scholarly journals Saving the ground beneath our feet: Establishing priorities and criteria for governing soil use and protection

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (11) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lewis Peake ◽  
Cairo Robb
Keyword(s):  
Land Use Planning ◽  
Agricultural Soils ◽  
Natural Capital ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Soil Protection ◽  
Positive Outcomes ◽  
Policy Responses ◽  
Law And Policy ◽  
Soil Ecosystem Services ◽  
Prime Farmland

The continual loss and impairment of soil ecosystem services (SES) across the globe calls for a fundamental reconsideration of soil governance mechanisms. This critical synthesis charts the history and evolution of national and international soil law and seeks to unravel certain challenges that have contributed to this failure in governance. It describes and categorizes law and policy responses to different soil threats, and identifies a worrying widespread absence of legislation for oversight and protection of agricultural soils from urbanization, as well as a lack of clear legal mechanisms to determine national priorities for soil protection. A reduction in the world's prime farmland threatens SES, including food security, carbon storage and biodiversity. Falling between the stalls of agricultural and environmental law, the fate of farmland is often left to planners who do not see themselves as responsible for soils. Consequently, legal instruments with the greatest power to affect soil, sometimes irreversibly, are often framed and worded with little or no reference to the soil. Nevertheless, emerging conceptual frameworks might offer positive outcomes. The authors advocate robust holistic policies of soil governance and land use planning that place SES and natural capital at the heart of decision making.

scholarly journals “Mathematics maybe, but not money”

2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (7) ◽  
pp. 1459-1480 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sian Sullivan ◽  
Mike Hannis
Keyword(s):  
Land Use Planning ◽  
Natural Capital ◽  
Economic Values ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Experimental Implementation ◽  
Natural Capital Accounting ◽  
Ecological Accounting ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Biodiversity Offset ◽  
Policy Texts

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to consider and compare different ways of using numbers to value aspects of nature-beyond-the-human through case analysis of ecological and natural capital accounting practices in the UK that create standardised numerical-economic values for beyond-human natures. In addition, to contrast underlying ontological and ethical assumptions of these arithmetical approaches in ecological accounting with those associated with Pythagorean nature-numbering practices and fractal geometry. In doing so, to draw out distinctions between arithmetical and geometrical ontologies of nature and their relevance for “valuing nature”. Design/methodology/approach Close reading and review of policy texts and associated calculations in: UK natural capital accounts for “opening stock” inventories in 2007 and 2014; and in the experimental implementation of biodiversity offsetting (BDO) in land-use planning in England. Tracking the iterative calculations of biodiversity offset requirements in a specific planning case. Conceptual review, drawing on and contrasting different numbering practices being applied so as to generate numerical-economic values for natures-beyond-the-human. Findings In the cases of ecological accounting practices analysed here, the natures thus numbered are valued and “accounted for” using arithmetical methodologies that create commensurability and facilitate appropriation of the values so created. Notions of non-monetary value, and associated practices, are marginalised. Instead of creating standardisation and clarity, however, the accounting practices considered here for natural capital accounts and BDO create nature-signalling numbers that are struggled over and contested. Originality/value This is the first critical engagement with the specific policy texts and case applications considered here, and, the authors believe, the first attempt to contrast arithmetical and geometrical numbering practices in their application to the understanding and valuing of natures-beyond-the-human.

scholarly journals Grandma in the greenbelt : how the natural disposal of our dead could save Ontario's green space

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Courtney Elizabeth Heron-Monk
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Land Use Planning ◽  
Green Space ◽  
Value Added ◽  
Sustainable Land Use ◽  
Land Resource ◽  
Positive Outcomes ◽  
Environmental Challenges ◽  
A Value ◽  
Burial Grounds

Cemetery grounds and sustainable land use practice are rarely used in conjunction however natural burial grounds present opportunities to leverage the land use and environmental challenges associated with conventional cemeteries for the benefit of people and the environment. This paper explores land use planning challenges facing Ontario in planning for the disposal of our dead and the emergence of natural burial grounds as a sustainable alternative to conventional burial. This paper also explores how planning challenges related to planning for the disposal of our dead could be leveraged to produce positive outcomes; in particular the strengthening of Ontario's Greenbelt as a living landscape. This paper argues the Natural burial has potential to be a value added land resource and can mitigate a series of burial related land use challenges currently present in Ontario.

scholarly journals Effectiveness of the United Kingdom Soil Protection Laws in Protecting the Ecosystem Service of Carbon Sequestration Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 108-126
Author(s):  
Merve Demir ◽  
Iain Green ◽  
Tilak Ginige
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Sequestration ◽  
Ecosystem Service ◽  
Agricultural Soils ◽  
Soil Protection ◽  
C Storage ◽  
Effective Manner ◽  
Protection Legislation ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Co2 ◽  
The Uk

Carbon is crucial for life and exists in various reservoirs, such as plant tissues, soil organic matter, geology, and atmosphere. There is a direct relationship between carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere and rising temperatures. CO2 is removed from the atmosphere and stored in ecosystems. Carbon sequestration (CS) – the process of capturing and storing atmospheric CO2 – and expanding C storage of soils are appealing climate change (CC) responses. Agricultural soils are one of the largest C reservoirs and have potential for extended CS. Thus, protecting this ecosystem service (ES) we obtain from soils is crucial for addressing CC. Soil protection legislation should incorporate the significance of CS. The key issues in the sphere of natural resources can only be addressed by utilizing natural sciences in legal arguments. Accordingly, this study begins with highlighting the importance of soils for CS from a natural science perspective. This study analyses soil protection laws in the UK by scrutinizing whether they eliminate pressures on agricultural soils in a way that protect CS. The findings of this study suggest that soil protection laws do not offer a satisfactory protection for CS. We conclude by discussing alternative approaches for protecting CS in an effective manner and reverse the current trends in ES protection.

The Aarhus Convention and Polish Regulations Concerning Parties to Proceedings for Issuing the eia Decisions

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 56-76
Author(s):  
Magdalena Michalak ◽  
Przemysław Kledzik
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Law ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
Access To Justice ◽  
United Nations Economic Commission ◽  
The Public ◽  
Law And Policy ◽  
Economic Commission ◽  
Aarhus Convention ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Environmental Law And Policy

Abstract The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters was adopted on 25 June 1998 in the Danish city of Aarhus. According to its provisions each state Part shall, within the framework of the national legal order, ensure that members of the public concerned have access to a review procedure before a court of law or another independent and impartial body established by law. At the same time, it contains regulations specifying the criteria that constitute the basis for determining persons enjoying rights to access justice with respect to national legal orders. Poland, being one of the state Parties, introduced into national legal order special provisions enabling implementation of the Aarhus Convention, including regulations concerning parties to proceedings in environmental matters. The aim of the study is to analyse and assess these regulations in the light of the requirements adopted in the Aarhus Convention and to formulate general conclusions in the field of key issues of the international and European environmental law and policy.

Title XX Environment

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sacha Garben
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Protection ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Legal Basis ◽  
Common Concern ◽  
Law And Policy ◽  
Dense Set ◽  
The Eu

The environment does not respect man-made borders, and is of common concern and interest of all mankind. As such, it is an area that merits and requires cross-border law and policy making par excellence. This should be reflected in the strong role played by the EU, which has a firm Treaty mandate and duty to protect the environment, features a rich body of case law, and boasts a dense set of secondary legislation. The very good reasons for this notwithstanding, it remains a remarkable development considering the absence of any reference to the environment in the original Treaties. Although a programme for action in this area was soon adopted in 1973, only in the 1986 SEA was an environmental legal basis introduced. Much of the initial environmental acquis was therefore developed by the Commission, the Council, and later the EP on the basis of other Treaty provisions, such as (now) Articles 114, 115, and 352 TFEU. EU environmental protection also owes a debt to the ECJ, which included it in the legitimate objectives on the basis of which MS could derogate from the free movement provisions. The Court has interpreted the provisions of EU environmental law generally in a protective manner, and endorsed the use of criminal law for the effective enforcement of EU environmental legislation.

A Short History and Thematic Overview

2021 ◽  
pp. 3-24
Author(s):  
Victor V. Ramraj ◽  
Matthew Little
Keyword(s):  
Global Scale ◽  
Complex Environment ◽  
Short History ◽  
Policy Responses ◽  
Law And Policy ◽  
Emergency Powers ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
The World ◽  
Containment Measures ◽  
Sheer Size

This chapter provides a short history and epidemiological overview of the Covid-19 pandemic, from its origin in Wuhan, China, to its spread across Asia and around the world. It identifies the five law and policy themes discussed in this book—first wave containment measures; emergency powers; technology, science, and expertise; politics, religion, and governance; and economy, climate, and sustainability—and concludes with some reflections and questions on Asia’s role in formulating responses to a pandemic in particular, and global crises more generally. Although Covid-19 quickly became a global pandemic, a focus on responses in Asia is both practical and intellectually defensible for three main reasons. First, China was the epicentre of the pandemic, which spread throughout January and February to other parts of the region. Second, Asia’s legal and political diversity provides a complex environment in which to study the challenges of policy responses and inter-governmental coordination, even without shifting to the global scale. Finally, Asia’s sheer size complicates matters even further.

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