This paper aims to provide a new and practical approach called ‘Legislation-Check’ to identifying shortcomings in national legislation in terms of how well it implements sustainable development, and ...ways of improving the legislation. National legislation was chosen as it represents a sort of ‘skeleton of society’ and defines the status quo, as well as setting the main environmental, societal and economic directions of the population covered.
The approach presented is based on a new concept called ‘3-D Sustainability’, which focuses on the precautionary principle. 3-D Sustainability provides criteria in a flexible hierarchy for solving conflicts of interest between economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainability. In this paper, these criteria and dimensions are applied to various sectors of Austrian national environmental legislation to identify the shortcomings of the legislation and ways of addressing these shortcomings.
This paper shows, by way of quantitative data, a significant increase in the use of sustainability related terms in generally applicable legal instruments (both federal and provincial) in Austria since 2003. In qualitative terms the results of the paper further indicate, using national environmental legislation, several hierarchical disorders between different legal acts and opportunities for improving them. Furthermore, inadequacies in the way that the legislation handles sustainable development and a total lack of overall objectives and targets in terms of sustainability are highlighted, which can jeopardise sustainable development.
The concept of ‘3-D Sustainability’ has not previously focused on national legislation, despite the practical importance of the legal implementation and enforcement on this geographic level. Hence, this paper contributes, through scientifically-based decision support, to practical pathways for the innovation of institutional, procedural and substantive arrangements in existing legislation.
The approach presented in this paper is not restricted to environmental issues, but is applicable to all thematic areas. It is also not geographically limited, but could be implemented in any country and also beyond national borders. Furthermore, the approach can be easily replicated and provides systematically gained results for global governance change towards sustainable development.
Floodplain ecosystems are biodiversity hotspots and supply multiple ecosystem services. At the same time they are often prone to human pressures that increasingly impact their intactness. ...Multifunctional floodplain management can be defined as a management approach aimed at a balanced supply of multiple ecosystem services that serve the needs of the local residents, but also those of off-site populations that are directly or indirectly impacted by floodplain management and policies. Multifunctional floodplain management has been recently proposed as a key concept to reconcile biodiversity and ecosystem services with the various human pressures and their driving forces. In this paper we present biophysics and management history of floodplains and review recent multifunctional management approaches and evidence for their biodiversity effects for the six European countries Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, Slovakia, Hungary and the Ukraine. Multifunctional use of floodplains is an increasingly important strategy in some countries, for instance in the Netherlands and Hungary, and management of floodplains goes hand in hand with sustainable economic activities resulting in flood safety and biodiversity conservation. As a result, biodiversity is increasing in some of the areas where multifunctional floodplain management approaches are implemented. We conclude that for efficient use of management resources and ecosystem services, consensual solutions need to be realized and biodiversity needs to be mainstreamed into management activities to maximize ecosystem service provision and potential human benefits. Multifunctionality is more successful where a broad range of stakeholders with diverse expertise and interests are involved in all stages of planning and implementation.
This paper aims firstly to provide a conceptual overview on the two main objectives that should be addressed when modifying international environmental law and subordinated law in a more sustainable ...direction in the sense of Ecological Economics. This first aim is addressed based on ongoing research on ‘3-D Sustainability’, a concept providing decision-making support for priority setting between environmental, social and economic dimensions within sustainable development. The two main objectives identified within this aim are to stay by means of international environmental law within the ecologically sustainable scale and to legally define flexible trade-off mechanisms, which better deal with conflicts of interests among the three sustainability dimensions. Secondly, the paper strives to identify ways to further strengthen the application of the existing international law in this respect. Thus, several innovative mechanisms within international law are identified that overcome current implementation and enforcement deadlocks, without necessarily changing the existing law, in order to serve a sustainable development in the sense of Ecological Economics.
•Elaborates the relationship among Ecological Economics, Sustainable Development and Law•Provides proposals for improved sustainable law- and decision-making•Summarizes proposals for improved legal implementation based on existing law•Embeds proposals for new law as well as based on existing law into an overall sustainability concept
From Polluter Pays to Provider Gets Mauerhofer, Volker; Hubacek, Klaus; Coleby, Alastor
Ecology and society,
01/2013, Letnik:
18, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Should society have the right to freely available clean air and water, or should people be required to pay for these as commodities just as they do for many other goods or services that they consume? ...With this question and further questions on environmental governance in mind, we reviewed the paradigm shift in natural resource management from the polluter pays principle (PPP), which focuses on polluters and enforcement of thresholds, to the principle of payments for ecosystem services (PES), which emphasizes provider-based economic approaches. Given that there are conflicts of interest over natural resources and ecosystem services (ESs), these conflicts could be resolved through rights and/or cost assignments via third-party intervention, i.e., by the “state,” or through private compensation beyond initial regulation and state-initiated assignments of cost. Our analysis includes an in-depth literature review and a description of existing policies on ESs. We also examine the so-called Coase theorem based on a “neutral” situation where no rights or costs are distributed in advance. This theorem provides room for the PPP approaches and the provider-gets approaches. Both of these approaches should ensure, given certain assumptions, an economically efficient allocation of resources; however, they still ignore two indispensable issues, namely, the ecologically sustainable scale and inherent qualities of ecosystems and the distributional effects. With regard to the relationship between these two sets of approaches and their respective relationship to the legal framework, PES programs can evolve instead of PPP where no regulations are in place, existing regulations are deemed to be insufficiently formulated, or regulations are not enforced at all. We also further address some critical issues that can arise when PES programs evolve instead of PPP in practice, such as the general necessity of PES to coexist with basic rights and legal obligations, inappropriate lexicographic claims from providers of ESs, alongside claims for potential damages and the relationship of PES with the intrinsic motivation of service providers. Critically, insufficient attention has been paid to the fact that by replacing the earlier PPP doctrine with the “provider-gets” principle, rights are redistributed from the public to the service provider with important distributional implications for society. Therefore, the replacement of PPP with PES includes obstacles as well as opportunities, in particular for the relationship between rich and poor, and developing and developed countries.
The aims of this Special Issue (SI) are to provide a broad and structured overview on literature published related to Law and Ecological Economics (EE) as well as to offer latest insights into this ...wide and further emerging combined field of research by means of contributed papers. Thus, this introduction into the SI firstly implements a systematic database term search and further analyses 129 papers identified. It was found that the majority refers to the “laws” of thermodynamics. Only 33 publications could be related to EE and Law, latter in the sense of the Rule of Law, with quite even allocation among the three streams identified, namely theoretical and philosophical considerations, strategic transition and transformation studies, and practical case studies. The literature overview also chronologically indicates that the vast majority of those 33 papers have been written during the past 15 years. The second part of this introduction describes the content of the seven contributions to this SI more in detail. Afterwards it shows that these contributions tend similarly more into the directions of providing strategic transition and transformation studies as well as practical case studies, indicating an overall shift from theory towards practical implementation of EE within Law.
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•A quantitative literature overview on Law & Ecological Economics (EE) on 129 papers is provided.•A chronological figure on papers on “laws” of thermodynamics versus on Rule of Law is shown.•33 papers on EE & Law (i.e. Rule of Law) were identified and could be allocated to 3 main streams.•The 7 papers of the Special Issue are introduced and allocated to the three main streams.•A tendency towards strategic transition/transformation studies & practical case studies was found.
Bioculturally significant plants, which have played a key role in sustaining the livelihoods of tribal communities of Arunachal Pradesh, India, are facing threats from changing land use patterns, ...climatic aberrations and socioeconomic stressors. This study highlights two unique grassroots approaches to conserving these species and their associated cultural knowledge within the traditional land use systems of Arunachal Pradesh:
Community Knowledge Gardens
(CKGs) and
Clan Reserve Forests
(CRFs). Four CKGs and one CRF, transformed from existing traditional land use systems, were investigated in three socio-ecologically diverse landscapes of
Nyishi, Adi
and
Monpa
communities. Study participants, including both men and women, played an active role in devising locally compatible criteria and protocols for strengthening the conservation of key plant species within their traditional land use systems, through CKG and CRF approaches. A total of 86 plant species, conserved through the CKGs and 44 from the
Adi
CRF, were identified as having high food, ethnomedicinal and cultural values. The Shannon-Weaver index of richness of plant species conserved was highest in the
Nyishi
CKG, with a value of 38; while for
Adi
and
Monpa
it was 30 and 18, respectively. The pattern of Shannon-Weaver diversity index was in the order of 2.91, 2.64 and 2.63, respectively for the CKGs of these three communities. In comparison to individual CKGs, relatively higher species diversity (3.18) was found in the
Adi
CRF. Increased sharing of traditional knowledge among the community members, regular incomes and equitable sharing of the tangible and intangible benefits of using plant species were identified as important success indicators of the CKGs and CRF. In addition to providing valuable insights on biocultural knowledge and enabling the participants to strengthen their existing local land use practices for conserving valued plant biodiversity, the study outcomes have the potential to inform and strengthen the policies on environmental sustainability.
Forest-related legal questions appear often interwoven with complicated networks of numerous other themes at several geographical levels. This paper introduces a new analytic tool based on 3-D ...Sustainability to restructure complex question bundles from policy practice to ease and support practical legal solution prioritization. This approach is applied to the enviro-socio-economic context of forests and their multifunctional use in Japan. First it is shown how the initial problem formulations from practice listed in a table are addressed by the different categories of 3-D Sustainability. Then it is presented how the order of the initial problem formulation was in the table reshaped based on this approach and also which problems were combined for a common search of solutions. In conclusion, the new analytic tool proofed to be applicable also in practice and provided already appropriate support to gain first ideas of solutions including legal ones and their preliminary prioritization, although the work is further in progress. The tool represents a rather simple but effective methodological option to structure complex question bundles and prioritizing solutions also for further legal measures, not only limited to issues of forests or geographically restricted to Japan, and appears to be widely applicable and definitely replicable.
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•An analytic tool based on 3-D Sustainability for approaching policy complexity introduced•Practical applicability of tool shown on Japanese forestry enviro-socio-economic context•Complex question bundles from policy practice restructured for solution prioritization•Supports also to gain first ideas of concrete solutions and their preliminary prioritization•Simple but effective methodological option widely applicable and replicable provided
The European Union's climate strategy obliges its Member States to fulfil common Climate and Energy Targets by 2030 while the Member States are free in their choice of mixes among polices and ...instruments providing rule-, economic-and information-focussed incentives. This paper comparatively firstly calculates in how far 11 Member States have already progressed towards these targets, based on the goals set in the National Climate and Energy Plans. Secondly, the paper quantitatively investigates in how far there is a relationship between this progress and the use of different policy-mixes of the countries. The findings about the relationship between progress and policy mixes show that most Pearson correlations (weak to moderate) exist for the rule-focussed incentives (r = -0,41 to -0,62), while fewer but stronger correlations exist for economic- (r = -0,79) and information-focussed incentives (r = -0,73 to -0,74). Voluntary and other policies and measures seem to be of less importance as they only show negligible correlations. Since all discovered correlations are negative, this research shows that a good policy-mix should consist out of a fair share of the main three policy-groups. These highly current findings can guide also other countries globally in the development of a good climate strategy.
The European Union's climate strategy obliges its Member States to fulfil common Climate and Energy Targets by 2030 while the Member States are free in their choice of mixes among polices and ...instruments providing rule-, economic-and information-focussed incentives. This paper comparatively firstly calculates in how far 11 Member States have already progressed towards these targets, based on the goals set in the National Climate and Energy Plans. Secondly, the paper quantitatively investigates in how far there is a relationship between this progress and the use of different policy-mixes of the countries. The findings about the relationship between progress and policy mixes show that most Pearson correlations (weak to moderate) exist for the rule-focussed incentives (r = −0,41 to −0,62), while fewer but stronger correlations exist for economic- (r = −0,79) and information-focussed incentives (r = −0,73 to −0,74). Voluntary and other policies and measures seem to be of less importance as they only show negligible correlations. Since all discovered correlations are negative, this research shows that a good policy-mix should consist out of a fair share of the main three policy-groups. These highly current findings can guide also other countries globally in the development of a good climate strategy.
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