| 1. |
- Saunders, Fred P.
(författare)
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A Discussion of the Debates Underpinning Agri-Environmental Schemes as a form of Payment for Ecological Services
- 2015
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Payments for Ecological Services (PES) has rapidly emerged around the world as a key environmental governance approach. This paper is concerned with Agricultural Environmental Schemes (AES) as a particular form of PES to improve the environmental performance of agriculture particularly in relation to water quality in Sweden. Win-win descriptions prevail in AES policy discourse to describe the simultaneous achievement of environmental goals and economic outcomes for farmers. AES are underpinned by an instrumental assumption that farmer behaviour can be influenced towards adopting better environmental practice by providing monetary incentives (or at least compensation). This paper has touched on a number of contentions in the PES literature, including: doubts about how well standardised PES schemes link with local conditions; how and whether PES schemes can engender local innovation; procedural and distributive equity concerns; claims that monetary incentives may ‘crowd out’ socially derived sources of motivation (local norms); and doubts about whether PES schemes, disembedded from local institutions, can deliver ‘sufficient’ environmental behavioural change. Given the relatively recent emergence of AES schemes, it is important that we learn more from the experience of implementation. Critically oriented empirically-based research then has the capacity to work as a circuit breaker between ideologically driven arguments that side either for or against the use of market mechanisms, such as AES for environmental governance. Such insights may be useful to help focus research on farmer engagement with AES that subjects it to greater empirical scrutiny and validation.
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| 2. |
- Saunders, Fred P.
(författare)
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Planetary boundaries: at the threshold… again : sustainable development ideas and politics
- 2015
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Ingår i: Environment, Development and Sustainability. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1387-585X .- 1573-2975. ; 17:4, s. 823-835
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The implications of the planetary boundaries (PBs) proposal involves scien- tific, moral and political dimensions. The core of the PBs idea is that humankind is transgressing global environmental tipping points resulting in changed conditions that threaten to unravel human progress. The growing status of the proposal potentially makes it a highly influential organising concept that seems to contain within it aspirations to dra- matically reconstitute the relationship between society and the environment—thereby transforming the politics of sustainable development. This paper situates PBs in contem- porary green thinking. Key planning events and related documents supporting the Post- 2015 Development Agenda process are then examined to identify strategies and reactions to the PB proposal. The findings show that divisions reminiscent of older North/South environment and development tensions related to the role of experts, democracy and the Right to Development threaten to prevent PBs from being mainstreamed in key UN environment and development programmes and fora.
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| 3. |
- Tafon, Ralph Voma, et al.
(författare)
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Power and resistance in Cameroon : strategies, intentionality, intersectionality, and shifting spaces and identities
- 2015
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Ingår i: Journal of Political Power. - 2158-379X .- 2158-3803. ; 8:3, s. 321-343
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper examines how forest communities in Cameroon engage in social transformation when faced with social injustices and uneven power relations in their interactions with local state authorities and transnational corporations. It focuses on the different strategies that marginalized resource-dependent communities employ in resisting existing forms of domination manifested in public–private-community forest governance relations. We show how power operates in closed governance spaces to work against equitable, democratic and effective policy-making. We take as a point of departure that resistance or social change cannot be understood in isolation from power. Moreover, we engage with the intentionality debate and make the case that some forms of resistance are goal oriented in character. We reveal how disenfranchised communities, using powerful traditional ritual as a form of public protest, can effectively open up closed spaces and obtain effective participation in processes denied them. Our findings have significance for resistance and power debates relating to intentionality, intersectionality and outcomes.
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| 4. |
- Tafon, Ralph Voma, et al.
(författare)
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Power Relations and Cassava : Conservation and Development in Cameroon
- 2015
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Ingår i: Journal of Environment and Development. - : Sage Publications. - 1070-4965 .- 1552-5465. ; 24:1, s. 82-104
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Linking conservation and development activities requires local institutional change that can deliver global conservation as well as local socioeconomic benefits. Participatory approaches are considered a key element to this end, although recent research demonstrates that they may reinforce existing inequitable governance systems. This article examines microinstitutional formations and development interventions in the Mount Cameroon National Park. The study found that blending new governance approaches with traditional institutions at Mount Cameroon National Park led to diminished participation of the project and a failure to listen to and deliver meaningful development opportunities to Bavenga villagers. The article concludes that while local participation and governance institutions constitute laudable additions to Integrated Conservation and Development Projects, the implications of reproducing traditional authority structures must be carefully considered, and locally grounded development opportunities need to be better embedded into these projects.
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