Showing papers by "Elizabeth L. Bennett published in 2001"

Globalisation and the sustainability of world fisheries: a view from Latin America

Abstract: This paper describes the integration of Latin American marine fisheries into the global production system in the post-1945 period and the role of foreign and domestic fleets in this process Through reference to the state-denial theories found in the globalisation literature, it charts the impact that the globalisation process has had upon the exploitation and sustainability of fish stocks in Latin American waters It argues that while globalisation may indeed boost environmental awareness and lead to a more sustainable level of production through the decreased influence of local political interests, this has yet to happen in the principal Latin American fishing nations

The Joint Effort of Timber Certification

Abstract: There are limits to the speed and extent of changes that can be brought about by timber certification (Ghazoul 2001 [this issue]), but certification is undoubtedly leading to greatly improved goals and expectations of the timber industry in many parts of the world. The increase in the area of certified forests (Cauley et al. 2001 [this issue]; Putz & Romero 2001 [this issue]) is laudable and encouraging. Indeed, certification is possibly the single greatest tool leading to improved forest management worldwide. Given that significant effects of forestry operations on biodiversity are inevitable (Putz et al. 2000), the process must be done in a way that ensures that those effects are as low as possible. But unless certification leads to a major decrease in the immense harvests of wildlife associated with logging, especially in tropical forests, species will continue to wink out across the landscape even in certified areas. Some regional standards and independent certifiers do take concerns about hunting and the wild meat trade into account (Cauley et al. 2001 [this issue]), but this is not universally true, and others do not even recognize the problem. With the current lack of specificity in certification criteria, the crucial issue of hunting will be addressed by certifiers only if two criteria are met: (1) Certifiers must be fully aware of the scale of the problem. This is not always the case. Indeed, the conservation community itself is only just waking up to the magnitude and effect of logging-associated hunting, and it will be some time before that knowledge permeates fully into the wider system. (2) Timber certification bodies must have the interests of conservation and sustainability at heart. Some unquestionably do. The industry is highly lucrative, however, and the corruption associated with it in many countries is notorious. Thus, the potential for cutting corners and doing only the bare minimum required to achieve some form of certification is vast, so that access to valuable markets can be attained without having to improve practices significantly (Gilley 2000).