There's more to landscape than meets the eye: towards inclusive landscape assessment in resource and environmental management

Consideration of aesthetic values in resource and environmental management in North America emerged in the 1960s. It soon became enshrined as 'visual resource management', which emphasized a singular visual notion of aesthetics and an expert‐based approach to assessment. This paper challenges this dominant view. An empirical research study is presented in which a broader conceptualization of the landscape aesthetic and a participatory methodology for assessment were developed and used to explore the landscape experiences of inhabitants of the Cariboo region of British Columbia. Themes, categories and ideas of landscape experience grounded in participant perspectives revealed a richness of landscape and can be seen as an opportunity to supplement and enrich current landscape assessment and 'visual' management. More importantly, this conceptual and methodological reorientation in understanding landscape aesthetic sensibilities both reflects and supports the shift in current thinking within resource and environmental management more generally, from technocratic, state‐centred, expert‐based approaches to locally responsive (place‐based), participatory and inclusive approaches for dealing with environmental concerns and resource‐development issues .     

Deep commoning: public folklore and environmental policy on a resource frontier

Abstract

This article explores the concept and practice of the commons as a holistic, multi-sectoral, cross-disciplinary framework for critical heritage work on resource frontiers. Drawing from my research on forest commoning in the Appalachian coalfields, I argue that land-based systems of commoning vital to communities in the path of resource extraction merit more attention from heritage workers. Commons tend to disappear through their atomization into siloed objects of study and stewardship. This disappearance, partly a function of reductionist, dualistic thinking, also signals a persistent colonialist myth of emptiness. I argue that the embodied, participatory field methods of public folklorists are particularly well-suited to the study and accreditation of land-based commons as heritage. Building on the idea of ‘deep ecology’, the notion of ‘deep commoning’ espouses our implication in worlds we bring into dialogue through the practice of public folklore as critical heritage work.     

Indigenous sovereignties: relational ontologies and environmental management

Indigenous nations have always and continue to assert their sovereignties to resist colonialism. This paper makes explicit the ways in which environmental management has been and continues to act as a tool of colonialism, particularly by privileging Western science, institutions, and administrative procedures. We argue that to decolonise environmental management, it is crucial to understand and challenge the power relations that underlie it—asking who makes decisions and on what worldview those decisions are based. Indigenous ways of being deeply challenge the foundations of environmental management and the colonising power structures that underlie it, and invite further thought about posthuman and relational ontologies. We provide a range of case studies that showcase the role of Indigenous nations in redefining and reimagining environmental management based on Indigenous sovereignties, knowledges, and ways of being. The case studies emphasise the crucial connection between Indigenous decision‐making authority and self‐governance for the enhanced protection and health of the environment. We argue that Indigenous agency, grounded in Indigenous governance and sovereignties, is driving innovation and decolonising environmental management by making space for new ways of thinking and being “in place”.     

Resources, people and places: resource and environmental geography in Canada 1996–2000

The years 1996–1999 were productive ones for Canadian geographers working in resource and environmental planning and management. This review highlights and partly summarizes a hopefully representative sample of that work under three main headings: Science, Surveys and Climate Change; Assessment, Planning and Management; and Social, Cultural and Economic Dimensions. The concluding section addresses Themes, Trends, and Prospects. Canadian strengths in the past could have been said to include at least land and resource analysis and mapping, institutional and procedural analyses, watershed management and water resources, sustainable development, protected areas and ecosystem approaches, field and case study‐based approaches addressing questions of how can we do things better both in Canada, and application of our expertise to resource and environmental management abroad. Research has continued in these areas, but many are evolving and transforming. Some trends include study of multiple aspects of climate change, the processes and results of comprehensive regional planning, sustainability at local and regional scales, resource cycles and restructuring, the experience of historically neglected social and economic groups, and some progress on adding more, critical, social and political economic theory to the methods and analysis of Canadian resource and environmental geographers. Les années 1996–1999 ont été productives pour les géographes travaillant dans le domaine de la gestion et de la planification des ressources et de l'environnement. Ce compte‐rendu fait le point sur un échantillon aussi représentatif que possible de ces travaux en les regroupant sous trois rubriques principales: Science, recherche et changement climatique; Évaluation, planification et gestion; ainsi que Dimensions sociales et culturelles. L'article conclut en abordant les thèmes, les tendances, et les perspectives. On pourrait dire, que dans le passé, la recherche canadienne s'affirmait dans les domaines suivants: l'analyse et la cartographic des ressources naturelles et des terres; l'analyse des procédures et des institutions; la gestion des bassins hydrographiques et des ressources en eau; le developpement durable; l‘étude des écosystèmes et des zones protégées; et enfin, les approches qui, par l'entremise d’études de cas, examinent les façons d'améliorer, au Canada et à l‘étranger, la mise en application de notre expertise dans la gestion des ressources et de l'environnement. La recherche s'est poursuivie dans ces domaines, mais d'autres perspectives émergent et se transformet. Nous discutons ici des thèmes suivants: les divers aspects des change‐ments climatiques, les processus et les résultats de la planification régionale, la “durabilité” aux échelles locale et régionale, la restructuration et le cycle des ressources, l'expérience de groupes économiques et sociaux historiquement négligés, et les progrès obtenus grâce l'addition de considérations critiques, sociales et théoriques aux méthodes et analyses des géographes canadiens s'intéressant à l'environnement et aux ressources.     

Resource and environmental management: connecting the academy with practice

The rewards and challenges related to a research program that involves interactions between basic and applied research are shared. Specific experience is examined regarding integrated water resource management, capacity enhancement in developing countries and writing textbooks. Key lessons include the manner in which applied research and practice inform and enhance basic research, the role of theoretical and conceptual frameworks in guiding applied research, the need to understand the distinction between multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary models and the importance of facilitating evolution from visions, strategies and plans to action.     

Questioning the credibility and capacity of community‐based resource management

This paper reviews and critiques a potential innovation in resource and environmental management as a means of stimulating further research and refinement. Given the perceived limitations of top‐down, centralized management of natural resources, calls for the devolution of authority for local resources to local communities have increasingly been expressed. Proponents of community‐based resource management argue that, situating decision‐making closer to the place of resource use and subjecting decision‐makers to the repercussions of their decisions creates the potential for more flexible and prudent resource management. Further, by empowering communities to develop their own strategies for local economic development, greater community stability may be achieved. However, neither of these potentials will be realized if the credibility and capacity of communities are assumed rather than interrogated. These hypothesized contingent conditions of effective community‐based resource management are described and illustrated based on two examples in western Canada in which communities have been empowered to determine the use of local resources: the siting of a hazardous‐waste treatment facility near the town of Swan Hills, Alberta; and the development of the Community Forest Pilot Project in British Columbia. These examples raise a series of concerns and questions that suggest a need for further, in‐depth investigation. Ultimately, by identifying barriers to effective community‐based resource management, a more refined model of this potentially innovative approach can be fostered. Cette dissertation étudie et critique une innovation potentielle quant à la gestion de l’environnement et des ressources dans le but de stimuler des recherches plus approfondies et d’affiner les résultats. Étant donné les limitations perçues d’une gestion centralisée et descendante des ressources naturelles, on demande de plus en plus fréquemment que les collectivités locales soient responsables de la gestion des ressources locales. Les partisans d’une gestion des ressources par les collectivités avancent qu’en rapprochant la prise de décision du lieu d’utilisation des ressources et en soumettant les décideurs aux répercussions de leurs décisions, on favorise potentiellement une gestion plus souple et plus prudente des ressources. De plus, en habilitant les collectivités à déterminer leurs propres stratégies de développement économique local, une plus grande stabilité des collectivités est possible. Toutefois, ni l’un ni l’autre de ces potentiels ne seront réalisés si l’on admet sans les mettre en question la crédibilité et la capacité de gestion de ces collectivités. Ces conditions contingentes d’une gestion efficace des ressources par les collectivités sont décrites et illustrées par deux exemples provenant de l’Ouest du Canada, où les communautés ont toute discrétion quant à l’utilisation des ressources locales : l’implantation d’un centre de traitement des déchets dangereux près de la ville de Swan Hills, dans l’Alberta, et l’exécution du Community Forest Pilot Project (projet pilote de forêt domaniale) en Colombie britannique. Ces exemples soulèvent une série de questions et de préoccupations qui suggèrent le besoin de nouvelles recherches plus approfondies. En fin de compte, en identifiant ce qui s’oppose à une gestion efficace des ressources par les collectivités, on pourra stimuler l’élaboration d’un modèle plus perfectionné de cette démarche potentiellement innovante.     

Contexts and debates: Environmental intervention and water resource management in the history of the Mezzogiorno

This article shows how the discovery of electrical energy that could be transmitted and used in industry triggered a huge effort to take advantage of Southern Italy's water resources and improve its natural environment. In the early years of the twentieth century, primarily through the initiative of Francesco Saverio Nitti, the great statesman and environmental expert, the rivers and forests of the South became an object of particular attention in that they were to be the central element in conservation measures whose aim was to produce cheap electricity, but which also necessarily involved reforestation, state control of forestry, the embankment of rivers and other changes. For southern reformers such plans were envisaged as the way to launch industrialization in the South.     

意大利环境管理与可持续发展体系的特点及启示

意大利环境管理和可持续发展体系具有政策务实、执法严格、层次化管理、市场化运作、全民参与、注重科技进步和科技创新等特点,这些成功经验为我国提供了很多可资借鉴的范例,值得我们认真思考和学习。     

Innovations in cultural policy and development in Latin America

ABSTRACT

This essay looks at two major tendencies in cultural policy recommendations in Latin America: (1) the economic contribution of arts, heritage and especially the cultural and creative industries; and (2) cultural rights, with a focus on inclusion, access, empowerment, and the integral development/well-being of citizens. The two tendencies, which are part of cultural development policies, are not easily integrated into an all-encompassing policy because they follow different logics and management strategies. Nevertheless, both of these tendencies, which emerged in the heyday of neoliberalism (the 1990s), continue to provide the major justifications for cultural funding, although the current economic crisis has led to budget cuts. After a review of cultural development policies, this essay examines innovative strategies to compensate for scarce funding, including those that seek to bridge both tendencies. The cases examined below correspond to discussions of cultural policies in Latin American forums with hundreds of policy-makers and analysts over the past 20-plus years.

Abbreviations: BBC: British Broadcasting Corporation; CadenAgro: Centro de Apoyo para el Desarrollo de Denominaciones de Origen y Sellos de Calidad de Productos Agroalimentarios; CCI: Cultural and Creative Industries; CEDE: Centro de Estudios de Desarrollo Económico; CMD: Centro de Diseño Metropolitano; CVC: Cultura Viva Comunitaria; ECLAC: Economic Commission for Latin America; ILO: International Labor Organization; IMF: International Monetary Fund; MDG: Millennium Development Goals; MDG-F: Millennium Development Goals Fund; MICA: Mercado de Industrias Creativas de Argentina; MICSUR: Mercado de Industrias Culturales del Sur; MSME: Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises; SEGIB: Secretaría General Iberoamericana; SELA: Latin American Economic System; UCLG: United Cities and Local Governments; UNCTAD: United Nations Conference on Trade and Development; UNDP: United Nations Development Programl; UNESCO: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization; US: United States of America     

Reconnecting with nature: an ecofeminist view of environmental management

Current approaches to environmental management are critiqued as symptomatic of a capitalist system that rests on the appropriation and instrumental use of planetary resources. I argue that people need to find different ways of relating to our co‐members in the web of life. A set of ecofeminist philosophical principles is proposed on which to build that new relationship; the need to develop an ecocentric, as opposed to an anthropocentric, view whereby to be human is to be part of the more‐than‐human, the revaluation of epistemological frameworks to include what rationality currently denies and a focus on an ethic of care extended to the more‐than‐human as a moral imperative and as a call for action. These principles offer exciting possibilities to develop ecocentric connectivities within nature beyond the current limiting and damaging conceptions of environmental management.     

Characteristics of Oman's archaeological resource: a preliminary review of management prospects

This paper is a preliminary overview of the main characteristics of the archaeological resource of Oman from a management perspective. It looks at the resource in terms of form, space and time. It covers a pilot statistical analysis of the archaeological data so far input into the proposed National Archaeological Database of Oman (NADO). The main findings of this analysis show that the management of Omani archaeological resource lacks a well‐defined strategic research plan, and that there are large research gaps in many geographical and chronological areas. It also shows that the governmental organisations responsible for the management of the country's archaeological resource are not taking into consideration the potential benefits of archaeological records in their management practices.     

《新疆年鉴》的探索、创新与发展

《新疆年鉴》创刊20年来,不断探索框架结构最佳设计方案,力争做到常编常新;不断采取措施,努力提高整体质量,收到较好效果。今后,《新疆年鉴》将坚持以正确思想作指导,与时俱进,不断创新,完善、发扬自己的特色和风格。     

The environmental geopolitics of allocation: State power and institutional stability in Eastern Atlantic bluefin tuna management

Geopolitical contests over oceanic space and resources commonly manifest in inter-state resource management bodies. That ocean spaces and resources defy a territorial conception of the nation-state means that the environmental geopolitics that emerge are shaped by the nature of oceans and oceans resources. In this context, allocation is among the most pressing and contentious tasks that inter-state bodies managing transboundary resources face as they carve up and distribute access to valuable, shared resources. This paper examines the allocation of highly migratory, and highly valuable, Eastern Atlantic bluefin tuna to contribute to understanding of state power and institutional stability in transboundary resource management. Drawing on observation of an allocation negotiation and historical allocation patterns, the analysis animates and extends critical property scholarship to develop an environmental geopolitics of allocation. Findings reveal that states form, contest and maintain power by making claims based not only on rights, but also on duties that they perform to the benefit of other states in collective management. Powerful states also make concessions in the allocation process, giving up some historical rights in order to stabilize the multilateral body that enables their dominance in the fishery. Given new and renewed interest in managing shared species, spaces and resources in the oceans and beyond, viewing allocation through the lens of property reveals state power as expressed through a combination of rights and duties between states bound together in management by the materiality of transboundary and mobile natures.     

Punctuated Equilibrium Theory and the Diffusion of Innovations

This article builds on punctuated equilibrium theory to evaluate the diffusion of public policy innovations in the United States. The article argues that punctuated equilibrium theory provides a unifying framework for understating three mechanisms leading to the diffusion of innovations: gradual policy diffusion driven by incremental policy emulation, rapid state‐to‐state diffusion driven by policy imitation and mimicking, and nearly immediate policy diffusion driven by state‐level responses to a common exogenous shock. Drawing upon the Bass mixed influence diffusion model, this research generates measures of the coefficients of external and internal influences for diffusion for 81 public policy innovations that have spread across the United States. The article then evaluates how the policy image and direct participation of the federal government contribute to distinct patterns of diffusion over time.     

The Impact of Innovations on Growth and Stagnation Regions in Poland

The goal of this article is to identify the impact of innovations on growth and stagnation regions in Poland. The research procedure consists of two stages. At stage one, Polish administrative units (voivodeships) were arranged on a scale of economically robust and weak regions following data clustering, indicators organized in line with the following aspects of social and economic growth: (1) population and settlement, (2) the economy structure and the labour market, (3) the technical infrastructure and spatial accessibility and (4) the financial situation and level of affluence. Stage two includes identification of the relation between the regional diversification and the distribution of growth and stagnation regions in Poland which is based on canonical correlation.