Sustainable Development in Small Island Developing States

This paper explores the status of sustainable development in small island developing states (SIDS), through the presentation of a case study on the Maldives, which is a typical small island developing state in the Central Indian Ocean. At the outset, a brief history of sustainable development as related to SIDS on the international agenda is outlined, starting from Rio to Barbados to Johannesburg. SIDS are expected to face many challenges and constraints in pursuing sustainable development due to their ecological fragility and economic vulnerability. It is the position of this paper that issues related to environmental vulnerability are of the greatest concern. A healthy environment is the basis of all life-support systems, including that of human well-being and socio-economic development. Priority environmental problems are: climate change and sea-level rise, threats to biodiversity, threats to freshwater resources, degradation of coastal environments, pollution, energy and tourism. Among these, climate change and its associated impacts are expected to pose the greatest threat to the environment and therefore to sustainable development. For small islands dependent on fragile marine ecosystems, in particular on coral reefs, for their livelihoods and living space, adverse effects of climate change such as increased frequency of extreme weather events and sea-level rise will exacerbate the challenges they already face. It is concluded that the paper path from Rio to Barbados to Johannesburg has made significant progress. However, much remains to be done at the practical level, particularly by the developed countries in terms of new and additional efforts at financial and technical assistance, to make sustainable development a reality for SIDS.     

Poverty Reduction and Sustainable Development

The prominent place of the chapter on poverty in the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (JPI) is totally in keeping with the priority given to poverty reduction in the development thinking of the international community of today. The Johannesburg process did not lead to any new insights or new commitments in the fight against poverty. Section one sets out a factual comparison of the poverty chapters in Rio's Agenda 21 (AG21) and in the JPI. Section two reviews the conceptual links between poverty reduction and sustainable development, since poverty is used both as a dependent and as an independent variable. This analysis shows a shift in the function of growth as related to environmental protection. Section three explores the naturalization of development thinking in its economic and social dimensions and shows how this affects the policy options for social protection. I also explain how social and environmental sustainability have become elements of risk management and how are both aimed at conflict prevention and enhanced growth. Finally, in section four three lines of action are suggested to enhance the emergence of a socially meaningful sustainable development agenda that, ideally, would make poverty reduction strategies redundant.     

INTERNATIONAL DECADE ON DRINKING WATER AND SANITATION1

ABSTRACT: The UN conference on Human Settlements (HABITAT) held in June 1976 at Vancouver, Canada, concluded that nearly two-thirds of the population of the developing world lacked access to safe drinking water and that a larger proportion lacked the means for hygienic human waste disposal. The conference urged governments to give priority to these two areas in their developement process. In March 1977, the UN Water Conference, held at Mar del Plata, Argentina, called for establishing the 1980's as the Decade for Drinking Water and Sanitation. The goal would be to bring clean water and sanitation to all peoples in the world by 1990. Since March 1979, four separate UN bodies have passed resolutions supporting the Decade and calling on all governments to support the Decade's goals. The U.S. Government, other OECD member states, and the private sector must combine to make this Decade a success.     

Examining the determinants of public environmental concern: Evidence from national public surveys

Early research showed that citizens’ environmental concern in the United States was linked to three individual-level factors: socio-demographic variables, political orientations, and personal beliefs or worldviews about human-nature relations. Given many changes in the American society over the last several decades, one important, yet unanswered question is whether these factors still drive public environmental concern in the United States today, and if so, to what extent. This study, drawing from extant theoretical and empirical studies, aims to reinvestigate the determinants of citizens’ environmental concern by employing three national public surveys conducted in 2004, 2007, and 2013. Our data analyses confirm and expand the findings of previous research on the significance and importance of political ideology, fundamental beliefs about human-nature relations, and certain socioeconomic factors such as gender and race in explaining citizens’ environmental concern. More specifically, political liberals, people with higher New Ecological Paradigm values, females, and Non-Whites tend to be more concerned about environmental problems than their counterparts are. Our data analyses also reveal some interesting findings when compared to many previous studies: first, our data indicate a positive relationship between age and environmental concern, suggesting that older people in the United States are more concerned about the environment than younger adults; second, unlike most past research showing a positive Education-Environmental Concern relationship, our study suggests that education level seems to have little effect in explaining citizens’ environmental concern measured in this study. Key implications for environmental policymaking and recommendations for future research are discussed in the conclusion.     

Assessment of Eutrophication in Estuaries: Pressure–State–Response and Nitrogen Source Apportionment

A eutrophication assessment method was developed as part of the National Estuarine Eutrophication Assessment (NEEA) Program. The program is designed to improve monitoring and assessment of eutrophication in the estuaries and coastal bays of the United States with the intent to guide management plans and develop analytical and research models and tools for managers. These tools will help guide and improve management success for estuaries and coastal resources. The assessment method, a Pressure-State-Response approach, uses a simple model to determine Pressure and statistical criteria for indicator variables (where applicable) to determine State. The Response determination is mostly heuristic, although research models are being developed to improve that component. The three components are determined individually and then combined into a single rating. Application to several systems in the European Union (E.U.), specifically in Portugal, shows that the method is transferable, and thus is useful for development of management measures in both the Unites States and E.U. This approach identifies and quantifies the key anthropogenic nutrient input sources to estuaries so that management measures can target inputs for maximum effect. Because nitrogen is often the limiting nutrient in estuarine systems, examples of source identification and quantification for nitrogen have been developed for 11 coastal watersheds on the U.S. east coast using the WATERSN model. In general, estuaries in the Northeastern United States receive most of their nitrogen from human sewage, followed by atmospheric deposition. This is in contrast to some watersheds in the Mid-Atlantic (Chesapeake Bay) and South Atlantic (Pamlico Sound), which receive most of their nitrogen from agricultural runoff. Source identification is important for implementing effective management measures that should be monitored for success using assessment methods, as described herein. For instance, these results suggest that Northeastern estuaries would likely benefit most from improved sewage treatment, where as the Mid and South Atlantic systems would benefit most from agricultural runoff reductions.     

Maintenance of Forest Biodiversity in a Post-Soviet Governance Model: Perceptions by Local Actors in Lithuania

Successful biodiversity conservation does not depend on ecologic knowledge alone. Good conservation policies and policy implementation tools are equally important. Moreover, the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of local actors, directly in charge of operations in the field, are a key to successful policy implementation. The connections between policy objectives and their implementation as well as the involvement of local actors’ efforts in implementing policy objectives largely depend on the governance model in use. This article assesses the knowledge of local actors in relation to the biodiversity conservation objectives and tools in Lithuanian forest management. As a main framework for this study, the needs assessment approach was applied. The study used both in-depth open-ended interviews and follow-up telephone interviews. Two state forest enterprises in Lithuania were selected as the study sites. The findings indicate that policy objectives in the field of forest biodiversity conservation and the related tools are well known but not well understood by those in charge of forest biodiversity policy implementation. To improve the situation, a transition toward adaptive learning and participatory governance as a means of facilitating conservation efforts is proposed.     

How robust is public support for unilateral climate policy?

Most governments emphasize the need for reciprocal (“give and take”) international commitments in global climate policy. Nonetheless, existing public opinion polls indicate strong support by individual citizens for unilateral climate policies as well. This raises the question of whether governments could, without risking electoral punishment, afford to pursue more ambitious unilateral climate policies, or whether surveys may have overestimated support for unilateralism due to measurement problems. Based on conjoint and framing experiments embedded in representative surveys in the world's two largest democracies, India and the United States, we engage in a critical re-assessment of earlier survey results. We find robust public support for unilateral climate policy in both countries. Such support declines with increasing costs and increases with growing co-benefits and problem solving effectiveness. We also find, however, that policy conditionality and possible institutional design mechanisms against free-riding by other states (which make the policy “less unilateral” by providing for reciprocation) play no significant role when citizens form their preferences with respect to climate policy. Neither is public support affected by whether policies focus on adaptation (which limits benefits to the investing country) or mitigation (which benefits all countries globally). Overall, these findings suggest that, in view of very slow progress in global climate policy, governments of rich and poor countries could politically afford to push ahead with more ambitious unilateral climate policies.     

Sustaining Economic Welfare: Estimating Changes in Total and Per Capita Wealth

Genuine saving measures the real change in0 total wealth, factoring in the depreciation of produced assets, depletion of natural resources, pollution damages, and expenditures on education. This paper presents a theoretical framework for measuring changes in wealth in total and per capita terms, establishes the link between savings measures and prospects for social welfare, and provides summary empirical estimates of the savings measures. China excepted, the majority of countries below median income are distinguished by apparent declines in total wealth per capita.     

Distribution of some trace metals and their fluxes in the Genesee River,NY

Total and particulate metal concentrations, measured during intensive synoptic studies of the Genesee River, NY, correlated with suspended-sediment concentration and river discharge. Dissolved metal concentrations, on the other hand, showed little systematic variation over the length of the river. Metal and sediment fluxes for two elevated-discharged periods peaked at a midbasin sampling site. For most metals at most sampling sties particulate materials comprised over one-half of the total material. Comparison of particulate material metal concentrations, normalized to the measured suspended-sediment concentrations had with basinwide average values shows that sites having low suspended-sediment concentrations had high particulate material metal contents relative to the basin averages, while sites with high suspended-sediment concentration had low metal contents. These results are consistent with a metal transport mechanism in the Genesee River involving (1) a nearly constant dissolved component, (2) a fine acid-soluble component, and (3) a coarse component that is effectively a neutral diluent in the sediment. Chemical factors, such as sediment organic content, also appear to affect metal transport in the Genesee River.