scholarly journals Risk, politics, and science: A new approach to UK marine biodiversity monitoring.

Author(s):  
Karen E Webb ◽  
Hayley Hinchen

The UK recognises the importance of understanding marine ecosystems and biodiversity to achieve its ambition of ‘clean, healthy, safe and biologically diverse seas’. Yet comprehensive UK marine monitoring presents a considerable challenge in terms of the resources required. The Joint Nature Conservation Committee has led the development of an ambitious framework for marine monitoring that will integrate the different components of biodiversity together, and with other marine monitoring. This has required a range of work from novel science to developing monitoring indicators and survey methods. It also seeks efficiency savings through, practical integration of survey time on vessels, and access to new data e.g., satellites. Our approach uses risk to inform resource allocation by utilising human activities data and the interactions with biodiversity to create risk models and determine survey priorities. This is achieved by engaging scientists and policy makers to develop monitoring options for different biodiversity components (i.e., benthic habitats, cetaceans, seals, seabirds, fish, cephalopods and plankton). This process will allow policy makers to successfully conclude on the level of resourcing required for marine monitoring, that reflects the risk to biodiversity and the public’s concerns for the marine environment, and fulfils our national and international legislative obligations.

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen E Webb ◽  
Hayley Hinchen

The UK recognises the importance of understanding marine ecosystems and biodiversity to achieve its ambition of ‘clean, healthy, safe and biologically diverse seas’. Yet comprehensive UK marine monitoring presents a considerable challenge in terms of the resources required. The Joint Nature Conservation Committee has led the development of an ambitious framework for marine monitoring that will integrate the different components of biodiversity together, and with other marine monitoring. This has required a range of work from novel science to developing monitoring indicators and survey methods. It also seeks efficiency savings through, practical integration of survey time on vessels, and access to new data e.g., satellites. Our approach uses risk to inform resource allocation by utilising human activities data and the interactions with biodiversity to create risk models and determine survey priorities. This is achieved by engaging scientists and policy makers to develop monitoring options for different biodiversity components (i.e., benthic habitats, cetaceans, seals, seabirds, fish, cephalopods and plankton). This process will allow policy makers to successfully conclude on the level of resourcing required for marine monitoring, that reflects the risk to biodiversity and the public’s concerns for the marine environment, and fulfils our national and international legislative obligations.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen E Webb ◽  
Hayley Hinchen

The UK recognises the importance of understanding marine ecosystems and biodiversity to achieve its ambition of ‘clean, healthy, safe and biologically diverse seas’. Yet comprehensive UK marine monitoring presents a considerable challenge in terms of the resources required. The Joint Nature Conservation Committee has led the development of an ambitious framework for marine monitoring that will integrate the different components of biodiversity together, and with other marine monitoring. This has required a range of work from novel science to developing monitoring indicators and survey methods. It also seeks efficiency savings through, practical integration of survey time on vessels, and access to new data e.g., satellites. Our approach uses risk to inform resource allocation by utilising human activities data and the interactions with biodiversity to create risk models and determine survey priorities. This is achieved by engaging scientists and policy makers to develop monitoring options for different biodiversity components (i.e., benthic habitats, cetaceans, seals, seabirds, fish, cephalopods and plankton). This process will allow policy makers to successfully conclude on the level of resourcing required for marine monitoring, that reflects the risk to biodiversity and the public’s concerns for the marine environment, and fulfils our national and international legislative obligations.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura M Robson ◽  
Anita J Carter ◽  
Ellen Last ◽  
Frances J Peckett ◽  
Elly Hill

As an island nation, the UK is surrounded by water, spanning from the coast and intertidal, to the circalittoral and deep-sea. Understanding the changing condition and resilience of marine biodiversity within these vastly different water masses is of key importance to understanding both the impacts of, and how to best manage, human activities whilst enabling continued sustainable development. One of the biggest challenges to understanding biodiversity state is the lack of time-series data, particularly in areas where long-term monitoring has not yet been implemented around our offshore (>12nm) and deep-sea waters. To manage this, the UK’s Joint Nature Conservation Committee are further developing spatial mapping proxy methods, gathering data on human activity presence, pressures caused by these activities, and the associated sensitivity of biodiversity to these pressures, to understand key areas of risk. Whilst evidence for these assessments is becoming more widely available for offshore waters, there is a large evidence gap on deep-sea biodiversity sensitivity, and understanding how to manage this little-studied environment. With ongoing pressures from fishing and oil and gas activity, and future threats from deep-sea mining, this is a key area of research which is urgently needed to help develop effective and sustainable management measures.


2009 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 499-514 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANNELIESE DODDS

AbstractThis article considers why the family nurse partnership (FNP) has been promoted as a means of tackling social exclusion in the UK. The FNP consists in a programme of visits by nurses to low-income first-time mothers, both while the mothers are pregnant and for the first two years following birth. The FNP is focused on both teaching parenthood and encouraging mothers back into education and/or into employment. Although the FNP marks a considerable discontinuity with previous approaches to family health, it is congruent with an emerging new approach to social exclusion. This new approach maintains that the most important task of social policy is to identify quickly the most ‘at-risk’ households, individuals and children so that interventions can be targeted more effectively at those ‘at risk’, either to themselves or to others. The article illustrates this new approach by analysing a succession of reports by the Social Exclusion Unit. It indicates that there is a considerable amount of ambiguity about the relationship between specific risk-factors and being ‘at risk of social exclusion’. Nonetheless, this new approach helps to explain why British policy-makers may have chosen to promote the new FNP now.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura M Robson ◽  
Anita J Carter ◽  
Ellen Last ◽  
Frances J Peckett ◽  
Elly Hill

As an island nation, the UK is surrounded by water, spanning from the coast and intertidal, to the circalittoral and deep-sea. Understanding the changing condition and resilience of marine biodiversity within these vastly different water masses is of key importance to understanding both the impacts of, and how to best manage, human activities whilst enabling continued sustainable development. One of the biggest challenges to understanding biodiversity state is the lack of time-series data, particularly in areas where long-term monitoring has not yet been implemented around our offshore (>12nm) and deep-sea waters. To manage this, the UK’s Joint Nature Conservation Committee are further developing spatial mapping proxy methods, gathering data on human activity presence, pressures caused by these activities, and the associated sensitivity of biodiversity to these pressures, to understand key areas of risk. Whilst evidence for these assessments is becoming more widely available for offshore waters, there is a large evidence gap on deep-sea biodiversity sensitivity, and understanding how to manage this little-studied environment. With ongoing pressures from fishing and oil and gas activity, and future threats from deep-sea mining, this is a key area of research which is urgently needed to help develop effective and sustainable management measures.


1998 ◽  
Vol 38 (12) ◽  
pp. 51-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Henshilwood ◽  
J. Green ◽  
D. N. Lees

This study investigates human enteric virus contamination of a shellfish harvesting area. Samples were analysed over a 14-month period for Small Round Structured Viruses (SRSVs) using a previously developed nested RT-PCR. A clear seasonal difference was observed with the largest numbers of positive samples obtained during the winter period (October to March). This data concurs with the known winter association of gastroenteric illness due to oyster consumption in the UK and also with the majority of the outbreaks associated with shellfish harvested from this area during the study period. RT-PCR positive amplicons were further characterised by cloning and sequencing. Sequence analysis of the positive samples identified eleven SRSV strains, of both Genogroup I and Genogroup II, occurring throughout the study period. Many shellfish samples contained a mixture of strains with a few samples containing up to three different strains with both Genogroups represented. The observed common occurrence of strain mixtures may have implications for the role of shellfish as a vector for dissemination of SRSV strains. These results show that nested RT-PCR can identify SRSV contamination in shellfish harvesting areas. Virus monitoring of shellfish harvesting areas by specialist laboratories using RT-PCR is a possible approach to combating the transmission of SRSVs by molluscan shellfish and could potentially offer significantly enhanced levels of public health protection.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
JON ORD ◽  
MARC CARLETTI ◽  
DANIELE MORCIANO ◽  
LASSE SIURALA ◽  
CHRISTOPHE DANSAC ◽  
...  

Abstract This article examines young people’s experiences of open access youth work in settings in the UK, Finland, Estonia, Italy and France. It analyses 844 individual narratives from young people, which communicate the impact of youthwork on their lives. These accounts are then analysed in the light of the European youth work policy goals. It concludes that it is encouraging that what young people identify as the positive impact of youth work are broadly consistent with many of these goals. There are however some disparities which require attention. These include the importance young people place on the social context of youth work, such as friendship, which is largely absent in EU youth work policy; as well as the importance placed on experiential learning. The paper also highlights a tension between ‘top down’ policy formulation and the ‘youth centric’ practices of youth work. It concludes with a reminder to policy makers that for youth work to remain successful the spaces and places for young people must remain meaningful to them ‘on their terms’.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Lisa Scullion ◽  
Katy Jones ◽  
Peter Dwyer ◽  
Celia Hynes ◽  
Philip Martin

There has been an increasing focus in the UK on the support provided to the Armed Forces community, with the publication of the Armed Forces Covenant (2011), the Strategy for our Veterans (2018) and the first ever Office for Veterans’ Affairs (2019). There is also an important body of research – including longitudinal research – focusing on transitions from military to civilian life, much of which is quantitative. At the same time, the UK has witnessed a period of unprecedented welfare reform. However, research focused on veterans’ interactions with the social security system has been largely absent. This article draws on the authors’ experiences of undertaking qualitative longitudinal research (QLR) to address this knowledge gap. We reflect on how QLR was essential in engaging policy makers enabling the research to bridge the two parallel policy worlds of veterans’ support and welfare reform, leading to significant policy and practice impact.


2015 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARK EXWORTHY ◽  
PAULA HYDE ◽  
PAMELA MCDONALD-KUHNE

AbstractWe elaborate Le Grand's thesis of ‘knights and knaves’ in terms of clinical excellence awards (CEAs), the ‘financial bonuses’ which are paid to over half of all English hospital specialists and which can be as much as £75,000 (€92,000) per year in addition to an NHS (National Health Service) salary. Knights are ‘individuals who are motivated to help others for no private reward’ while knaves are ‘self-interested individuals who are motivated to help others only if by doing so they will serve their private interests.’ Doctors (individually and collectively) exhibit both traits but the work of explanation of the inter-relationship between them has remained neglected. Through a textual analysis of written responses to a recent review of CEAs, we examine the ‘knightly’ and ‘knavish’ arguments used by medical professional stakeholders in defending these CEAs. While doctors promote their knightly claims, they are also knavish in shaping the preferences of, and options for, policy-makers. Policy-makers continue to support CEAs but have introduced revised criteria for CEAs, putting pressure on the medical profession to accept reforms. CEAs illustrate the enduring and flexible power of the medical profession in the UK in colonising reforms to their pay, and also the subtle inter-relationship between knights and knaves in health policy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carla De Laurentis ◽  
Peter J. G. Pearson

Abstract Background The paper explores how regional actors engage with energy systems, flows and infrastructures in order to meet particular goals and offers a fine-tuned analysis of how differences arise, highlighting the policy-relevant insights that emerge. Methods Using a novel framework, the research performs a comparative case study analysis of three regions in Italy and two of the devolved territories of the UK, Wales and Scotland, drawing on interviews and documentary analysis. Results The paper shows that acknowledging the socio-materialities of renewable energy allows a fine-tuned analysis of how institutions, governance and infrastructure can enable/constrain energy transitions and policy effectiveness at local and regional levels. The heuristic adopted highlights (i) the institutions that matter for renewable energy and their varied effects on regional renewable energy deployment; (ii) the range of agencies involved in strategically establishing, contesting and reproducing institutions, expectations, visions and infrastructure as renewable energy deployment unfolds at the regional level and (iii) the nature and extent of infrastructure requirements for and constraints on renewable energy delivery and how they affect the regional capacity to shape infrastructure networks and facilitate renewable energy deployment. The paper shows how the regions investigated developed their institutional and governance capacity and made use of targets, energy visions and spatial planning to promote renewable energy deployment. It shows that several mediating factors emerge from examining the interactions between regional physical resource endowments and energy infrastructure renewal and expansion. The analysis leads to policy-relevant insights into what makes for renewable energy deployment. Conclusion The paper contributes to research that demonstrates the role of institutional variations and governance as foundations for geographical differences in the adoption of renewable energy, and carries significant implications for policy thinking and implementation. It shows why and how policy-makers need to be more effective in balancing the range of goals/interests for renewable energy deployment with the peculiarities and specificities of the regional contexts and their infrastructures. The insights presented help to explain how energy choices and outcomes are shaped in particular places, how differences arise and operate in practice, and how they need to be taken into account in policy design, policy-making and implementation.


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