Environmental Education: Biodiversity

Environmental education was a principal topic on the agenda of the Stockholm 1972 Conference. In response to its recommendation UNESCO and UNEP developed and launched the International Environmental Education Program (IEEP) in 1977. Environmental education was perceived to encompass in-school and out-of-school activities and public awareness. Later developments added training to its objectives and the concept of sustainable development to its dimensions. The international Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) represented a phase in the world commitment to conservation of nature. It underpinned biodiversity in the fields of environmental education. Biodiversity education is based on five pivots: scale of boundaries (from local to worldwide), perspectives, goals, themes (vary according to actors), and assimilation (evaluation of programs of action). Directions relate to learners and teachers, and processes address: awareness, school education, education (and professional training) at tertiary level, roles of communication and media institutions.     

A 'Principled' Approach to Complex Emergencies: Testing a New Aid Delivery Model in the Nuba Mountains

This paper provides an analysis of the Nuba Mountains Programme Advancing Conflict Trans-formation (NMPACT) as an example of an operational response in a complex emergency that innovatively addressed an incipient food security crisis. NMPACT is notable for having brought together an array of actors around a common principled agenda and for being the only operational programme in the Sudan to which both warring parties subscribed during the conflict. The key features of the programme are presented and the main innovative elements are reviewed, including the role of the principles of engagement and the 'political humanitarianism' of NMPACT. The paper looks at how NMPACT broke from traditional externally driven responses to food insecurity, and, drawing on lessons from Operation Lifeline Sudan, adopted an approach that focuses on capacity building, sustainable agriculture and market revitalisation, alongside conflict transformation and peace-building. The limitations of the model are also assessed, and preliminary lessons regarding its replication in other complex emergency contexts are presented.     

War and Food Security in Eritrea and Ethiopia, 1998–2000

This paper examines the 1998–2000 'border' war between Eritrea and Ethiopia and its continuing legacies from the perspective of food security.¹ Focusing on the food crisis that hit both countries during the same period and was allowed to develop into a famine in southeast Ethiopia, it argues that this was linked with the war in more ways than hitherto recognised. Such connections can be appreciated only by taking a longer-term view of the decline of the rural economy of which this food crisis was part, factoring in the role played by this and other conflicts that have flared up in the region. An analysis of this kind might have helped donors and aid agencies to respond more effectively both to short-term humanitarian needs in the midst of an inter-state war and to the need for longer-term support for food security in a region beset by endemic conflict.     

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF AGRICULTURE,GROUND WATER QUALITY MANAGEMENT,AND AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH1

ABSTRACT: The growing problem of nonpoint source ground water contamination from agricultural chemicals is conceptualized as an historical outcome of the production environment of capitalist agriculture in the Corn Belt. Chronic overproduction and ground water contamination reveal different aspects of the same technological treadmill. The debate over Iowa's 1987 Ground Water Protection Act symbolizes the contradiction between popular demand for clean water and structural limits on policymaking. Although the Act does provide for expanded research, education, and monitoring, a coalition of commercial farmers, local chemical dealers, and the national chemical industry defeated a tax on pesticide use. Analysis of alternate policy responses - Best Management Practices (BMPs), cross compliance, site-specific regulation of chemical use, and taxation of synthetic chemicals - reveals that all tend to founder on the same structural constraints. Without practical, profitable, low-input technologies that farmers, over time, would choose to adopt, both voluntary and regulatory approaches encounter major political or implementation difficulties. The public agricultural research agenda, therefore, emerges as a central control variable for ground water quality management and a central focus for political struggle.     

Environmental risk: Management strategies in the developing world

This paper describes a heuristic model which helps to relate a developing nation's environmental risk to the level of sophistication appropriate in adjusting management strategy to dealing with environmental hazards. The model takes into account three factors: the degree of risk, the stage of economic growth, and the sophistication of adjustment. The interrelationship of these factors is examined, and the role of international cooperation in establishing strategies is outlined.     

A transition in the Dutch wastewater system? The struggle between discourses and with lock-ins

ABSTRACT

Recently, calls have increased for a paradigm shift or transition towards resource recovery and a circular economy in the Dutch wastewater system. However, we have observed diverging interpretations on the nature of the transition. This reflects the political environment of sustainability transitions: political struggle emerges over the definition of problems, futures and strategies to be used. In order to help clarify the emerging debate and identify political choices, we conducted a discourse analysis. We identified three discourses that reveal some of the political choices to be made. One discourse is becoming dominant and focusses on optimising the large-scale infrastructure, market development and legislative changes. The discourse draws on the existing infrastructure and current political-economic institutions, which gives it an advantage in becoming dominant. Our findings also suggest that this discourse shapes a transition pathway that is characterised by lock-in effects and, at most, incremental changes instead of a fundamental shift in the established Dutch wastewater system.     

The International Environmental Expert Panel for Major Dam/Reservoir Projects: The Yellow River, China

The experience of the International Expert Panel on Environment for the Xiaolangdi dam/reservoir project in China (XEP) showed that the Panel meetings resulted in a marked improvement in project environmental performance by all parties participating in project implementation, with no parties exempt from the Panel's evaluations. Unfortunately the Loan Agreement authorizes use of the Panel only through the project stages of final design and construction, hence the 12th Panel meeting, which matched project construction completion, ended this series. The Panel has recommended that some meetings of the Panel be held during the project's operations stage in order to maintain continuing attention to environmental needs. The XEP experience showed that the XEP, in addition to monitoring project environmental performance, was very valuable for (i) training of Chinese staff involved in project implementation, and (ii) serving in the role as expert consultant for guiding the work of the Chinese participants. The XEP experience also showed the need for making a clear separation between evaluation, the overall resettlement program per se, and the environmental effects of the program. The Panel recommended that the Ministry of Water Resources and World Bank cooperate in sponsoring a book on The Environmental History of the Xiaolangdi Project, including both dam construction as well as resettlement problems, which would serve as a very valuable reference for guiding environmental planning for future dam projects in China (Ludwig, H.F. 1994–2000).     

温室效应与全球变化（四）：通过国际谈判与合作减少全球人为二氧化碳的排放

在限制人为二氧化碳的排放以控制全球变化的问题上，发达国家与发展中国家之间存在着尖锐的利益冲突。目前，大气中人为增加的二氧化碳绝大中份是发达国家在过去１５０年内排放的。它们目前的排放量仍占全球人为排放量的四分之三。发展中国家在经济发展过程中不可避免地要增加二氧化碳的排放量，这是它们正当的发展权利。作者讨论了各种限制人为二氧化碳排放的国际协定方案，认为可交易的二氧化碳排放许可证制度是比较现实的方案。     

A biotechnological agenda for the third world

Third World countries should exploit the genetic information stored in their flora and fauna to develop independent and highly competitive biotechnological and pharmaceutical industries. The necessary condition for this policy to succeed is the reshaping of their universities and hospitals—to turn them into high-caliber research institutions dedicated to the creation of original knowledge and biomedical invention. Part of the service of the Third World foreign debt should be co-invested with the lending banks in high technology enterprises. This should be complemented with an active program of investments in First World biotech companies and university research departments which could contribute to the solving of problems connected with the First World. These strategic alliances would allow effective training of molecular biologists, improvement of South American universities, and education of biotechnologists, managers, and lawyers in the complexities of high-technology business. The establishment of real joint ventures between developed and underdeveloped countries might contribute to change the present strained relations between the North and the South, and science and technology could become real forces of social and economic development.     

环保国际履约中企业的资金机制分析

目前,中国参加了50多项涉及环境保护的国际条约,并积极履行这些条约规定的义务。履行这些国际条约需要中国企业的积极支持与参与,在此从中国签署的国际条约出发,分析中国企业所承担的责任和资金机制,为探讨中国POPs行动计划的企业投融资措施提供借鉴。