The use of voluntary programs targeting resource conservation on private land has become increasingly prevalent in environmental policy. Voluntary programs potentially offer significant benefits over regulatory and market-based approaches. This article examines the factors affecting landowner participation in voluntary forest conservation programs using a combination of parcel-level GIS and remotely sensed data and semi-structured interviews of landowners in Monroe County, Indiana. A logistic regression model is applied to determine the probability of participation based on landowner education, membership in other non-forest voluntary programs, dominant land use activity, parcel size, distance from urban center, land resource portfolios, and forest cover. Both land use activity and the spatial configuration of a landholder's resource portfolio are found to be statistically significant with important implications for the design and implementation of voluntary programs.
There has been increased emphasis in the last three decades on the decentralization of natural resource governance decisions to local government in developing countries as a means of improving environmental quality, public service delivery, and the accountability of local officials. We examine the performance of decentralization of natural resource management services in a large sample of municipal governments in four Latin American countries. Our analysis includes a variety of factors discussed in the literature as important in influencing the responsiveness of government officials to local needs. We provide a nested institutional model in which local officials respond to incentives created by the structure of formal political institutions at both the local and national level. The results provide support for the importance of considering local and national institutional arrangements as these co-determine the political incentives within decentralized systems.
This paper examines the emergence of collaborative watershed management in Lake Tahoe by focusing on how institutions managing coordination and conflict changed. It begins by describing the evolution of watershed governance and examines the extent to which the institutional arrangement demonstrates the eight design principles proposed by Elinor Ostrom for successful common pool resource (CPR) management. The paper then develops the concept of a complex environmental commons (CEC) to differentiate the situation of Lake Tahoe from the simpler CPR dilemmas frequently discussed in the CPR literature. We then propose five additional principles that contribute to collaborative management of a CEC.
Modern food, energy, and water (FEW) systems are the product of technologies, techniques, and policies developed to address the needs of a given sector (e.g., energy or agriculture). Wastes from each sector are typically managed separately, and the production systems underlying FEW have traditionally treated pollution and waste as externalities simply diffused into the ambient environment. Integrative management that optimizes resource use presents opportunities for improving the efficiency of FEW systems. This paper explains how FEW systems can be optimized to (1) repurpose or cycle waste products, (2) internalize traditional externalities, and (3) integrate wastes with resource inputs across systems by diverting waste by-products from one system to meet demands of another. It identifies the means for Bclosing the loop^in production systems. Examples include management of legacy wastes from fossil fuel industries (coal and natural gas) and integrative designs for advanced renewable systems (biogas from waste, bioenergy from CAM plants, and solar). It concludes with a discussion of how studying the governance of such systems can assist in tackling interconnected problems present in FEW systems. New governance arrangements are needed to develop solutions that can align with regulatory frameworks, economics incentive, and policies. Four aspects of governances (property rights, policy design, financing, and scale) emerge as tools to facilitate improved institutional design that stimulates integrative management, technology innovation and deployment, and community development. The conclusion offers a framework through which integrative management of FEW systems can be linked to value chains in closed-loop systems.
The literature on pedagogical methods in international affairs includes a number of international politics simulations. We present the material for an in-class simulation exercise on international climate negotiations that attempts to help students understand the importance of theory as well as the substantive issues surrounding climate policy. Simulations have been proposed as a means of providing an engaging classroom experience and a more diverse learning experience. The exercises presented here focus on developing student research skills, analyzing data to present a realistic policy position and understanding the process of institutional regime formation. At the end of the simulation, students are asked to relate their own negotiation experiences back to the theoretical material discussed during the semester. An assessment was conducted of student expectations prior to the simulation exercise and compared with post-simulation experiences. Students reported the greatest positive difference between their expected learning outcome and actual experience with the simulation in terms of learning information about specific country assignments, overall enjoyment of the activity, and understanding the material covered in the course. The greatest negative difference between expectations and experience were reported for understanding international negotiations more generally and current international events. The article outlines the full content for an in-class simulation and its’ implementation as well as results from an evaluation of its use. The simulation provides students with a better understanding of the complexity of international negotiations over climate policy while outlining key theoretical concepts in international relations and comparative public policy.
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