Cooperation or Compromise? Understanding the Farm Billas Omnibus Legislation

The Farm Bill (the Bill) is the principal driver of U.S. food law and policy. Its substance spans the food system including commodities, conservation, trade, nutrition, credit, rural development, forestry, and energy. These substantive titles command much scholarly analysis yet there is comparatively little review of the law-making process that yields the Bill. Given increased focus on Congress’s ability to use its legislative powers effectively, this essay questions whether the Bill’s traditional treatment as omnibus legislation leads to beneficial coherence or too much compromise in food system policy. Interestingly, disparate stakeholders prioritize maintaining the Bill as omnibus legislation. Some scholars suggest that the omnibus process unifies because it requires producers and rural interests to be understood by consumers and urban priorities. Others suggest that nutrition spending provides powerful incentives to maintain adequate supports for farmers. These theories suggest that lawmakers transcend their interests and consider the larger food system. Viewed in this light, the Bill’s omnibus status may be beneficial. However, it may also lead to compromises and concessions that stymy innovation and progress in the food system at a time when climate change and socio-economic disparities demand new approaches. The essay’s structure follows: first will be a general history of omnibus legislation including the Bill’s omnibus treatment; second, the benefits and burdens placed on the food system by the omnibus process will be explored; and finally, it will conclude with specific ideas about the merits of the Bill as omnibus legislation in 2018 and beyond

Въздействие на горското законодателство и измененията в него върху управлението на защитените територии

The survey examines the historical development of forestry legislation in the protected areas in Bulgaria and its impact on the conservation of forest resources in different periods. It has made an analysis and evaluation of the existing legislation and the recent amendments in it. The threats in some amendments connected with the management and the build of infrastructure in agricultural lands, private and state forests and their impact in the protected areas have been analyzed and proposals have been given. Based on the studies the adverse effects, the emphasis of some problems and perspectives related to the forestry legalization have been given as threats for the sustainable development. The instruments for the improvement of the management in protected areas through the forestry legislation have been proposed

Eksekusi Barang Rampasan Hasil Tindak Pidana Kehutanan Pasca Putusan Mahkamah Konstitusi Nomor 021/PUU-III/2005

This study examines the execution of the judgment against the spoils of crime in forestry. Research using normative juridical approach and empirical jurisdiction. Execution of judgments against the state spoils of criminal offenses in the field of forestry, the injunction decision declared goods confiscated for the state not to do execution the form of an auction, because of legislation prohibiting the sale of forest products obtained from crime in protected forests. Perspective execution of court decisions to loot the proceeds of crime in the field of forestry is to judge using breakthrough progressive law, the court ruled that the injunction which reads "Evidence confiscated to the state and used for social purposes"

Multiple-use forest management in Central Africa: Perceptions, implementation and evolution

Although multiple-use forest management (MUFM) is supported by forestry laws in the Congo Basin countries, this approach remains confused, misunderstood and little implemented. We conducted a survey with 62 people concerned or in charge of forest management in Cameroon, Gabon and DRC. Three conceptions of MUFM are expressed: (1) an intentional and formal management of the main forest goods and services; (2) an informal use of forest resources; (3) timber management with limited integration of other secondary goods, like NTFP or bushmeat. The first perception is supported by NGOs, research institutes and projects, the second by the communities' representatives, and the third by logging companies and forestry administration. Actual implementation of MUFM was reviewed in eight forest management initiatives - six logging concessions and two community forests. Timber production, biodiversity conservation, protection of sensitive areas and exploitation of NTFPs are the main uses integrated in MUFM. However their implementation faces various barriers: an inadequate legislation that prevents locally extracted resources from being traded when they come from logging concessions, precarious rights on forest resources for communities, and lack of economic profitability. In contrast, three approaches favor the adoption of MUFM, respectively forest certification, enforcement of traditional use rights in logging concessions, and the tentative REDD schemes. (Résumé d'auteur

Rights or containment? The politics of Aboriginal cultural heritage in Victoria

Aboriginal cultural heritage protection, and the legislative regimes that underpin it, constitute important mechanisms for Aboriginal people to assert their rights and responsibilities. This is especially so in Victoria, where legislation vests wide-ranging powers and control of cultural heritage with Aboriginal communities. However, the politics of cultural heritage, including its institutionalisation as a scientific body of knowledge within the state, can also result in a powerful limiting of Aboriginal rights and responsibilities. This paper examines the politics of cultural heritage through a case study of a small forest in north-west Victoria. Here, a dispute about logging has pivoted around differing conceptualisations of Aboriginal cultural heritage values and their management. Cultural heritage, in this case, is both a powerful tool for the assertion of Aboriginal rights and interests, but simultaneously a set of boundaries within which the state operates to limit and manage the challenge those assertions pose. The paper will argue that Aboriginal cultural heritage is a politically contested and shifting domain structured around Aboriginal law and politics, Australian statute and the legacy of colonial history

Environmental regulation in Indonesia

Since the early 1980s environmental regulation has received high priority in Indonesian policy making. Given Indonesia's dependence upon foreign donors for its economic program, external pressures inevitably played a significant role in stimulating this development. But internally generated factors were also of considerable importance. Mounting evidence of the economic and social costs of environmental degradation, the rise of a middle class, and the connection between environmental questions and other hotly contested political issues such as conflicts over land tenure and resources, the rights of workers, farmers and indigenous minorities, the demand for democratisation and greater press freedom all played a part in, moving the environment to centre stage

A legislator's guide to LANDSAT

The LANDSAT satellite is an effective tool in meeting the natural resources data requirements of state and federal legislation. The availability of data from the satellite is beginning to have an impact on state legislature activities. An overview of the history, operation, and data analysis techniques, is presented as well as a discussion of the advantages and limitations of this method of remote sensing. Applications are discussed in the areas of (1) land resource planning and management; (2) coastal zone management; (3) agriculture; (4) forestry; (5) routing and siting; (6) environmental monitoring; and (7) geological exploration. National and state sources from which information about LANDSAT technology is available are listed

Global influences and local environments: Forestry and forest conservation in New Zealand, 1850s-1925.

This article examines the multiple factors that shaped the establishment of forest conservation and tree-planting in the colony of New Zealand. It presents a new perspective on forest history in New Zealand from the 1850s to the 1920s by examining the interplay of local and global factors in the development of forestry, while also suggesting future research topics in this area. Using the case-study of New Zealand, as an ancillary focus the article presents new interpretations of the exchange and introduction of forestry ideas, suggesting a need to re-examine the importance of locality in the period leading up to the emergence of ‘empire forestry’ in the twentieth century. With this in mind, it takes as one of its perspectives the work of historian of science David Livingstone, who has emphasised the importance of local factors in shaping the spread of scientific ideas. In light of Livingstone’s ideas, we demonstrate that while it makes sense to consider New Zealand forest policy both nationally and internationally, there were also significant local variations in policy according to geography, politics and other factors. These included uneven forest distribution throughout the country, slower growth-rates of indigenous trees and the impact of geography on forest removal and conservation. As well, long-standing political aversion to government interference in society restricted the role of the state in active forest management, giving greater latitude to private tree-planters. Meanwhile, New Zealand’ smaller government and population offered greater power to individuals than perhaps would be open to those living in larger societies with bigger government bureaucracies

Australian carbon biosequestration and bioenergy policy co-evolution: mechanisms, mitigation and convergence

The intricacies of international land-use change and forestry policy reflect the temporal, technical and political difficulty of integrating biological systems and climate change mitigation. The plethora of co-existing policies with varied technical rules, accreditation requirements, accounting methods, market registries, etc., disguise the unequal efficacies of each mechanism. This work explores the co-evolution and convergence of Australian voluntary and mandatory climate-related policies at the biosequestration-bioenergy interface. Currently, there are temporal differences between the fast-evolving and precise climate-change mechanisms, and the long-term 'permanence' sought from land use changes encouraged by biosequestration instruments. Policy convergence that favours the most efficient, appropriate and scientifically substantiated policy mechanisms is required. These policies must recognise the fundamental biological foundation of biosequestration, bioenergy, biomaterial industrial development and other areas such as food security and environmental concerns. Policy mechanisms that provide administrative simplicity, project longevity and market certainty are necessary for rural and regional Australians to cost-effectively harness the considerable climate change mitigation potential of biological systems