Lessons from Research-Based Environmental Justice Policy and Administrative Decision-Making

2002 ◽  
pp. 243-262
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Environmental Justice

scholarly journals Decision trees in environmental justice research — a case study on the floods of 2001 and 2010 in Hungary

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 1025-1034 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gyula Nagy ◽  
György Vida ◽  
Lajos Boros ◽  
Danijela Ćirić
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Decision Tree ◽  
Environmental Justice ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Principal Component ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Main Factors ◽  
Decision Tree Method ◽  
Tree Method

Abstract Environmental justice is a normative framework for the analysis of environmental impacts on the wellbeing of individuals and social groups. According to the framework, the deprived social groups and ethnic minorities are often more exposed to environmental risks and hazards due to their disadvantaged situation, and due to the lack of representation and political power. To manage the impacts of injustices and to include the citizen in the decision-making processes, proper information is needed on local attitudes and decision-making processes. Therefore, this study sought to (i) identify the main factors shaping the attitudes towards environmental injustices and (ii) to analyse the attitudes and perception of the various social groups and (iii) to identify the main factors which are shaping the attitudes and actions of those who were affected by the floods of 2001 and 2010 through the use of decision tree method. The data for the predictive model was acquired from a questionnaire survey conducted in two disadvantaged and flood-hit Hungarian regions. Based on the survey data, a principal component analysis (PCA) was conducted, which resulted in three principal components; fear, social change, and change in the built environment. The study focused only on the elements of the “fear principal component”, due to the decision tree tool homogenous groups identified in relation to this component. Our analysis showed that ethnicity has a determinative role in the emergence and the level of fear from floods; the Roma respondents expressed a significantly higher level of fear than others.

scholarly journals A Comparison of Major Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tools

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lakshika Nishadhi Kuruppuarachchi ◽  
Ashok Kumar ◽  
Matthew Franchetti
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Environmental Justice ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Environmental Policies ◽  
Environmental Pollutant ◽  
Environmental Benefits ◽  
Disadvantaged Communities ◽  
The World ◽  
Environmental Burdens

The concept of Environmental Justice (EJ) has evolved in United Sates for more than 30 years. Since then most empirical studies have shown that low-income and minority neighborhoods are disproportionately exposed to environmental hazards. Across the world, communities are struggling to protect their land, air, water, forests, and their livelihoods from damaging projects and activities with heavy environmental and social impacts. A Number of tools already exist to identify and map those areas with potential environmental justice concerns. This paper presents a comparison of the three major EJ tools; EJSCREEN (version 2016), CalEnviroScreen 2.0, EJ Atlas and their methodologies. There are some common parameters across these tools in presenting Environmental Justice and in identifying environmentally burdened communities, socially burdened communities, or both. Environmental burdens can include any environmental pollutant, hazard or disadvantage that compromises the health of a community. The tools are expected to help in understanding and studying the distribution of environmental benefits and burdens, decision making for disadvantaged communities in certain areas and in setting up environmental policies and planning.

scholarly journals Co-Management in Theory and Practice: Co-Managing the Waipaˉ River

2021 ◽  
pp. 325-357
Author(s):  
Meg Parsons ◽  
Karen Fisher ◽  
Roa Petra Crease
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Environmental Justice ◽  
Sustainable Management ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
River Catchment ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
Equitable Sharing ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Formal Recognition

AbstractIn Aotearoa New Zealand, co-management initiatives are increasingly commonplace and are intended to improve sustainable management of environments as well as foster more equitable sharing of power between the settler-state and Indigenous Māori iwi (tribes). In this chapter we examine one such co-management arrangement that recognises and includes Ngāti Maniapoto iwi in decision-making about their ancestral river (the upper section of the Waipā River Catchment) and whether the implementation of initiative translated into tangible benefits for the iwi. Our research findings highlight how co-management agreement is perceived as overwhelming positive by both government and Ngāti Maniapoto representatives. However iwi note that they still face substantive barriers to achieving environmental justice (including the lack of formal recognition of their authority and power, and limited resourcing).

scholarly journals Environmental Justice and Women Empowerment in Nyungwe National Park (Rwanda): Case Study of Kitabi Women Handcrafts Cooperative

2019 ◽  
pp. 77-87
Author(s):  
Gloriose Umuziranenge
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Environmental Justice ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
National Park ◽  
Family Relations ◽  
Monitoring And Evaluation ◽  
Women Empowerment ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
High Interest Rate ◽  
Women's Voices

In the framework of the community participation in conservation in Rwanda, a women handcraft cooperative was established in 2011 in the surrounding of Nyungwe National Park in Kitabi sector and Nyamagabe District. It aimed to empower economically and socially wives of former hunters who were themselves relying on natural resources and involved in harvesting different resources in park for making handcraft products. The empowerment was intended to reduce the reliance to natural resources and to contribute to the protection of the park. The objective of the study was to investigate and examine women’s experiences about their empowerment through environmental justice, in terms of distributive and procedural justice and challenges faced by women. In doing so, participants were purposively selected in women handicraft cooperative and in administration bodies. With regards to data collection and analysis, semi-structured interviews and content analysis were used. The findings showed that women are socially and economically empowered. In terms of economic empowerment, access to financial loans, savings, employment and income generating projects are the major indicators of the empowerment. Improved capacity building and family relations are major concerns of social handcraft cooperative members. Regarding the participation of women in decision-making process, the findings are controversial. However, it is still limited because of the dominance of top-down approach that does not consider enough women’s voices and suggestions in decision making.  Cooperative women members perceive and consider the process of communication and decision-making as passive because they are almost absent in the monitoring and evaluation processes. The participation of the community members including women only appears through meetings with or without elected representatives. The process of women empowerment is still limited by some challenges such as crop raiding, complicated and slow compensation process, high interest rate and slow process of loan and inadequate communication. The partnership approach is then recommended so as to consider women’s needs and voices in the implementation of natural resources conservation policies.

scholarly journals Environmental Justice in India: The National Green Tribunal and Expert Members

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 175-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gitanjali Nain Gill
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Environmental Justice ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Environmental Disputes ◽  
Scientific Experts ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Technical Expert ◽  
Insight Into

AbstractThis article argues that the involvement of technical experts in decision making promotes better environmental results while simultaneously recognizing the uncertainty in science. India’s record as a progressive jurisdiction in environmental matters through its proactive judiciary is internationally recognized. The neoteric National Green Tribunal of India (NGT) – officially described as a ‘specialised body equipped with necessary expertise to handle environmental disputes involving multi-disciplinary issues’ – is a forum which offers greater plurality for environmental justice. The NGT, in exercising wide powers, is staffed by judicial and technical expert members who decide cases in an open forum. The experts are ‘central’, rather than ‘marginal’, to the NGT’s decision-making process.This article draws on theoretical insights developed by Lorna Schrefler and Peter Haas to analyze the role of scientific experts as decision makers within the NGT. Unprecedented interview access provides data that grants an insight into the internal decision-making processes of the five benches of the NGT. Reported cases, supported by additional comments of bench members, illustrate the wider policy impact of scientific knowledge and its contribution to the NGT’s decision-making process.

scholarly journals Lagging and Flagging: Air Pollution, Shale Gas Exploration and the Interaction of Policy, Science, Ethics and Environmental Justice in England

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (12) ◽  
pp. 4320
Author(s):  
Andrew Watterson ◽  
William Dinan
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Climate Change ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Air Pollution ◽  
Environmental Justice ◽  
Shale Gas ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Health Priorities ◽  
Oil And Gas Development ◽  
Scientific Publications

The science on the effects of global climate change and air pollution on morbidity and mortality is clear and debate now centres around the scale and precise contributions of particular pollutants. Sufficient data existed in recent decades to support the adoption of precautionary public health policies relating to fossil fuels including shale exploration. Yet air quality and related public health impacts linked to ethical and environmental justice elements are often marginalized or missing in planning and associated decision making. Industry and government policies and practices, laws and planning regulations lagged well behind the science in the United Kingdom. This paper explores the reasons for this and what shaped some of those policies. Why did shale gas policies in England fail to fully address public health priorities and neglect ethical and environmental justice concerns. To answer this question, an interdisciplinary analysis is needed informed by a theoretical framework of how air pollution and climate change are largely discounted in the complex realpolitik of policy and regulation for shale gas development in England. Sources, including official government, regulatory and planning documents, as well as industry and scientific publications are examined and benchmarked against the science and ethical and environmental justice criteria. Further, our typology illustrates how the process works drawing on an analysis of official policy documents and statements on planning and regulatory oversight of shale exploration in England, and material from industry and their consultants relating to proposed shale oil and gas development. Currently the oil, gas and chemical industries in England continue to dominate and influence energy and feedstock-related policy making to the detriment of ethical and environmental justice decision making with significant consequences for public health.

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