant metabolic advantage during diel vertical migrations of C. euxinus in the Black Sea. Received: 1 October 1999 / Accepted: 11 July 2000     

Assessment and mapping of environmental quality in agricultural soils of Zhejiang Province, China

Heavy metal concentrations in agricultural soils of Zhejiang Province were monitored to indicate the status of heavy metal contamination and assess environmental quality of agricultural soils. A total of 908 soil samples were collected from 38 counties in Zbejiang Province and eight heavy metal （Cd, Cr, Pb, Hg, Cu, Zn, Ni and As） concentrations had been evaluated in agricultural soil. It was found 775 samples were unpolluted and 133 samples were slightly polluted and more respectively, that is approximately 14.65% agricultural soil samples had the heavy metal concentration above the threshold level in this province by means of Nemerow＇s synthetical pollution index method according to the second grade of Standards for Soil Environmental Quality of China （GB15618- 1995）. Contamination of Cd was the highest, followed by Ni, As and Zn were lower correspondingly. Moreover, Inverse Distance Weighted （IDW） interpolation method was used to make an assessment map of soil environmental quality based on the Nemerow＇s pollution index and the soil environmental quality was categorized into five grades. Moreover, ten indices were calculated as input parameters for principal component analysis （PCA） and the principal components （PCs） were created to compare environmental quality of different soils and regions. The results revealed that environmental quality of tea soils was better than that of paddy soils, vegetable soils and fruit soils. This study indicated that GIS combined with multivariate statistical approaches proved to be effective and powerful tool in the mapping of soil contamination distribution and the assessment of soil environmental quality on provincial scale, which is beneficial to environmental protection and management decision-making by local government.     

农地非农化问题研究述评

土地是农业最基本的生产要素，随着经济的发展和城市化进程的加快，农地非农化规模越来越大，农用地的减少引发了我国粮食和生态安全等问题，“吃饭”与建设之间的矛盾日益突出。对此，国内外学者对农地非农化问题进行了大量研究，分析了我国农地非农化的现状和发展趋势，综述了部分学者的观点。     

公用事业民营化及其环境行为政府管制的研究

公用事业民营化的目的是在公用事业行业引入民间资本和市场竞争模式,提高公共产品服务的产出质量和效率。以电力行业的民营化为例,电力市场对于民营企业的开放能够在很大程度上提高我国电力生产水平．解决当前电力供求关系紧张的问题。但是,大量民营企业介入电力生产,由于其技术落后而导致的资源浪费以及污染物的无序排放给我国的环境保护带来了新的困扰。我们应该在科学发展观和构建社会主义和谐社会的目标指引下,加强政府对于电力企业等公用事业民营化企业生产经营活动的法律管制,同时加强和完善相关的环境立法,达到公用事业积极发展和环境保护目标实现的双赢目标。     

巨灾债券与政府灾害救助

发生概率小而损失巨大的巨灾无疑对国民经济有着重要的影响。我国幅员辽阔，尽管每年灾害的性质和发生地点不同，但是损失总量和政府救灾的支付总量却是一个稳定的大数，然而依然不能满足救灾与恢复生产的需要。借鉴经济发达国家保险业的巨灾债券，首次提出在政府救灾中引入市场机制——发行政府巨灾债券。这对于投资者是收益高的风险投资，对于政府可以减轻公共财政负担，而对于受灾地区则可以获得更多的资金支援，加快恢复生产，保证经济增长的稳定性。     

Improved source,improved quality? Demand for drinking water quality in rural India

This paper tests the hypothesis that the expansion of improved drinking water supplies in rural India reduced household expenditure on water quality, offsetting some of the quality benefits from source protection. I estimate demand for in-home treatment using geological characteristics to predict a household's drinking water source. The probability of treatment and in particular boiling reduces by 18–27 percentage points in response to source protection, offsetting 4% of the water quality gains and saving households 0.5–1% in monthly expenditure. Behavioral choices partly counteract the water quality gains from source protection.     

Sustainability,education and local government: insights from the Australian state of Victoria

Local government (LG) is increasingly playing a role in tackling environmental issues and promoting sustainability. An important element of this LG focus is sustainability education and engagement, yet only few details on the nature of these activities are evident. Similarly there is little understanding of the professional competencies required by LG staff to deliver the relevant sustainability education and engagement activities. A web-based survey of LG sustainability officers in the State of Victoria (Australia) provides insight into the focus of these officers’ work and the competencies they rely on. The findings seek to guide the training and employment of LG sustainability staff and the effective delivery of sustainability education and engagement activities. Broadly, the sustainability officers surveyed are closely involved with activities within their LG organisation, but are engaging less so with specific education institutions, organisational sectors and the community in general. In keeping with this, the major sustainability education and engagement focuses are collaboration with peers and stakeholders, rather than community-wide initiatives. For undertaking sustainability education and engagement activities, systems-thinking, anticipatory competence and normative competence were highlighted as important; however, strategic competence and interpersonal competence were considered most important.