Developing environmental governance research: the example of forest cover change studies

2011 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 234-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
LUCA TACCONI

SUMMARYEnvironmental problems are often complex and it is widely recognized that they cannot be satisfactorily addressed by single disciplines. The review of forest cover change studies points to the need to carry out research integrating economic, political, social and environmental aspects. Existing interdisciplinary study areas, namely ecological economics, political ecology, sustainability science and Earth system governance do not yet fully integrate all the required aspects. This paper points out that the establishment of greater synergies between those study areas would be beneficial in developing the broader study area of environmental governance. A definition of environmental governance as a subject of study is developed. Lack of an all encompassing theory of environmental governance is highlighted, while the improbability of such a theory is acknowledged. In relation to normative work, the refinement of principles of good environmental governance could support the design and prioritization of policies. Empirical research needs to include the testing of hypotheses arising from theoretical developments, assessment of policy uptake and new exploratory research. Methodologically, environmental governance might start from an interdisciplinary approach followed by further integration leading to a transdisciplinary study area that uses a mixed methods research approach.

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (22) ◽  
pp. 4589
Author(s):  
Kevin M. Woods ◽  
Panshi Wang ◽  
Joseph O. Sexton ◽  
Peter Leimgruber ◽  
Jesse Wong ◽  
...  

Armed conflict and geopolitics are a driving force of Land Use and Land Cover Change (LULCC), but with considerable variation in deforestation trends between broader and finer scales of analysis. Remotely-sensed annual deforestation rates from 1989 to 2018 are presented at the national and (sub-) regional scales for Kachin State in the north of Myanmar and in Kayin State and Tanintharyi Region in the southeast. We pair our multiscaled remote sensing analysis with our multisited political ecology approach where we conducted field-based interviews in study sites between 2018 and 2020. Our integrated analysis identified three common periods of deforestation spikes at the national and state/region level, but with some notable disparities between regions as well as across and within townships and village tracts. We found the rate and geography of deforestation were most influenced by the territorial jurisdictions of armed authorities, national political economic reforms and timber regulations, and proximity to national borders and their respective geopolitical relations. The absence or presence of ceasefires in the north and southeast did not solely explain deforestation patterns. Rather than consider ceasefire or war as a singular explanatory variable effecting forest cover change, we demonstrate the need to analyze armed conflict as a dynamic multisited and diffuse phenomenon, which is simultaneously integrated into broader political economy and geopolitical forces.


2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-241
Author(s):  
Theresia ◽  
Ricky Martin Sihombing ◽  
Florentina Simanungkalit

East Kalimantan is the location designated by President Jokowi Dodo as the new capital city of Indonesia. In terms of autonomy, the reason for moving the capital city according to the government is for the sake of equitable development. Decentralization is the idea and spirit of the founders of the state, with division of territories including their powers. This is stated in the provisions of Article 18 of the 1945 Constitution which encourage the implementation of regional autonomy in a broad and concrete manner, with the hope that disadvantaged areas can develop themselves and align themselves with other regions in order to advance welfare. The relocation of the new capital city will create new problems in this country, not only peat problems, but will result in ecological disasters. It is hoped that the relocation of the capital city will really be studied and evaluated because it will seriously threaten the sustainability of peatlands in East Kalimantan, where 0.3 million hectares are peatlands. The role of local government is very important because in its implementation in realizing good environmental governance, the ability of local governments to protect and manage the environment is needed. This study uses a qualitative research approach which is a scientific method used and carried out by a group of researchers in the field of social sciences, including education. Keywords: Peatland Restoration, Political Ecology, Respons to Indonesia Capital Relocation, Decentralization, Regional Autonomy


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 299-314
Author(s):  
R. Rudy ◽  
Y. Yonariza ◽  
Helvi Yanfika ◽  
Ali Rahmat ◽  
Winih Sekaringtyas Ramadhani ◽  
...  

This study analyzed the functions of shifting (phenomenon of legal pluralism) and identified forest conversion at Production Forest Management Unit of Dharmasraya (PFMU Dharmasraya), West Sumatra, Indonesia from March 2018 to December 2019 using a qualitative research design with a case study approach. The identification of changes in forest cover analyzed by satellite images using the NDVI method to obtain the distribution of forest cover. Discussion on legal pluralism were examined using a non-ethnographic qualitative research approach through interviews with local communities, companies/permit holders, and related institutions (government). From 2000 to 2019, the PFMU Dharmasraya forest area reduced from 86 to 12%, and plantations increased from 10 to 81% of the total area of 33,539 ha. The legal pluralism of forest ownership occurs because local communities use traditional law, claiming the PFMU Dharmasraya area as Ulayat land. In contrast, the government claims the forest belongs to the state. The motives for the conversion of forest functions are the expansion of oil palm and rubber plantations, forest clearing to mark forest ownership rights, and illegal logging.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 59-66
Author(s):  
Diwakar Prahaladaiah

Aim. "The ultimate aim became the realisation of the political ideas of democracy, equality, and social justice" (Orlenius, 2001; Svingby, 1994,p. 57). The current study aimed to explore the concept of value education at Poornaprajna institutions that have adopted value education in their curriculum. Methods.The study was designed in a qualitative exploratory research approach. The researcher had adopted the interviews for a case study as a microscopic social study through observation and also studied the archival records in Poornaprajna institutions. The informal group interviews were administered as part of a qualitative research approach, and it aimed to collect data from twenty eight English teachers and students of Poornaprajna institutions. Result. The validity and trustworthiness of the study were established by adopting Miles and Hubeman's formula, and it is 0.91. The exploration and findings revealed the need and implication of value education in the present scenario. Furthermore, the data analysis revealed that value education is a process that begins at home and continues in society, and further, it continues in formal educational institutions. Conclusion. The study envisions that the educational institutions must integrate the curriculum with value education so that students’ cultural worlds, meanings they attribute to behaviour, events which essentially lead to the developmental process of the society. The National Education Policy 2019, aims to universalise education in India by 2025, and it also aims at inter- and multidisciplinary approaches in Indian education. The present study juxtaposes an interdisciplinary approach to English and value education.


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Joanna Gardener ◽  
William Cartwright ◽  
Lesley Duxbury

This paper reports on the initial findings of an interdisciplinary study exploring perceptions of space and place through alternate ways of mapping. The research project aims to bring depth and meaning to places by utilising a combination of diverse influences and responses, including emotional, sensory, memory and imaginary. It investigates mapping from a designer’s perspective, with further narration from both the cartographic science and fine art perspectives. It examines the role of design and artistic expression in the cartographic process, and its capacity to effect and transform the appearance, reading and meaning of the final cartographic outcome (Robinson 2010). The crossover between the cartographic sciences and the work of artists who explore space and place enables an interrogation of where these fields collide or alternatively merge, in order to challenge the definition of a map. By exploring cartography through the overlapping of the distinct fields of science and art, this study challenges and questions the tipping point of when a map ceases to be a map and becomes art.


Author(s):  
Veronica Irene McKay

This article explores the South African government’s national school workbook intervention aimed at addressing poor learner performance in the context of teacher under-preparedness and curriculum reform. It shows how the workbooks use a distance education approach to provide pedagogical and content support for teachers, albeit in the context of classroom teaching, to compensate for teachers’ pedagogical challenges. This article uses a mixed methods research approach to explore how teachers, learners and parents used the workbooks and shows that while the distance educational design scaffolded teaching, additional support is necessary to enable the intervention to be more impactful. 


Author(s):  
Steven J. R. Ellis

Tabernae were ubiquitous among all Roman cities, lining the busiest streets and dominating their most crowded intersections, and in numbers not known by any other form of building. That they played a vital role in the operation of the city—indeed in the very definition of urbanization—is a point too often under-appreciated in Roman studies, or at best assumed. The Roman Retail Revolution is a thorough investigation into the social and economic worlds of the Roman shop. With a focus on food and drink outlets, and with a critical analysis of both archaeological material and textual sources, Ellis challenges many of the conventional ideas about the place of retailing in the Roman city. A new framework is forwarded, for example, to understand the motivations behind urban investment in tabernae. Their historical development is also unraveled to identify three major waves—or, revolutions—in the shaping of retail landscapes. Two new bodies of evidence underpin the volume. The first is generated from the University of Cincinnati’s recent archaeological excavations into a Pompeian neighborhood of close to twenty shop-fronts. The second comes from a field survey of the retail landscapes of more than a hundred cities from across the Roman world. The richness of this information, combined with an interdisciplinary approach to the lives of the Roman sub-elite, results in a refreshingly original look at the history of retailing and urbanism in the Roman world.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 2131
Author(s):  
Jamon Van Den Hoek ◽  
Alexander C. Smith ◽  
Kaspar Hurni ◽  
Sumeet Saksena ◽  
Jefferson Fox

Accurate remote sensing of mountainous forest cover change is important for myriad social and ecological reasons, but is challenged by topographic and illumination conditions that can affect detection of forests. Several topographic illumination correction (TIC) approaches have been developed to mitigate these effects, but existing research has focused mostly on whether TIC improves forest cover classification accuracy and has usually found only marginal gains. However, the beneficial effects of TIC may go well beyond accuracy since TIC promises to improve detection of low illuminated forest cover and thereby normalize measurements of the amount, geographic distribution, and rate of forest cover change regardless of illumination. To assess the effects of TIC on the extent and geographic distribution of forest cover change, in addition to classification accuracy, we mapped forest cover across mountainous Nepal using a 25-year (1992–2016) gap-filled Landsat time series in two ways—with and without TIC (i.e., nonTIC)—and classified annual forest cover using a Random Forest classifier. We found that TIC modestly increased classifier accuracy and produced more conservative estimates of net forest cover change across Nepal (−5.2% from 1992–2016) TIC. TIC also resulted in a more even distribution of forest cover gain across Nepal with 3–5% more net gain and 4–6% more regenerated forest in the least illuminated regions. These results show that TIC helped to normalize forest cover change across varying illumination conditions with particular benefits for detecting mountainous forest cover gain. We encourage the use of TIC for satellite remote sensing detection of long-term mountainous forest cover change.


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