scholarly journals Addressing Uncertainty of Environmental Governance in Environmentally Sensitive Areas in Developing Countries: A Precise-Strike and Spatial-Targeting Adaptive Governance Framework

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (16) ◽  
pp. 4510
Author(s):  
Xiaohui Ding ◽  
Chen Zhou ◽  
Weizhou Zhong ◽  
Pingping Tang

Endowed with distinctive natural ecosystems and abundant biodiversity, regional environmental governance in developing countries, especially the environmentally sensitive areas (ESAs), is facing the daunting task to ultimately divert their regional development mode towards sustainable fashion through governance transition. However, given their less-developed status in particular expressed by under-developed economies, unsound political regimes, low governance capacity, such task seemingly insurmountable. In order to approach the incompatibility between economic development and maintenance of the ecosystem services value, and understand the complex and interlocked nature of the regional institution system of ESAs in developing countries, an ecosystem services value-based adaptive governance model was introduced to identify the deficiencies and failures of existing regional environmental governance and establish innovative arenas and transition agendas for innovating and reframing regional institutions and modifying role of regional actor groups and governance mode in the process of decision making on environmental issues. Such approaches were conducted in a circular diverting process in order to facilitate the mode of regional development transforming towards sustainable development. For demonstration the process of application and effectiveness of this methodology, a case study was conducted in a typical ESAs—the Water Source Area of the Middle Route Project of the South–North Water Diversion Project in China. Through integrating the ecosystem services value (ESV) assessment into a wider framework of institutional change, the regional institution system innovation and reformation was directed by taking the ESV changes and pattern of its geo-distribution in the research area as indicators or clues. Compared with traditional proposals for administrative change, the methodology proposed in this study was not prescriptive or directive: Rather, an approach for influencing the direction and speed of transition through a series of steering and coordination mechanism. Therefore, this model is with the potential to be implemented by local communities in regions, especially ESAs in developing countries, to encounter with similar regional development challenges and complex, interlocking, and over-dated regional institutional system associated with environmental issues.

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 552-579 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Dunlap ◽  
Sian Sullivan

This article identifies an emerging faultline in critical geography and political ecology scholarship by reviewing recent debates on three neoliberal environmental governance initiatives: Payments for Ecosystem Services, the United Nations programme for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries and carbon-biodiversity offsetting. These three approaches, we argue, are characterized by varying degrees of contextual and procedural – or superficial – difference, meanwhile exhibiting significant structural similarities that invite critique, perhaps even rejection. Specifically, we identify three largely neglected ‘social engineering’ outcomes as more foundational to Payments for Ecosystem Services, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries and carbon-biodiversity offsetting than often acknowledged, suggesting that neoliberal environmental governance approaches warrant greater critical attention for their contributions to advancing processes of colonization, state territorialization and security policy. Examining the structural accumulation strategies accompanying neoliberal environmental governance approaches, we offer the term ‘accumulation-by-alienation’ to highlight both the objective appropriations accompanying Payments for Ecosystem Services, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries and offsetting and the relational deficiencies accompanying the various commodifying instrumentalizations at the heart of these initiatives. We concur with David Harvey’s recent work proposing that understanding the iterative and consequential connections between objective/material and subjective/psychological dimensions of alienation offers ‘one vital key to unlock the door of a progressive politics for the future’. We conclude (with others) by urging critical geography and political ecology scholars to cultivate research directions that affirm more radical alternatives, rather than reinforcing a narrowing focus on how to improve Payments for Ecosystem Services, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries and offsetting in practice.


Author(s):  
Sarah A. Ebel ◽  
Christine M. Beitl ◽  
Michael P. Torre

Environmental change requires individuals and institutions to facilitate adaptive governance. However, facilitating adaptive governance may be difficult because resource users’ perceptions of desirable ways of life vary. These perceptions influence preferences related to environmental governance and may stem from the ways individuals subjectively value their work and their connections to their environment. This paper uses a value-based approach to examine individual and institutional preferences for adaptive governance in Carelmapu, Chile. We show that two groups had different value frames rooted in divergent ontologies which influenced their actions related to adaptive governance, creating conflict.


2011 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 723-727
Author(s):  
Wei-Ye LU ◽  
Zhi-De JIANG ◽  
Ying-Long ZHANG ◽  
Yong-Sheng XIE ◽  
Xiao LI

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (11) ◽  
pp. eabe6636
Author(s):  
F. D. S. Silva ◽  
L. G. Carvalheiro ◽  
J. Aguirre-Gutiérrez ◽  
M. Lucotte ◽  
K. Guidoni-Martins ◽  
...  

Nations’ food consumption patterns are increasingly globalized and trade dependent. Natural resources used for agriculture (e.g., water, pollinators) are hence being virtually exchanged across countries. Inspired by the virtual water concept, we, herein, propose the concept of virtual biotic pollination flow as an indicator of countries’ mutual dependence on biodiversity-based ecosystem services and provide an online tool to visualize trade flow. Using information on 55 pollinator-dependent crop markets (2001–2015), we show that countries with higher development level demand high levels of biodiversity-based services to sustain their consumption patterns. Such patterns are supported by importation of virtual biotic pollination (up to 40% of national imports of pollinator-dependent crops) from developing countries, stimulating cropland expansion. Quantifying virtual pollination flow can help develop new global socioeconomic policies to meet the interconnected challenges of biodiversity loss, ecosystem health, and social justice.


2003 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 103-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Bretherton

Environmental governance may be distinguished from environmental management by the implication that, in the former, some form of participatory process is involved. Here, the focus is upon the potential for women's movements and networks to influence the principles and practices of global environmental governance (GEG). It is contended that, in principle, women are uniquely placed to oppose the dominant norms informing GEG; and that women's participation would, in consequence, be crucial to the achievement of equitable and environmentally sound forms of governance. In practice, however, a number of factors combine to create divisions between women, and hence to impede transnational mobilization by women around environmental issues. This article examines these issues.


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