美国大气排污许可证制度分析及启示

介绍了美国大气排污许可证制度的类型及适用范围、申领门槛及流程、内容及执行情况,指出美国通过实施预建许可证与运营许可证制度,实现了对新、改建固定污染源及现有固定污染源的全过程监管。结合我国大气排污许可证制度存在的问题,提出了进一步完善法律支撑、加强计量体系建设、加大许可证执行力度等建议。     

Colombia's discharge fee program: Incentives for polluters or regulators?

Colombia's discharge fee system for water effluents is often held up as a model of a well-functioning, economic incentive pollution control program in a developing country. Yet few objective evaluations of the program have appeared. Based on a variety of primary and secondary data, this paper finds that in its first 5 years, the program was beset by a number of serious problems including limited implementation in many regions, widespread noncompliance by municipal sewerage authorities, and a confused relationship between discharge fees and emissions standards. Nevertheless, in some watersheds, pollution loads dropped significantly after the program was introduced. While proponents claim the incentives that discharge fees created for polluters to cut emissions in a cost-effective manner were responsible, this paper argues that the incentives they created for regulatory authorities to improve permitting, monitoring, and enforcement were at least as important.     

中美湿地保护立法比较研究

本文对中美湿地保护的立法概念、立法体系、立法特色内容等进行了比较,总结了美国湿地保护立法中可供我国借鉴的经验,并为我国瘟地保护立法相关内容的构建和完善提出了建议。     

Improving Conservation Outcomes with Insights from Local Experts and Bureaucracies

We describe conservation built on local expertise such that it constitutes a hybrid form of traditional and bureaucratic knowledge. Researchers regularly ask how local knowledge might be applied to programs linked to protected areas. By examining the production of conservation knowledge in southern Mexico, we assert local expertise is already central to conservation. However, bureaucratic norms and social identity differences between lay experts and conservation practitioners prevent the public valuing of traditional knowledge. We make this point by contrasting 2 examples. The first is a master's thesis survey of local experts regarding the biology of the King Vulture (Sarcoramphus papa) in which data collection took place in communities adjacent to the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve. The second is a workshop sponsored by the same reserve that instructed farmers on how to monitor endangered species, including the King Vulture. In both examples, conservation knowledge would not have existed without traditional knowledge. In both examples, this traditional knowledge is absent from scientific reporting. On the basis of these findings, we suggest conservation outcomes may be improved by recognizing the knowledge contributions local experts already make to conservation programming. Mejorando los Resultados de la Conservación con la Percepción de Expertos y Burócratas Locales Haenn et al.     

Modelling potential habitat for cougars in midwestern North America

Cougars (Puma concolor) are of considerable interest to wildlife biologists and the general public in midwestern North America, yet no researchers have modelled potential habitat in the region. We created a model of potential cougar habitat in 9 midwestern states using geospatial data, expert-opinion surveys, the analytical hierarchy process, and a GIS. About 8% of the study region contained highly favorable habitat (with favorability scores ≥75%) for cougars; the states of Arkansas (19%) and Missouri (16%) contained the highest proportions of potentially favorable habitat. We identified 6 large (≥2500 km² in size), contiguous areas of highly favorable habitat for cougars. Model testing procedures indicated a valid model when compared to an independent set of cougar locations, a null dataset, and similar studies. Our model is useful as a planning tool to proactively address future human-cougar conflicts should cougars re-colonize the Midwest via subadult dispersal.     

中美环境影响评价制度若干问题比较

比较中国与美国环境影响评价制度的法律依据，评价范围，评价者与评价内容，中美环境法中均规定了该项制度、但美国法院判例也成为重要依据；与中国不同的是，美国环境影响评价之评价对象的唯一限制条件是“对人类有重大影响”，公众参与原则在美国环境影响评价制度中贯彻较好，美国环境影响报告书包括真实可行的替代方案。     

More than just linking the nodes: civil society actors as intermediaries in the design and implementation of payments for ecosystem services–the case of a blue carbon project in Costa Rica

While in many cases the benefits of ecosystem services (ES) can be enjoyed on different scales, the provision of ES requires engagement and commitment at the local scale. Therefore, the local level becomes important when thinking about compensation schemes or payments for ecosystem services (PES) as an approach to managing ES. The difficult task of bringing together different actors and institutions at different scales for specific conservation projects at the local level often remains in the hands of intermediaries. In this paper, we investigate the role of a civil society organisation (CSO) as an intermediary organisation in a PES scheme, the Community Blue Carbon Project (CBCP) in Costa Rica. To assess the role of intermediaries in a PES scheme, we rely on social network analysis and examine the position and role of the intermediary organisation. Based on Net-Map interviews, which is an interview-based mapping tool that helps people understand, visualise, discuss and improve situations in which many different actors influence outcomes, we find that the intermediary organisation in the CBCP is composed of several institutional and individual intermediaries who create both formal networks for connecting the international to the local level and informal networks for creating trusting relationships among the actors. Different spatial levels are reflected within the CSO’s organisational structure, and the CSO mitigates the distributional, procedural, recognition and contextual aspects of environmental justice.     

Has the bell tolled for the North American mineral and metal industry?

The author examines the reasons behind the current state of the North American metal mining industry. Taking demand-side factors first, he explains the dramatic fall in metals consumption. External shocks are seen to have affected the previously well rationalized structure of supply in the 1960s, bringing about an increase in production costs and limiting capacity for industrial rationalization. At the beginning of the 1980s, the situation is seen to have been exacerbated by a larger number of producers, more supply sources and an increase in costs. During the course of the decade, the author relates how the situation worsened due to the strength of the US dollar and high interest rates.     

WATER DIVERSIONS TO THE NORTH AMERICAN PRAIRIES1

ABSTRACT .The major purpose of existing and proposed diversions of water to the Prairies is for irrigation. Being flat lands adaptable to mechanized agriculture and possessing a good network of rail and highway access, they are well suited for such use. Wheat surpluses, currently a serious problem in Canada, can be expected to melt under world population pressures and conversion of wheat lands to other crops with the advent of irrigation. The water sources envisaged are in the Canadian Arctic watershed with the United States purchasing Canadian water at the boundary. There is an increasing interest in the Canadian Prairie Provinces in regarding water as a commodity and selling some of it to pay for the development required to put the portion retained in Canada to use.     

中美两国环境空气质量标准比较

比较了中美两国环境空气质量标准的制定依据、功能区划分、标准级别、污染物项目、取值时间和污染物质量浓度限值等内容。指出美国环境空气质量标准的修订频次高于我国；污染物控制项目较我国少；标准级别的制定和污染物质量浓度限值总体上较我国宽松。但是，美国环境空气质量标准注重对人体健康影响较大的污染物如PM2.5的控制。