Participation in flood risk management and the potential of citizen observatories: A governance analysis

A framework for evaluating flood risk governance

The fault tree analysis of infectious medical waste management

Substantial efforts and investments are being made to increase the scale and improve the effectiveness of marine conservation globally. Though it is mandated by international law and central to conservation policy, less attention has been given to how to operationalize social equity in and through the pursuit of marine conservation. In this article, we aim to bring greater attention to this topic through reviewing how social equity can be better integrated in marine conservation policy and practice. Advancing social equity in marine conservation requires directing attention to: recognition through acknowledgment and respect for diverse peoples and perspectives; fair distribution of impacts through maximizing benefits and minimizing burdens; procedures through fostering participation in decision-making and good governance; management through championing and supporting local involvement and leadership; the environment through ensuring the efficacy of conservation actions and adequacy of management to ensure benefits to nature and people; and the structural barriers to and institutional roots of inequity in conservation. We then discuss the role of various conservation organizations in advancing social equity in marine conservation and identify the capacities these organizations need to build. We urge the marine conservation community, including governments, non-governmental organizations and donors, to commit to the pursuit of socially equitable conservation.

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Advancing Social Equity in and Through Marine Conservation

Contemporary markets and societal norms externalise many ecosystem services important for a sustainable future. A range of external legal, market, social protocol and other mechanisms, referred to as ‘societal levers’, constrain or otherwise influence the behaviour of resource managers, and the expectations and assumptions of the society within which they operate. These ‘societal levers’ have progressively institutionalised evolving societal values, influencing markets and other choices. We use the STEEP (social, technological, economic, environmental and political) framework to explore case studies of societal transitions, analysing how emergent concerns become shared and ultimately transformed into ‘levers’, shifting societal norms. Emerging concerns become influential only when they are shared across societal sectors, and when broader implications are realised across multiple dimensions of the STEEP framework. We propose and advocate use of a ‘ripple effect’ of values as a means to direct and accelerate the pace at which environmental concerns shape mainstream societal norms and structures, and become institutionalised in the form of ‘societal levers’.

https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/preview/907556/Ripple%20effect%20-%20Emergence%20and%20institutionalisation%2028FULL%20TEXT29.pdf

The ripple effect: Institutionalising pro-environmental values to shift societal norms and behaviours

This background paper is not intended to be exhaustive but to outline a selection of considerations, findings and reports of the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee (hereinafter – the Committee) in regard to item 2 of the agenda of the fifth meeting of the Task Force on Public Participation in Decision-Making under the Aarhus Convention relating to identification and notification of the public concerned, early public participation, the role of private actors and project developers, and due account of comments and outcomes of public participation.

Elena Fasoli

Papers

The UNECE Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters