The rate of plastic pollution entering the environment is accelerating with plastic production predicted to increase by 40% over the next decade. Plastic pollution transcends territorial boundaries on ocean and air currents. Large Ocean Small Island Developing States (LOSIDS) are on the frontline of the plastics crisis and associated climate change impacts. This desktop gap analysis identified potential strengths and weaknesses in national policy frameworks in 52 key documents relevant to plastic pollution in ten Pacific LOSIDS. The study found considerable gaps in the vertical and horizontal integration of plastic pollution-related policy, and a lack of access to current science-based evidence on plastic pollution including evidence related to human health impacts and microplastics. The study concludes that, even if Pacific LOSIDS were to include best practice management of plastic pollution across all policy frameworks, they could not prevent plastic pollution, and that a plastic pollution convention is needed.
In a small Bahun village in Gorkha district, West Nepal, in only one generation, there has been a huge shift to educating young women and including them in modernity. Ideologies of 'gender equality' in education that are promoted in development programs and discourse, and in Maoist rhetoric, have been powerful drivers behind this. In this paper I highlight the gender and generational dynamics of the changing relationship of women to education in Nepal. I argue that the move to educating women is not a simple one, nor is it necessarily a development success story. The importance placed on educating the younger generation, including women, is also very much tied to local Bahun culture, marriage values and status. Bahun villagers of Ludigaun place great importance on both education and marriage. When combined, I argue, education has in fact become dowry. While there have been transformations in education and other modernising processes, as well as in dowry practices, in this paper I show that they have come to maintain traditional hierarchies and to support the status making of the educated Bahun man.
Plastics pollution is a global, relational, integrated, and intersectoral issue. Here, we undertook narrative analysis of semi-structured interviews with nineteen key plastic pollution decision-makers. They offered a contextual lens to understand challenges facing Pacific Island (Te Moananui) nations in preventing plastics pollution. We build on the work of Ngata (2014-2021) and Liboiron (2014-2021) to situate the narrative analysis within a "waste colonialism" framework. We argue that plastics pollution as waste colonialism transcends environmental, policy, and industry concerns. "Indigenous political ecologies" of plastics pollution provide an understanding by which plastics pollution prevention can be examined at multiple scales. These include, at the international level: trade agreements and import dependency, donor aid and duplication, and transnational industry influence. At the local level: pressure from local plastics manufacturers, importers and suppliers, and barriers to accessing the latest science. Located within a global and regional context, our findings capture the systemic and long-standing impacts of colonialism on Indigenous responses to plastics pollution prevention and management, highlighting its effects on human and environment health and wellbeing. Sustainable solutions to plastics pollution for Te Moananui require the centering of its peoples and their deep, lived, and intergenerationally transmitted knowledges in the identification of challenges and solutions, the implementation of activities, and amplification of a shared regional voice.
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