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The Ecological Economic Zoning (EEZ) is an environmental management tool established in the National Environmental Policy (PNMA) and present in all states of Brazil. Since the 1990s, it has been implemented in Brazil; however, the attempts at implementation and the results obtained so far do not provide evidence of its effectiveness. Thus, this article seeks to understand the implementation of EEZ in Tocantins by analyzing the perceptions of local actors through the Collective Subject Discourse (CSD) method. The conclusion is that EEZ in Tocantins has not been implemented. Among the identified causes, institutional factors such as low administrative capacity, governance, and "political will" associated with the disconfiguration of its normative character prevail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the last century, crude oil exploitation and exploration have occurred in the Niger Delta of Nigeria. While oil and gas account for a significant 85% of the national GDP, it has caused catastrophic effects on the environment. This is of particular concern, considering the Niger Delta is the breadbasket of Nigeria, inhabited by 31 million people. However, indiscriminate pollution has arisen from oil spills emanating from exploration activities and gas flaring. Since 2014 alone, more than 550 oil spills have been reported. To address this, the Nigerian federal government has developed environmental policies and laws targeted to regulate environmental management. However, the efficacy of these policies remains in question because of the government's unwillingness to enforce the laws. The aim of this paper is to appraise of the effect of the national policies on environmental management with emphasis on the "Guidelines and Standards for Environmental Pollution Control, 1991". We ask the following questions: What are community perceptions of the direct and indirect impacts of oil spills on ecosystems, health, livelihoods, migration and conflict? What are current and desired compensation provided by government bodies, NGOs and oil companies to support local livelihoods impacted by oil spills? What are key statutory and legal frameworks on environmental protection in Nigeria, how effectively are they performing and what are key challenges confronting compliance with regulatory guidelines and standards? To answer these questions, we recruited the activities of 11 focus groups comprising of chiefs, farmers, youth leaders, members of community and social activists groups from each Niger Delta state and engaged them on qualitative focus group discussions and interviews to identify the impacts of oil spills on settlement's socio-economic and environmental conditions. Results were then analyzed with thematic templet analytic techniques. This study reveals a high impact on settlements with diverse factors that have contributed to the increase in social aspects. Existing policies to regulate and control environmental pollution, but the enforcement of standards has been poor. Consequently, biodiversity has been impacted, affects agricultural soil, human health and the source of farming and farming livelihoods of the indigenous people has had to be abandoned by many living in this region. We argue, Nigeria's reliance on revenue generated from crude oil encourages the uninspiring and lackadaisical approach of the government to enforce these policies in the region. To this end, we recommend various environmental policies should be merged and harmonized under one by-law to ensure uniformity and there is an urgent need to implement the 2006 UNDP report which prioritized environmental sustainability, promotes human partnership development and upholds the goals for sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green public procurement is a voluntary tool through which public procurers can contribute to the objectives of environmental policy. The legal framework and public policy of green procurement is covered by the European Union. The main goal is to contribute to the consideration of environmental characteristics in public purchases as well as environmental management and the life-cycle costs of the goods, services and work. However, the objectives of the legal framework and the policy to promote green public procurement are often not achieved due to the barriers posed by economic practice. The aim of the article is to analyze the local barriers in the effective use of green public procurement in Slovakia. The processing of results is based on the annual evaluation reports to the National Action Plan for Green Public Procurement in Slovakia for 2016-2020. Identified local barriers include financial constraints on contracting authorities and a preference for evaluating contracts based on the lowest price criterion, insufficiently built administrative (personal) capacity to implement green public procurement, fear of discrimination in incorporating environmental criteria into tender documents and subsequent sanctions from control bodies. Last but not least, the voluntary application of green public procurement at regional and local level is also included among the barriers in the efficient use of this tool in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Board members' attitudes towards environmental protection are an important antecedent of how companies define and implement sustainability initiatives, but little is known about directors' attitudes and the factors associated with these. Using survey data on Italian board members, the research sought to explore the relationships between these individual's personal attributes, especially those related to their roles on boards, and their attitudes towards environmental protection. The findings suggest that female directors, directors with financial background, and independent directors are positively related to attitudes towards environmental protection. In the financial sector, younger board members and risk committee members show stronger environmental attitudes. The results could be of interest to policymakers because the board member attributes identified may require a stronger regulatory focus in order to achieve public policy's environmental protection objectives and to governance bodies in terms of defining board committees' composition and selecting "green directors" oriented towards environmental issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Droit et Cultures is the property of Revue Droit et Cultures - Université Paris Nanterre and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The urgent need to revert the ecological and social equity crises of the current development model and realize the potential of sustainable development has led several disciplines to converge on the socioecosystem concept as the most appropriate theoretical framework for research and public policy. The socioecosystem approach recognizes that social systems are integrated with natural systems and seeks to adaptively comanage socioecosystem coevolution for the sustainable development of both systems. We hypothesize that incorporation of this approach into environmental policy in Mexico could help resolve many of the problems that currently undermine policy effectiveness. To find out to what extent policy professionals might concur with this hypothesis, and what the opportunities and obstacles to implementing socioecosystem-based policy might be, research was conducted to elicit the expert opinion of officials responsible for formulating and implementing environmental policy in Mexico. The principle opportunities consist in the fact that experts intuitively understand the socioecosystem approach, and that most perceive advantages in adopting it because its policy attributes can potentially help to resolve many of the factors they identify as limiting the success of current environmental policies. Obstacles to its adoption include institutional barriers and the vested interests that benefit from the status quo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The survival of humanity is one of the environmental problems, the biggest one facing planet Earth today, which is why the need to preserve and contribute to the care of the environment takes on special significance. To stop the accelerated and irrational exploitation of natural resources, strategies are drowning up and various complex tasks were carried out. With the construction and maintenance of indicators, these actions can be monitoring and controlling. The objective of this work is to contribute its environmental performance evaluation in a Cuban organization. Methodological Steps to diagnosis the environmental behavior of the organization was designing and different tools and techniques were applying to analyze the current state of environmental performance evaluation in the organization. A was made of the according to the methodological steps and the environmental indicators that are implemented were identified, as well as the environmental performance criteria considered by the interested parties. Insufficiencies in environmental policy, objectives, goals, and indicators were detecting. The environmental policy was reformulating; new objectives new goals and indicators harmonized with each other we are creating and calculated according to the available information. The results of the environmental policy were quantified in a summarized manner and were determined the level of environmental performance which enabled the organization to adopt new decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most of the heavy pollution enterprises in China are industrial enterprises. These enterprises not only facilitate rapid economic development but are also the main sources of environmental pollution. Therefore, strengthening the environmental regulation on heavy pollution enterprises is the key to enhance sustainable environmental development in China. By using the enterprise data from 2000-2015, we analyzed the characteristics and status of environmental pollution caused by heavy pollution industries in China to put forward specific environmental regulation measures. Results showed that the number of heavy pollution enterprises in China increased continuously from 2000 but decreased slightly after 2005. The environmental pollution caused by heavy-pollution enterprises in China has three characteristics: externality, substantivity, and persistence. The status of enterprise environmental pollution in heavy pollution industries in China is mainly indicated by increasing environmental protection inputs and steady rise of environmental performance; gradual increase in control rate of industrial waste discharge and large regional difference in environmental performances; lack of internal environmental management mechanism of industrial enterprises and poor implementation of environmental management theory; and low level of enterprise environmental management and serious violation of environmental laws. Finally, specific control measures were put forward from the perspective of environmental regulation. Research results can provide reference and suggestions for the improvement of environmental management standards for heavy pollution enterprises, promote reform in heavy pollution enterprises, offer technological and policy supports, and establish an environmental protection information platform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public environmental awareness (PEA) is critical to the implementation of environmental policies by governments and product strategies by companies, however, there is less literature discussing its drivers. Environmental information disclosure (EID), as a bottom-up environmental policy, promotes public environmental management. This paper takes the Pollution Information Transparency Index (PITI) as a proxy for the degree of EID and discusses its impact on PEA. Using the PITI of 113 cities and the Baidu index-based PEA for 30 provinces from 2010 to 2019, we find a significant increase in PEA with the widening of EID, and the impacts of EID get larger as the quantile increases. Moreover, the effects of EID on PEA are amplified in areas with heavy pollution, high levels of green innovation, and stringent environmental governance capacities, but are diminished in areas with rampant corruption. The findings of this paper provide recommendations for optimizing EID implementation. • With the expansion of EID, PEA has increased significantly. • The impacts of EID on PEA are amplified in areas with high pollution, green innovation, and strict governance capacities. • The impacts of EID on PEA are diminished in areas with rampant corruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amenity is a term that has re-emerged within both public policy and environmental management organisations in response to an increasing emphasis on the human benefits derived from ecosystems. However, practical implementation of amenity management has been difficult due to a lack of definitional clarity within operational and academic literature. This article discusses the need for definitional clarity and understanding of the component elements of amenity that are integral to ecological management and reviews the literature on the perceptions and definitions of amenity in varied contexts. This study argues that positive perceptions of amenity benefits of a place are influenced by both physical elements such as sight, sound and smell and social elements such as age, education and cultural values. These elements should be considered by management agencies in a structured manner in order for the full potential of amenity to be realised. We present a conceptual framework to provide definitional clarity to the concept of amenity and highlight the interactions among its constituent elements. For the management of human-dominated landscapes, considering the relationship between amenity and biodiversity may improve the integration of ecological and social goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] Qualitative models used to investigate current and potential future governance. [•] Overlapping responsibilities can result in issues being ‘lost between the cracks’. [•] Mutual accountability clarifies governance paths and effectively delivers outcomes. [•] Effective management needs strong environmental management and holistic decisions. [•] Results increased environmental quality, social and economic values. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Copyright of Saúde e Sociedade is the property of Universidade de Sao Paulo, Faculdade de Saude Publica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Saúde e Sociedade is the property of Universidade de Sao Paulo, Faculdade de Saude Publica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The Environmental Liability Directive (ELD) establishes a framework of liability based on the ‘polluter-pays’ principle to prevent and remedy environmental damage. The ELD requires the testing of appropriate equivalency methods to assess the scale of compensatory measures needed to offset damage. The aim of this paper is to contribute to fill the existing knowledge gap on the application of the value equivalency approach for damage compensation in this context. We analyze the toxic spill damaging the Doñana National Park (Spain) in 1998. The welfare losses associated with the resource damage are estimated using non-market valuation and compared to the value of the compensatory measures taken after the accident. Our results show that the in-kind compensation may have been insufficient to offset the welfare losses. We conclude that a more comprehensive knowledge of the human welfare effects caused by environmental damage is of substantial importance to determine compensatory remediation, as insufficient information in this respect can lead to erroneous decisions causing loss to society. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This article analyses the role of public institutions in environmental management, and the application of the National Environmental Audit Programme in the Mexican tourism sector. The research recognizes the role of the hoteliers in the development of tourist zones, and in the alteration of the natural environment. This is an exploratory study of the general perception of management of 28 hotels in the Cancún area regarding the environmental management of their businesses, the factors which limit implementation, the benefits obtained, and commitment to public policy. The results show that the effects of policy on environmental management are mildly positive. For future research, the proposal is to replicate the analysis in other tourism zones, and to quantify the effects of environmental management and performance, profitability and competitiveness of the businesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Voluntary environmental programs (VEPs) seek to improve the environment by encouraging, rather than mandating, businesses and other organizations to adopt environmentally protective measures. Since the 1990s, VEPs established by industry, government, and nongovernmental organizations have proliferated around the globe, raising the question of how effective these programs are in securing environmental protection, both on their own and in comparison to traditional mandatory regulations. This article reviews the emerging research literature on VEPs, describing the variation in their structures, providing a framework for assessing their impacts, and summarizing what is known about why organizations engage in voluntary environmental action and what effects these programs have on environmental quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides information on the implementation of the environmental management and Dutch spatial planning laws implemented for the protection of the conservation regions in the Netherlands. According to the article these laws will be covering the other environment protection-related laws that have been recently implemented in the country, which also focus on the protection of nature in the country. It highlights the features of these laws, where they will be providing statutory framework as well as guidelines for the conservation and protection of several nature reserves in the said country.

This paper surveys the peer-reviewed social science literature in which Landsat data are used to inform public policy in managing natural resources and the environment. The paper differentiates articles in which methodology is developed (for example, developing and testing algorithms or demonstrating how data could be used) and articles in which data are applied for decisionmaking or policy implementation. The studies surveyed in this paper are selected from a wide range of publications within the social sciences. Selection uses social science-oriented bibliographic search indices. Searching the social science literature leads to identification of applications of Landsat by a community of experts unlikely to be identified by surveys or overviews of the Landsat program. Surveys and overview studies have tended to target researchers specializing in remote sensing or photogrammetry rather than researchers drawn from the social sciences. The usefulness of Landsat data as a basis for public investment in the Landsat program is underestimated in the absence of recognizing this body of research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intractable industrial legacies present new challenges to governance. Amongst the persistent organic pollutants, now managed internationally under the Stockholm Convention, hexachlorobenzene (HCB) stands out in all three classes of chemicals (pesticides, industrial chemicals and unintended by-products). This paper introduces twelve interdisciplinary papers contributing to our understanding of decision-making processes using a case study of HCB and industry–community relations in Sydney's industrial heartland. In this collection, authors align new political theory and emerging management theory, and they analyse the case study from several disciplines. Disputes such as that over HCB destablilise the political/administrative/technoscientific regime that is the modern state. Citizens engage in ‘sub-political’ processes which require recognition of what Ulrich Beck and others have termed ‘individualisation’. This sees decision-forming and decision-making functions push outwards into community-driven structures. There we find new styles of public participation, resolution of asymmetries between knowledge and expertise, and new corporate behaviour. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: A number of different tools for analysing environmental impacts of different systems have been developed. These include procedural tools such as strategic environmental assessment (SEA) and environmental management systems (EMS) as well as analytical ones such as life cycle assessment (LCA), life cycle costing (LCC), cost–benefit analysis (CBA) and the system of economic and environmental accounts (SEEA) including input–output analysis (IOA). Descriptions or scenarios of the future are typically relevant elements in these tools, since they are often used to describe impacts in the future. For futures studies a number of different approaches and techniques have been developed. In an earlier paper we have presented a typology of different types of scenarios that respond to different types of questions. These include predictive scenarios, explorative scenarios and normative scenarios. The aim of this paper is to explore connections between selected tools for environmental systems analysis and different scenario types. Although there is a clear need for futures studies in several tools for environmental systems analysis, it is interesting to note that the literature on methodologies for and case studies of combinations of futures studies and environmental systems analysis tools is rather limited. This suggests that there is a need for further research in this area including both methodology and practical case studies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Land protection policies such as creating and preserving national parks have been promoted to counter global threats to the environment and to conserve biodiversity. We know little, however, about the country characteristics that might be good predictors of whether states will choose to protect land or not. What factors within a state need to be the focus of global attention or need to be encouraged to promote land-protection policies? Using the global standard of 10% ecoregion protection, we test four categories of predictors-biodiversity, environmental threats, politics (such as treaty participation and NGO activity), and economics (such as GDP and trade measures)-as well as a multidimensional model in a multivariate analysis of 129 countries. Our findings suggest that the multidimensional model best predicts when it is likely that a country will protect land. While a number of key variables such as economic are not supported, the environmental threats model presents us with the strongest individual reason for land protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While both fundamental types of abatement measure mitigate the adverse environmental impacts of production, cleaner production technologies are frequently more advantageous than end-of-pipe technologies for environmental and economic reasons. This paper analyzes a variety of factors that might enhance firms' propensity to implement cleaner production technologies instead of end-of-pipe technologies. On the basis of a unique facility-level data set derived from a recent OECD survey, we find a clear dominance of cleaner production in seven OECD countries: 76.8% of the facilities report that they invest predominantly in cleaner production technologies, above all in new production processes, but not so much in new products. Based on a discrete choice model, our estimation results indicate that regulatory measures and the stringency of environmental policies are more important for end-of-pipe technologies, while cost savings, general management systems and specific environmental management tools tend to favor clean production. We conclude that improvements towards cleaner production may be reached by the continuous development and wider diffusion of these management tools. Improvements may also be stimulated by widening the cost gap between the two types of technology, for instance by additionally charging for waste and energy use. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In New Zealand environmental management is essentially the responsibility of land managers. Management decisions affect both production/productivity and the environment. However, responsibility for ensuring positive environmental outcomes falls on both local (Regional) and Central Government, and both they and international agencies such as the OECD would wish to monitor and report on changes. In terms of policy, strong links have been established via Central and Regional Government to land managers. Consumers in the market place are also, increasingly, requiring responsibility for positive environmental outcomes of those who purchase and process primary products. Strong links for responsibility have been established between our international markets and processing businesses and there is a noticeable strengthening of the links from the processors to the land manager/producer. In New Zealand a range of initiatives has been developed and implemented over recent times, whereby land managers are taking increasing responsibility for accounting for the environmental outcomes of their production activities. The range covers the spectrum from voluntary to compulsory (e.g., in order to meet market requirements) and from those initiated by customers to processor and/or producer initiatives. This paper follows the evolution of the principles that drove the predominant activities of the period and the processes that initiated the changes in environmental management. As the focus of agriculturalists changed from pioneering in a new world, to establishing a production base, to economic reality, and finally to environmental responsibility, the processes of extension adapted to meet the new challenge. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Unprecedented policy development during the past decade in South Africa characterised new systems of governance. This paper examines examples of both national and local environmental policy and concludes that the shift from the centralised, technocratic approach of the apartheid era is not yet complete. Whilst environmental policy and legislation embody sound democratic principles, implementation, compliance and enforcement are lagging. The lack of a strategic national framework for sustainable development confuses the responsibilities of national, provincial and local government. Established environmental assessment tools are compromised by conflicts over the integration of social, economic and environmental issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local Environmental Action Plans (LEAPs) are a useful starting point for the theoretical and empirical unravelling of the global post-Fordist socio-economic drive, within the framework of environmental policy devolution in Transition. Accordingly, this paper aims to identify the interconnected economic, social and political specifities involved in the formulation and institutionalisation of such projects in the Republic of Macedonia. Seven LEAPs‘broadly representative of the immense micro-scale physical and social diversity of the country’have been selected for detailed review, so as to provide more fine-tuned insights that should be relevant for the wider LEAP process in Macedonia and beyond. Preliminary evidence about the realisation of these initiatives indicates that comprehensive implementation is highly dependent upon the realistic political and economic abilities (and interests) of local and national elites, plus international organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Successful management and stewardship of environmental systems requires reliable assessment of their development dynamics in response to changing environmental and management conditions. Descriptive (statistical) models cannot cope with this challenge since their development is based on historical time series with little or no reference to actual system structure. On the other hand, explanatory (process) models attempt to capture the essential eco-physiological processes determining dynamic behavior, and they are therefore much better suited for the computation of development dynamics under changing conditions, even when long-term empirical observations are not possible or feasible. As an example of the use of process models in environmental systems analysis, a forest simulation model describing growth, and carbon and nitrogen dynamics of a single-species, even-aged forest stand under silvicultural management and pollution influences is presented, together with some representative simulation results. Steps in obtaining valid but compact tree models for complex forest simulations are outlined, and recent software developments (object-oriented programming) are assessed with respect to their potential for environmental systems analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: There are many factors have contributed to China''s environmental crisis and are hindering environmental recovery campaigns. In particular, the implementation of government policy has played a strong role, both because of a government''s natural slowness to change and because of structural impediments. Competition for a share of the huge investments that are being made to support environmental protection among various governmental departments and with local governments has also slowed progress. The conflicting socioeconomic policies that can result from this competition have undermined the large investments in environmental programs by failing to consider the environmental consequences of the conflicts, leading to inappropriate actions and compromising the ability to achieve environmental restoration goals. To improve governance and the ability to meet environmental goals, governments at all levels must understand the problem created by the competition that leads to weak coordination of efforts and must formulate revised policies that encourage sustainability by balancing economic growth with a careful consideration of the need for all groups, whether governmental or private sector, to benefit from these policies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this article, the author comments on a study on ecological migration (EM) in the Tibetan Plateau of China. He stresses that conservation Tibetan grasslands greatly contribute to the ecological services in the region including carbon storage, soil erosion control, and water regulation. However, he discusses that the EM government policies may affect the livelihood of Tibetan pastoralists and the community surrounding the area.