scholarly journals Review of Policy Instruments for Climate-Smart Mountain Forestry

2021 ◽  
pp. 477-506
Author(s):  
Lenka Dubova ◽  
Lenka Slavikova ◽  
João C. Azevedo ◽  
Johan Barstad ◽  
Paola Gatto ◽  
...  

AbstractImplementing the Climate-Smart Forestry (CSF) concept into practice requires interaction among key stakeholders, especially forest owners and managers, policymakers (or regulators in general), forest consultants, and forest users. But what could be the most effective policy instruments to achieve climate smartness in mountain forests? Which ones would be the most acceptable for forest owners? And for the local forest communities? Should they be designed and implemented with the use of participatory approaches or rather on a top-down basis? This chapter summarizes key policy instruments structured in three subsequent categories: command-and-control, voluntary market-based instruments, and community cooperation. It provides examples of their functioning in the forestry sector and discusses their suitability for the implementation of climate smart forestry. It appears that there are many policy instruments used with varying degrees of success such as forest concessions or voluntary certification schemes. A wide range of instruments are responding to direct regulation; this has been seen as insufficient to deal with natural hazards and calamities.

2020 ◽  
pp. 239965442096524
Author(s):  
Mariska JM Bottema ◽  
Simon R Bush ◽  
Peter Oosterveer

The Thai aquaculture sector faces a range of production, market and financial risks that extend beyond the private space of farms to include public spaces and shared resources. The Thai state has attempted to manage these shared risks through its Plang Yai (or ‘Big Area’) agricultural extension program. Using the lens of territorialization, this paper investigates how, through the Plang Yai program, risk management is institutionalized through spatially explicit forms of collaboration amongst farmers and between farmers and (non-)state actors. We focus on how four key policy instruments brought together under Plang Yai delimited multiple territories of risk management over shrimp and tilapia production in Chantaburi and Chonburi provinces. Our findings demonstrate how these policy instruments address risks through dissimilar but overlapping territories that are selectively biased toward facilitating the individual management of production risks, whilst enabling both the individual and collective management of market and financial risks. This raises questions about the suitability of addressing aquaculture risks by controlling farmer behavior through state-led designation of singular, spatially explicit areas. The findings also indicate the multiple roles of the state in territorializing risk management, providing a high degree of flexibility, which is especially valuable in landscapes shared by many users, connected to (global) value chains and facing diverse risks. In doing so we demonstrate that understanding the territorialization of production landscapes in a globalizing world requires a dynamic approach recognizing the multiplicity of territories that emerge in risk management processes.


2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rajeev Kumar Singh ◽  
Helmut Yabar ◽  
Rie Murakami-Suzuki ◽  
Noriko Nozaki ◽  
Randeep Rakwal

<p>Environmental policies are designed to deal with externalities either by internalizing environmental costs or imposing specific standards for environmental pollution. This study aims to examine the impact of environmental regulations related to End-of-Life Vehicles (ELV) on innovation in Japan. We determined whether there is any statistical difference in patent activity comparing the periods before and after the regulations were enacted. In order to control for exogenous factors such as business cycles, we also analyzed the ratios of ELV and total environmental patents during the same periods. Results showed that environmental regulations drive innovations and the number of ELV-related patents were larger even after controlling for such exogenous factors. We concluded that environmental policy for ELV in Japan was effective in inducing innovation. However, we also found that the weakness in these types of command and control policy is the lack of incentives for further innovation.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franziska Gaupp

&lt;p&gt;Currently, the global food system is the single largest threat to people and planet. Food is the leading cause behind transgressing five of the nine planetary boundaries. It is a major source of carbon emissions, as well as the single largest contributor to global deforestation, overuse of fresh water and eutrophication of our aquatic ecosystems. And while agriculture has been a major engine of poverty reduction, agricultural activities are unable to deliver a decent livelihood for an estimated 80 percent of those living in extreme poverty. The projected increase in frequency and severity of climate extreme events is posing additional threats to the global food system.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;A transformation towards a more inclusive, sustainable and health-promoting food system is urgently needed. This presentation will introduce the newly established Food Systems Economics Commission (FSEC) that provides detailed and robust evidence assessing the implications of the policy and investment decisions needed to foster a food system transformation. It integrates global modelling tools such as integrated assessment modelling and innovative applications of agent-based modelling with political economy considerations. &amp;#160;It investigates the hidden costs of our current food system, explores transitions pathways towards a new food and land use economy and suggests key policy instruments to foster the transformation towards a sustainable, inclusive, healthy and resilient food system.&lt;/p&gt;


Author(s):  
Jo Moriarty

Social care is the broad term for the support provided to people living at home and in care homes. Major changes have taken place to this sector in the past few years and this chapter describes the key policy developments that have impacted upon the kind of support provided to older people with mental health problems and how that support is funded. The policy of personalization is intended to increase choice and control, but as yet it is unclear whether this will lead to improved outcomes in terms of quality of life or independence. Some long-standing issues, such as the high prevalence of people with unidentified mental health problems in long-term care, continue to provide challenges for organizations providing social care support.


Environments ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Stubenrauch ◽  
Felix Ekardt

Plastic pollution in soils pose a major threat to soil health and soil fertility that are directly linked to food security and human health. In contrast to marine plastic pollution, this ubiquitous problem is thus far scientifically poorly understood and policy approaches that tackle plastic pollution in soils comprehensively do not exist. In this article, we apply a qualitative governance analysis to assess the effectiveness of existing policy instruments to avoid harmful plastic pollution in (agricultural) soils against the background of international environmental agreements. In particular, environmental and fertiliser legislation relevant to soil protection in the European Union and in Germany are assessed. Regulatory weaknesses and gaps of the respective legislation are identified, and proposals for enhanced command-and-control provisions developed. However, the legal analysis furthermore shows that plastic pollution ecologically is also a problem of quantity, which is difficult to solve exclusively through command-and-control legislation. Instead, comprehensive quantity-control instruments to phase out fossil fuels (worldwide and in all sectors) as required by climate protection law can be effective approaches to tackle plastic pollution in environmental media like agricultural soils as well.


Author(s):  
Jo Moriarty

Social care is the broad term for the support provided to people living at home and in care homes. Major changes have taken place to this sector in the past few years and this chapter describes the key policy developments that have impacted upon what support is provided to older people with mental health problems and how it is funded. The policy of personalisation is intended to increase choice and control but as yet it is unclear whether this will lead to improved outcomes in terms of quality of life or independence. Some longstanding issues such as the high prevalence of people with unidentified mental health problems in long term care continue to provide challenges for organisations providing social care support.


1994 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 327-341 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhongxiang Zhang

Increasing concern in scientific and policy making circles about the possibility of global warming induced by the accumulation of CO2 and other GHGs in the atmosphere has advanced for consideration of policies to limit emissions of these GHGs. This paper gives an overview of policy instruments that might be used to control CO2 emissions, including command-and-control approach, energy taxes, carbon taxes, and tradeable carbon permits, with special attention paid to the economic instruments. It highlights the differences between energy taxes and carbon taxes in terms of target achievement. It presents some main findings arising from those studies on carbon taxes, with the emphasis placed on some aspects of domestic carbon tax design and incidence. The allocations of emission permits (or reimbursement of carbon tax revenues) are also discussed. Moreover, a comparison of carbon taxes with tradeable carbon permits is briefly made. This paper ends with some conclusions.


2016 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Minhyeok Tak ◽  
Michael P Sam ◽  
Steven J Jackson

As match-fixing has emerged as a global problem, states and sports organisations have proposed a range of countermeasures. However, despite their neutral, technocratic appearance, these instruments produce their own political effects. Drawing from a case study of the 2011 South Korean ‘K-League’ football match-fixing scandal that resulted in a raft of countermeasures, this article examines how match-fixing countermeasures (re)organise the power relations within the sports betting industry. Using a qualitative, interpretive multi-method approach, three consequences are suggested. First, the education programme redefines sports ethics by delivering new codes of conduct that are aligned to the demands of betting. Second, regulations instituted by the K-League and the government frame the illegal activity as infringing upon the key stakeholders’ economic interests, further privileging the importance of the betting regime. Third, the sports betting monitoring system itself empowers the sole betting company as a trustworthy ‘fixer’ of the match-fixing problem through co-optation into its policy framework. Consequently, this study shows that key stakeholders manage the risk of losing legitimacy by showcasing their efforts to fight against match-fixing, while also taking advantage of the countermeasures to normalise the business of sports betting, thus furthering their own interests.


2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 544-561 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris I. Goodier ◽  
Ksenia Chmutina

Purpose – This paper aims to demonstrate the complex inter-relationship of non-technical barriers involved in the implementation of decentralised energy (DE) projects. To meet its ambitious 2050 target of 80 per cent carbon emission reduction, the UK needs to increase dramatically the wider uptake of DE systems. Many examples exist internationally of DE systems leading to enhanced carbon emissions reductions, including systems based not only on technological but also on more innovative policy, financial and social-economic approaches. Design/methodology/approach – Following semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders and thematic analysis with NVivo8, four exemplar international DE case studies have been investigated. Findings – The main non-technical barriers were not necessarily financial, as is often believed; governance barriers, such as out-of-date regulations or unreliable partners, can also play a critical role in a project’s success or failure. Social barriers such as public apathy and misinformation often affect a project’s operation. It is further hypothesised that non-technical barriers are often shaped by personal and/or organisational values related to consumption, abundance, trust and control. Finally, recommendations are provided on overcoming these barriers with regards replicating similar DE projects in the UK context. Originality/value – A systematic perspective is presented, which takes into account the possible interactions between the various barriers and demonstrates that to remove some of these barriers, it is important to understand and account for their varied and interconnected nature.


2003 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam G. Drucker ◽  
Uwe Latacz-Lohmann

Building on the extensive theoretical and empirical work regarding the cost-minimizing properties of economic instruments, this article describes and analyses the Mexican legislation relevant to the treatment/disposal of pig slurry in the state of Yucatán. Using a linear programming model to determine the optimal level of pig production and abatement processes simultaneously, different policy instruments and scenarios are compared. Serious shortcomings associated with the recently introduced command-and-control (CAC) legislation, which establishes concentration-based standards for discharges, are identified. It is shown that it will be extremely difficult and expensive to comply with (cost: US$41.8 million per annum). An alternative mass-based CAC approach, which instead regulates nitrogen applications to land, has compliance costs of US$3.5–US$9.4 million per annum, depending on the strictness of the standard. By contrast, an environmentally equivalent economic instrument approach results in additional cost savings of 22–25 per cent. The results are of relevance to Mexican policy makers, extensionists, researchers, and farmers.


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