scholarly journals Why Protect Ancient Woodland in the UK? Rethinking the Ecosystem Approach

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Jona Razzaque ◽  
Claire Lester
Keyword(s):  
High Speed ◽  
Biodiversity Loss ◽  
Ecosystem Approach ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Value Systems ◽  
Ancient Woodland ◽  
Forestry Practices ◽  
Regulatory Frameworks ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
The Uk

Abstract Sites of ancient woodland in the United Kingdom (UK) are diminishing rapidly and the multifunctional forest management system with its fragmented approach fails effectively to protect such woodland. In the face of reports on the destruction of ancient woodland, the HS2 High-Speed train project in the UK signifies the extent of trade-offs among the key stakeholders. Such large infrastructure projects typically come with high environmental and social costs, including deforestation, habitat fragmentation, biodiversity loss, and social disruption. This article examines the protection of ancient woodland in the UK and assesses the challenges in applying the ecosystem approach, an internationally recognized sustainability strategy, in the context of such protection. A better understanding of the ecosystem approach to manage ancient woodland is critical for promoting sustainable forestry practices in the UK and informs the discussion in this article of the importance of conserving ancient woodland globally. Lessons learned from UK woodland policies and certification schemes include the need to have in place strong regulatory frameworks, introduce clear indicators, and recognize pluralistic value systems alongside economic considerations. The article concludes that the protection of ancient woodland in the UK requires distinct and strong laws that reflect multiple values of this resource, acknowledge the trade-offs among stakeholders, and adopt an inclusive approach to reduce power asymmetries.

Independent commissions and labour migration: The British MAC

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-32
Author(s):  
Philip L. Martin ◽  
Martin Ruhs
Keyword(s):  
Labour Force ◽  
Migration Policy ◽  
Foreign Workers ◽  
Foreign Born ◽  
Independent Evidence ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Labour Immigration ◽  
British Labour ◽  
Policy Objectives ◽  
The Uk

The independent Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) was created in 2007 after a decade in which the share of foreign-born workers in the British labour force doubled to 13 per cent. The initial core mandate of the MAC was to provide “independent, evidence-based advice to government on specific skilled occupations in the labour market where shortages exist which can sensibly be filled by migration.” The MAC's answers to these 3-S questions, viz, is the occupation for which employers are requesting foreign workers skilled, are there labour shortages, and is admitting foreign workers a sensible response, have improved the quality of the debate over the “need” for foreign workers in the UK by highlighting some of the important trade-offs inherent in migration policy making. The MAC can clarify migration trade-offs in labour immigration policy, but cannot decide the ultimately political questions about whose interests should be prioritised and how competing policy objectives should be balanced.

Institutional developments, standards and river quality: a UK history and some lessons for industrialising countries

1996 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 211-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. W. M. Johnstone ◽  
N. J. Horan
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Aquatic Environment ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Integrated Management ◽  
Sewage Treatment ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Process Manufacturing ◽  
Treatment And Disposal ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Developed World

From the middle ages until the early part of the nineteenth century the streets of European cities were foul with excrement and filth to the extent that aristocrats often held a clove-studded orange to their nostrils in order to tolerate the atmosphere. The introduction in about 1800 of water-carriage systems of sewage disposal merely transferred the filth from the streets to the rivers. The problem was intensified in Britain by the coming of the Industrial Revolution and establishment of factories on the banks of the rivers where water was freely available for power, process manufacturing and the disposal of effluents. As a consequence the quality of most rivers deteriorated to the extent that they were unable to support fish life and in many cases were little more than open sewers. This was followed by a period of slow recovery, such that today most of these rivers have been cleaned with many having good fish stocks and some even supporting salmon. This recovery has not been easy nor has it been cheap. It has been based on the application of good engineering supported by the passing and enforcement of necessary legislation and the development of suitable institutional capacity to finance, design, construct, maintain and operate the required sewerage and sewage treatment systems. Such institutional and technical systems not only include the disposal of domestic sewage but also provisions for the treatment and disposal of industrial wastewaters and for the integrated management of river systems. Over the years a number of institutional arrangements and models have been tried, some successful other less so. Although there is no universally applicable approach to improving the aquatic environment, many of the experiences encountered by the so-called developed world can be learned by developing nations currently attempting to rectify their own aquatic pollution problems. Some of these lessons have already been discussed by the authors including some dangers of copying standards from the developed world. The objective of this paper is to trace the steps taken over many years in the UK to develop methods and systems to protect and preserve the aquatic environment and from the lessons learned to highlight what is considered to be an appropriate and sustainable approach for industrialising nations. Such an approach involves setting of realistic and attainable standards, providing appropriate and affordable treatment to meet these standards, establishment of the necessary regulatory framework to ensure enforcement of the standards and provision of the necessary financial capabilities to guarantee successful and continued operation of treatment facilities.

Winning the Argument and Moving the Fight: The Legacy of a Grassroots Humanitarian

Public Voices ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 115
Author(s):  
Mary Coleman
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
United States ◽  
Winning Strategy ◽  
Supreme Court Decision ◽  
The United States ◽  
Colleges And Universities ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Trade Offs

The author of this article argues that the two-decades-long litigation struggle was necessary to push the political actors in Mississippi into a more virtuous than vicious legal/political negotiation. The second and related argument, however, is that neither the 1992 United States Supreme Court decision in Fordice nor the negotiation provided an adequate riposte to plaintiffs’ claims. The author shows that their chief counsel for the first phase of the litigation wanted equality of opportunity for historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), as did the plaintiffs. In the course of explicating the role of a legal grass-roots humanitarian, Coleman suggests lessons learned and trade-offs from that case/negotiation, describing the tradeoffs as part of the political vestiges of legal racism in black public higher education and the need to move HBCUs to a higher level of opportunity at a critical juncture in the life of tuition-dependent colleges and universities in the United States. Throughout the essay the following questions pose themselves: In thinking about the Road to Fordice and to political settlement, would the Justice Department lawyers and the plaintiffs’ lawyers connect at the point of their shared strength? Would the timing of the settlement benefit the plaintiffs and/or the State? Could plaintiffs’ lawyers hold together for the length of the case and move each piece of the case forward in a winning strategy? Who were plaintiffs’ opponents and what was their strategy? With these questions in mind, the author offers an analysis of how the campaign— political/legal arguments and political/legal remedies to remove the vestiges of de jure segregation in higher education—unfolded in Mississippi, with special emphasis on the initiating lawyer in Ayers v. Waller and Fordice, Isaiah Madison

scholarly journals New Integrated Approaches to Climate Emergency Landscape Strategies: The Case of Pan-European SATURN Project

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (20) ◽  
pp. 8419
Author(s):  
Anastasia Nikologianni ◽  
Alessandro Betta ◽  
Angelica Pianegonda ◽  
Sara Favargiotti ◽  
Kathryn Moore ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Blind Spot ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Ecosystem Research ◽  
Environmental Challenges ◽  
Rural Landscapes ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Regulatory Frameworks ◽  
Regional Strategies ◽  
Innovation And Technology ◽  
Development Goals

The landscape has been described as a ‘blind spot’ when examined in light of regional strategies. The immense potential of peri-urban and rural hinterlands to counter the climate emergency is therefore also overlooked. The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT)Climate-KIC’s (Knowledge and Innovation Community) System and sustainable Approach to virTuous interaction of Urban and Rural LaNdscapes (SATURN) aims to address this short-sightedness. The reason why we do not see or value the landscape is complex, but part of the problem relates to its multiple ownership, numerous types and scales of conflicting designations, governance structures, policy requirements, and regulatory frameworks. This leads to an approach that is fragmented and sectoral and, therefore, fails to see the bigger picture or recognise the value that the territory has in order to deal with current environmental challenges. With partners from across Europe, the pan-European Orchestrated Ecosystem research project co-funded by EIT Climate-KIC, SATURN aims to develop new integrated strategies which will increase awareness of the capacity of the landscape, which is seen is seen as a vital way to address the deepening climate emergency. SATURN anticipates that the outputs will build capacity across Europe to help nation-states meet the 2030 UN Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs) and respond to the environmental challenges. This paper, reporting on interim findings, sets out the next phase of the project and concludes with lessons learned so far, including an initial identification of processes that can be applied in regions across Europe and an evaluation of the significance of exchanging knowledge between different countries.

scholarly journals Costing interventions in the field: preliminary cost estimates and lessons learned from an evaluation of community-wide mass drug administration for elimination of soil-transmitted helminths in the DeWorm3 trial

BMJ Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. e049734
Author(s):  
Katya Galactionova ◽  
Maitreyi Sahu ◽  
Samuel Paul Gideon ◽  
Saravanakumar Puthupalayam Kaliappan ◽  
Chloe Morozoff ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Data Collection ◽  
Drug Administration ◽  
Financial Reporting ◽  
Mass Drug Administration ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Secondary Outcome ◽  
Data Quality Control ◽  
Soil Transmitted Helminths ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Rich Data

ObjectiveTo present a costing study integrated within the DeWorm3 multi-country field trial of community-wide mass drug administration (cMDA) for elimination of soil-transmitted helminths.DesignTailored data collection instruments covering resource use, expenditure and operational details were developed for each site. These were populated alongside field activities by on-site staff. Data quality control and validation processes were established. Programmed routines were used to clean, standardise and analyse data to derive costs of cMDA and supportive activities.SettingField site and collaborating research institutions.Primary and secondary outcome measuresA strategy for costing interventions in parallel with field activities was discussed. Interim estimates of cMDA costs obtained with the strategy were presented for one of the trial sites.ResultsThe study demonstrated that it was both feasible and advantageous to collect data alongside field activities. Practical decisions on implementing the strategy and the trade-offs involved varied by site; trialists and local partners were key to tailoring data collection to the technical and operational realities in the field. The strategy capitalised on the established processes for routine financial reporting at sites, benefitted from high recall and gathered operational insight that facilitated interpretation of the estimates derived. The methodology produced granular costs that aligned with the literature and allowed exploration of relevant scenarios. In the first year of the trial, net of drugs, the incremental financial cost of extending deworming of school-aged children to the whole community in India site averaged US$1.14 (USD, 2018) per person per round. A hypothesised at-scale routine implementation scenario yielded a much lower estimate of US$0.11 per person treated per round.ConclusionsWe showed that costing interventions alongside field activities offers unique opportunities for collecting rich data to inform policy toward optimising health interventions and for facilitating transfer of economic evidence from the field to the programme.Trial registration numberNCT03014167; Pre-results.

scholarly journals Understanding public preferences and trade-offs for government responses during a pandemic: a protocol for a discrete choice experiment in the UK

BMJ Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. e043477
Author(s):  
Mesfin G Genie ◽  
Luis Enrique Loría-Rebolledo ◽  
Shantini Paranjothy ◽  
Daniel Powell ◽  
Mandy Ryan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Discrete Choice Experiment ◽  
Discrete Choice ◽  
Choice Experiment ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Research Unit ◽  
Media Analysis ◽  
Moral Foundation ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Ethics Research ◽  
The Uk

IntroductionSocial distancing and lockdown measures are among the main government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. These measures aim to limit the COVID-19 infection rate and reduce the mortality rate of COVID-19. Given we are likely to see local lockdowns until a treatment or vaccine for COVID-19 is available, and their effectiveness depends on public acceptability, it is important to understand public preference for government responses.Methods and analysisUsing a discrete choice experiment (DCE), this study will investigate the public’s preferences for pandemic responses in the UK. Attributes (and levels) are based on: (1) lockdown measures described in policy documents; (2) literature on preferences for lockdown measures and (3) a social media analysis. Attributes include: lockdown type; lockdown length; postponement of usual non-urgent medical care; number of excess deaths; number of infections; impact on household spending and job losses. We will prepilot the DCE using virtual think aloud interviews with respondents recruited via Facebook. We will collect preference data using an online survey of 4000 individuals from across the four UK countries (1000 per country). We will estimate the relative importance of the attributes, and the trade-offs individuals are willing to make between attributes. We will test if respondents’ preferences differ based on moral attitudes (using the Moral Foundation Questionnaire), socioeconomic circumstances (age, education, economic insecurity, health status), country of residence and experience of COVID-19.Ethics and disseminationThe University of Aberdeen’s College Ethics Research Board (CERB) has approved the study (reference: CERB/2020/6/1974). We will seek CERB approval for major changes from the developmental and pilot work. Peer-reviewed papers will be submitted, and results will be presented at public health and health economic conferences nationally and internationally. A lay summary will be published on the Health Economics Research Unit blog.

scholarly journals Biodiversity Offset Program Design and Implementation

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (24) ◽  
pp. 6903 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie Grimm ◽  
Johann Köppel
Keyword(s):  
Program Design ◽  
Landscape Scale ◽  
Design And Implementation ◽  
No Net Loss ◽  
Regulatory Frameworks ◽  
Biodiversity Offsets ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Mitigation Hierarchy ◽  
Balance Development ◽  
Biodiversity Offset

Biodiversity offsets are applied in many countries to compensate for impacts on the environment, but research on regulatory frameworks and implementation enabling effective offsets is lacking. This paper reviews research on biodiversity offsets, providing a framework for the analysis of program design (no net loss goal, uncertainty and ratios, equivalence and accounting, site selection, landscape-scale mitigation planning, timing) and implementation (compliance, adherence to the mitigation hierarchy, leakage and trade-offs, oversight, transparency and monitoring). Some more challenging aspects concern the proper metrics and accounting allowing for program evaluation, as well as the consideration of trade-offs when regulations focus only on the biodiversity aspect of ecosystems. Results can be used to assess offsets anywhere and support the creation of programs that balance development and conservation.

scholarly journals Patients With Psoriasis and Personalized Trade-offs in Treatment Decisions—Lessons Learned From Focus Groups

2016 ◽  
Vol 152 (6) ◽  
pp. 720
Author(s):  
Jaehwan Kim ◽  
Dong Joo Kim ◽  
Francesca S. Ortenzio ◽  
Lynn Dare ◽  
Christine Frank ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Focus Groups ◽  
Treatment Decisions ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Trade Offs

Initiatives in UK Offshore Decommissioning Following the Wood Review: Applicability for Decommissioning in Norway

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rune Vikane ◽  
Jon Tømmerås Selvik ◽  
Eirik Bjorheim Abrahamsen
Keyword(s):  
Swot Analysis ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Petroleum Industry ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Regulatory Regime ◽  
Regulatory Body ◽  
Cost Estimates ◽  
Substantial Impact ◽  
Gas Recovery ◽  
The Uk

Abstract The 2014 Wood Review is a report reviewing UK offshore oil and gas recovery and its regulation, led by Sir Ian Wood. The report identifies and addresses key challenges in the UK petroleum industry, among them the lack of a strong regulatory body and a decommissioning strategy. The UK petroleum industry is mature, and Norway may benefit from UK's experiences in decommissioning. The article investigates the applicability of the Wood Review recommendations for decommissioning in Norway. The analysis of the recommendations in the Wood Review is carried out by a SWOT-analysis of the general recommendations with a high potential impact on decommissioning as well as the five recommendations specific to decommissioning. The recommendations in the Wood Review were broadly accepted by UK authorities and formed the basis for numerous initiatives aimed at improving policies and practices in UK decommissioning. The key initiatives are presented to illustrate how the Wood Review recommendations has been interpreted. A summary of the key differences between the petroleum industries and the regulatory authorities in Norway and the UK is provided for background. Decommissioning in Norway face similar challenges to those identified in the Wood Review. The analysis indicates that several of the UK initiatives following the recommendations in the Wood Review has the potential of improving decommissioning in Norway. Differences in regulatory regimes between the regions may complicate the implementation of some of the initiatives following the Wood Review in Norway. In most cases only minor changes to regulations and/or practices are required. Recent UK initiatives with a high impact on decommissioning include increased focus on sharing of information and lessons learned, increased collaboration, the development of a decommissioning strategy, benchmarking of decommissioning cost estimates for all projects and the development and publishing of annual UK decommissioning cost estimates. There are indications that the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) and the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy (MPE) are falling behind their UK counterparts in key areas. Norway has limited experience with decommissioning, and scrupulous analysis of lessons learned in other regions is essential. Decommissioning of Norwegian offshore infrastructure is a major undertaking and even minor improvements may have a substantial impact on personnel risk, risk to the environment or the total decommissioning expenditure. The Norwegian regulatory regime has been an integral part of the Norwegian petroleum industry's success in previous decades, and changes to the regime require careful deliberation. The recent implementation of initiatives aimed at improving decommissioning regulations and practices in the UK represents a unique learning opportunity for Norwegian authorities. The analysis suggest that Norway may benefit from adopting some of the UK initiatives following the Wood Review recommendations.

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